Fourth-grade students at Founders Elementary School in DeKalb step up to a table and give their name, while the election workers -- who are actually local candidates and leaders -- check off their names and hand them their ballots.
“They cast their votes by putting it in the voting boxes, and they can receive their 'I voted today' stickers and take a selfie," said Founders 5th-grade teacher Dominique Yackley, who organized this mock election. "They're extremely proud."
She also put together a curriculum unit so students could study the candidates -- both federal and local -- and what their responsibilities are. Some made voting posters that were hung all around their school too -- which Yackley points out.
“I'm loving the words 'every vote matters,'" she said. "I think that's important."
And the students, like fourth-grader Emma, also think their mock election is important.
“I like that little kids like us get to vote too," she said, "and it doesn't make us feel left out."
Kids like Emma are swept up in the wave of constant election information too, so it feels good to participate -- even if she’s a few elections away from being old enough for her vote to actually count.
Some of Todd Price’s students are old enough to vote. He’s a social studies teacher at Marengo High School.
Democracy is near the top of voter’s list of concerns this cycle & Marengo High School is a Democracy School. It’s a statewide network of schools committed to expanding civil learning opportunities equipping students to “nurture and sustain our democracy.”
A big part of what that looks like at Marengo is a course Price teaches called the “Legislative Semester.”
“Students are representatives in their own legislature," he said. "From week two, they take the oath of office, they'll debate resolutions in class that they have written, and then they'll propose a formal bill that we're just finishing up now."
They introduce bills on issues like AI restrictions and single-use plastic. It’s largely student-run, which means students might get up and say something cringy or outright wrong.
“2016 got a little bumpy," said Price. "We had a couple of sessions that seemed like the Republican majorities, which had grown, felt like they had permission to behave as they were seeing on TV. But then very quickly, you had young people that began to go out of their way to be civil to each other and to do it better than the adults they were seeing on TV.”
Now, he says it’s actually kind of hard to get students to be a little partisan because they’re so careful with their information and how they speak to each other.
“It could be that maybe schools are getting through a little bit," said Price, "or are we shushing too much?"
He says students have to source their information and he sees them push back on misinformation.
“I would love to say they're all awesome at it," said Price. "I can't say that. I still hear it."
All Illinois high schools now have to offer a media literacy unit in their curriculum. It started back in 2022. It includes fighting mis- and disinformation. And there’s not much that drives mis- and disinformation quite like a presidential election.
Jason Artman is a social studies teacher at Mendota High School. He spent years as a civics mentor, helping other teachers in three Illinois counties -- so, he had been teaching media literacy years before it was mandated.
He says that it’s also important to note that media literacy isn’t just crucial to civics class — science and health misinformation are a huge deal too -- so all teachers are starting to give students fact-checking techniques.
“If I'm teaching media literacy in the same way that an English teacher is teaching media literacy in the same way that a science teacher is teaching media literacy, where those things overlap, those skills can be honed," he said. "So, that is a conversation that some of us are having, and I think we'll see that formalized more and more as time goes on.”
Artman says tools like “Rumor Guard” from the News Literacy Project have helped his students learn how to evaluate sources and social media claims.
Because no matter their age, whether they’re old enough to vote or not, teachers want their students to be well-informed and engaged in the democratic process.
