Sheridan Elementary prepares students for civic engagement during 2024 LPS Student Vote

October 30, 2024

Sheridan Elementary School students Claire and Oliver wore proud looks on their faces as they placed “I Voted” stickers on their clothes Wednesday morning.
 
The two Sheridan fifth graders joined thousands of other children across the Lincoln area in the 2024 Lincoln Public Schools Student Vote event. Students from local public and parochial schools in Lincoln and the surrounding area take part in Student Vote every two years. The social studies department at LPS oversees the project, which first began in 1992 as a partnership between the school district and radio station KFOR.
 
Claire said everyone at Sheridan was excited about taking part in the process. At Sheridan, students in kindergarten through third grade voted on what their favorite playground item was and what the theme of a future Sheridan Spirit Day should be. Fourth and fifth graders voted on those topics and made choices on some races found on official Lancaster County ballots.
 
“I thought it was really fun and empowering because doing this with all my classmates, I felt like everyone was learning something new,” Claire said. “Everyone was talking to each other and getting so excited and it actually felt like a big deal, because it wasn’t just a few people excited about it, it was this whole schoolwide excitement. It wasn’t just a few people, it was everybody that was having fun with this.”
 
Oliver said he enjoyed doing something that his parents have talked about around the dinner table for many years.
 
“It felt like my parents, being in a small cubicle with a little paper,” Oliver said.
 
LPS K-12 Social Studies Curriculum Specialist Jaci Kellison said the reactions of Claire and Oliver are why Student Vote matters. The activity’s goal is to help students become more informed citizens once they reach adulthood. They learn that voting is a core principle of democracy, an educated vote is essential and all voices count in the voting experience.
 
“Student Vote is really important because it really allows students to dive deeper into our democratic process,” Kellison said. “It allows students to see the importance of voting, it allows students to understand what kinds of decisions voters get to make, why their vote matters, how their vote matters.
 
“They learn everything about the why, but also the how, so it really allows them to put that into action. We know that it increases the likelihood that they will become voters when they are of voting age.”
 
Fifth grade teacher Matt McMullin served as a Student Vote advisor at Sheridan. He worked with Claire, Oliver and other student election commissioners to plan and implement schoolwide activities. He said all of the Sharks were having fun on Student Vote election day.
 
“I think it’s going great,” McMullin said. “The few kids I’ve talked to have been really excited about it. A few kids have said they feel very adult. They feel as if their voice has been heard, and they really like the activities that we’ve done, so overall I think it’s been a great success.”
 
All LPS students in grades 4-12 made five decisions at the ballot box. They cast votes in the United States House of Representatives race in Nebraska District 1, both U.S. Senate races in Nebraska and the U.S. President race. They also voted on Measure 436, which is an initiative about Nebraska businesses offering earned paid sick leave for employees.
 
Some LPS schools also gave students in grades Kindergarten-3 a chance to vote on issues like future school spirit days. McMullin said Sheridan teachers felt it was good for students to build decision-making skills early in life.
 
“I think it’s important just in general to give students the real experience of what anything is,” McMullin said. “Just setting them up at a young age of seeing why their voice matters, seeing why it’s important to vote, seeing what the process is like, it gives them that responsibility, that ownership piece. I think it’s important to do that for them no matter how old they are.”
 
Leading up to the Student Vote election day, the LPS Communications Department produced three promotional videos. The videos featured multiple elected officials and community leaders who spoke about the process of voting, the importance of informed voting and the need for civility in elections. East High School senior Gabriel and Southeast High School freshman Makenna helped with the videos in their roles as Student Vote district ambassadors.
 
Sheridan student election commissioners met before school on Oct. 24 to finalize planning for the big day. They gathered Student Vote posters that fifth graders made during art class and hung them in every classroom. They also created announcements that were read to students Oct. 28-30.
 
The Sharks came into the library throughout the day on Wednesday to vote. They first created voter identification badges and brought them to a check-in table. They then proceeded to a separate part of the library to vote on both a Chromebook and a paper ballot. They brought their paper ballots back to a main table and placed them in a ballot box. Each student then received a circle-shaped sticker to wear the rest of the day.
 
Kellison smiled as she watched the Sharks enjoy their opportunity to vote.
 
“This is one of my favorite days of the year, because you can just feel the excitement when you go into buildings, particularly elementary buildings,” Kellison said. “You just feel that excitement that they are doing something that grownups get to do.”

Claire said she had learned a lot from becoming a voter in the Sheridan library.
 
“I feel like this election actually did make me realize the importance of that one day your vote will count, one day you will actually be choosing who you want to run your country,” Claire said. “I guess you can’t know the whole experience unless you’re actually voting for everything, but I feel like this has given us a really, really good preview of what it will be like to vote when we do turn 18.”

More than 4,000 students had cast votes by 9:30 a.m., and that number surpassed 18,000 at 1:30 p.m. There were 23,103 votes cast in this year’s election, which eclipsed the 19,698 votes from 2022.
 
Student Vote results were announced on Wednesday afternoon. See a detailed breakdown of the final 2024 Student Vote results.

See more highlights across LPS from this year’s event below.

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