Also new is a proposal not to have classes on three Tuesdays when city voters will go to polls – September 25, November 6 and March 4.
Kaiser said that principals requested the change as some schools host polling sites and the presence of voters creates safety risks. The deputy superintendent said that the schools keep doors locked 180 days “but on those days doors are wide open.”
Kaiser said that “anybody can walk in, principals said that doesn’t make sense.”
When I was a candidate in 2001, the September 11 events unfolded a week before the primary election. Candidates, the community (and the world) were still trying to wrap our minds around the magnitude of the attack and to act in a way that honored the sacrifices and the human tragedy. In my last public appearance before the election, I recommended to viewers: “Let your children see you vote.” To me, this was the most sane way to revalidate American values and way of life.
When I helped with the convention platform committee for the Democratic State Committee a few years ago, the issue that came up over and over again was the need to involve young people in civic activity and to educate them about politics and democracy.
The Massachusetts DOE history and social science frameworks, on which all education in those subjects is based, has this as its core mission:
Our call for schools to purposely impart to their students the learning necessary for an informed, reasoned allegiance to the ideals of a free society rests on three convictions:
First, that democracy is the worthiest form of human governance ever conceived.
Second, that we cannot take democracy’s survival or its spread or its perfection in practice for granted. Indeed, we believe that the great central drama of modern history has been and continues to be the struggle to establish, preserve, and extend democracy at home and abroad. We know that very much still needs doing to achieve justice and civility in our own society. Abroad, we note that only one-third of the world’s people live under conditions that can be described as free.
Third, we are convinced that democracy’s survival depends upon our transmitting to each new generation the political vision of liberty and equality that unites us as Americans. It also depends on a deep loyalty to the political institutions our founders put together to fulfill that vision.
Shouldn’t the students watch voters coming and going, see the volunteers holding signs for various candidates, ask their teachers what is on the ballot that day, find out whether their mom and dad have been to the polls? Of course, I would feel awful if someone used the open door at the polling place to sneak into the school and do something naughty. What are the odds, I wonder?
Tuesday is election day. Do you know where your kids are?
my polling place is in a local elementary school. turnout was poor at the last several elections, and no candidates bothered to have sign-holders present. the signage was terrible, requiring me to wander the halls a bit to find the room where the voting booths were set up. there was no one at the doors or along the corridors to be sure i or someone else didn’t do something nasty. i was appalled. if someone had a mind to, they could have done any number of things from theft to tampering with kid’s lunches to worse.
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i would absolutely love for kids to get engaged in a meaningful way in civics, including somehow taking part in the election process. however, it needs to be done in a safe and sane and guided way. random people wandering the halls is not it.
Most schools have polling in the gymnasium or cafeteria. Having an office and staff member at the bottlenecks should be all the security required. It sounds like you suffered a lack of competence at your particular polling place, Laurel. I’ve voted in a middle and high school, and both times wher eto go and what to do was rather clear.
to mind the voters, i’m all for keeping polls in the schools. problem is that this is not the case in all schools where a poll is located.
I know that the City Clerk pays volunteers a few bucks an hour (or they did in the town where I used to live), although some waive payment. These people come back to work the polls year after year, and there is always a cop stationed at each polling place, too. (Maybe that’s just in my community.) They should be able to put a person near the door to direct people if signage does not clearly indicate the location of the polling place.
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With this group of reliable adults on hand, it seems like we could do a reasonable job of keeping evil voters from poisoning the school lunches.
Has there ever BEEN an untoward incident involving the voting populace and the school population? We’ve been voting in schools FOREVER – I remember not only voting but hand counting ballots in pre-computer days in 1980 in a school gymnasium. (reagan won….even in mass…)
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This is part and parcel of the increasing ‘bubblefication’ of children, who must now remain under adult surveillance at all times, and must not wander onto unfamiliar streets, fields or forests – ever. And we wonder why kids remain immature so much longer, surprised and unable to cope with life once the bubble expires.
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As far as having a day off is concerned – OUTRAGEOUS! If your school committee is so afraid of the people in your town, then they ought to move the polling place – perhaps to the police or fire station? – but not close school!
i agree with you completely.
…we vote in a public school gymnasium, and I have never seen a school pupil around on election day. Maybe they give the kids the election days off.
There are two problems for schools on election day.
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One is certainly the issue of security. While you do your best to segregate the entrance for voters from the rest of the school, you can’t safeguard the building. During last year’s general election, I was made aware of a senior citizen found wandering around a school mid-morning.
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The other thing is that the polls generally take up a well-used common room, usually a gym or cafetorium. Running a school without this room becomes difficult (try feeding a school full of kids without full access to your cafe).
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Many districts try to put a professional development day on election day to avoid these problems. However, this is very difficult to do on a year with more than one primary/election.
Not to mention a dozen or so old ladies telling everyone what to do and where to go.