Educating our students in academics is only one facet of teaching here at BRES. Educating our students to become informed, active and responsible students is also a part of our responsibility. Our students had the opportunity to participate in the KidsVoting NC program yesterday. Students were given a ballot with the candidates for President of the United States. Students went to the polls to make their candidate selection and then placed their ballots in an official ballot box. The ballots were tallied and then taken for official count to the public library where the information will be sent to the KidsVoting Program center.
Anticipation was in the air as students from our Pre-K program all the way to 5th grade filed into the Media Center to cast their vote. While waiting in the voting lines I was able to interview several students. I asked, "Have you made your decision about who you are voting for?" and "How did you gather information about our candidates to help you determine your decision?" Here are a few of the student responses:
- "My Grandpa told me who to vote for!"
- "I watched the commercials!"
- "I looked on the Internet!"
- "I watched a lot of the news with my parents. They made me watch it!"
- "I read the newspaper, but I don't know if that was good information."
- "I watched the debate. One candidate kept interrupting the other when he was talking so that's why I am voting for _____!"
We were able to talk about the power of persuasion, how each of us has a personal preference and that voting can be private if you don't want to share who you support or very public if a person wants to posts signs in their yard. Our teachers did an outstanding job of embedding this important historical event into the Common Core curriculum expectations in the classroom. Students were reading about electoral votes, the swing states and how our government has two primary parties. Our KidsVote NC program was a great opportunity for students to reinforce the very processes and concepts they were learning about in the classroom.
Check out the pictures from our polling station in the Media Center. Thanks to our parent volunteers to supported students in obtaining ballots, giving directions, collecting and counting the ballots! Thanks to Ms. Reed for organizing this event for our school!
Ms. Laise's class getting directions on how to complete the ballot.
Ms. Parker's class reading over the ballot and making their candidate selection.
A group of students celebrating their voting!
Students decorated the voting booths for this event!
Mr. Bethel's class receiving ballot instructions.
Ms. Parker's class receiving their ballots to vote.
The votes were tallied and carefully counted twice! Here are the results for the 2012 Presidential Election by the students at BRES:
President Obama received 301 votes
Candidate Romney received 291 votes
Candidate Johnson received 12 votes
5 votes were considered invalid as they were marked with more one selection.
This election was very narrow and could have gone either way all morning!
