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Not Your Grandmother's CIVIC ED:

Teaching HOPE and AGENCY to

the Next Generation

We thank you for that gracious introduction and for inviting us here today!

We are from the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh, with about 300 members, who embrace the League mission of Empowering Voters and Defending Democracy.

Today, we will walk through the Civic Education program with its roots in our comprehensive website, and we will focus on the volunteer teams that make it happen. You will hear from the three of us, as we tell our individual stories.

We will share how we began as total novices, how everyday, we learn more as we do this work, and how we have always made it a goal to share our program and resources.

I will start by giving you this key information:

We are former educators who are NOT strangers to stealing ideas from each other! We invite you to save precious time and tap into our resources to begin, or to enhance, your own programs.

And we are passionate about this next generation.

That’s where the action is for us, and so we will give you some tools to teach Civic Education our way and explain just how we do it by instilling HOPE and a sense of AGENCY.

Let’s begin!

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HOPE and AGENY for the Next Generation

In the beginning ...

was a GRANT

and

unlimited Board support

Joining the League of Women Voters was always on my bucket list.

Shortly after I joined, a call came, from a 40-year member, for volunteers for a grant-funded, reactivated, High School Outreach program. While working on this knowledgeable member’s team, I was almost immediately appointed to the Board of Directors and that was that…hook, line, and sinker, the League became a very important part of my life.

Fast-forward to six years later– meeting with young people all along this journey, has inspired me, and energized our teams, giving us the determination to stay on course with this important work.

One of my favorite quotes from Albus Dumbledore of Harry Potter fame is, “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”

Believe me, we needed a lot of help!

Through the years, that has been the miracle of our High School Outreach and Civic Ed program. As we have listened to the young people we’ve met, to their teachers, and to our community partners, we have been helped--and we have learned, and learned, and learned more, as our program has evolved.

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Voter Service

A foundation of the

Board of Directors

and

Juneteenth 2022

Voter Registration at La Roche University

Student Voter Registration

Naturalization at Heinz History Center

We can’t talk about the three Civic Education teams or the development of our website without talking about them in the context of all the other moving parts of our local League.

Like your chapters, we have a vibrant Voter Service, and other active teams like Administration, Membership, and Social Media that fully support the League’s mission.

Our Voter Service director, along with our other directors, are dedicated individuals who make up a very dynamic Board, with wise leadership that is the foundation of the Greater Pittsburgh League.

Because of Board members’ institutional knowledge and their unconditional support (and frequently loud cheerleading), Civic Education and Website creation developed with none of the micromanagement or miscommunications that sometime derails rapid progress in an organization.

It is an incredible asset to have the support and guidance of a fully functioning local League.

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Then We Learned Two Things

Classroom vs Large Group

Voter Registration PLUS Civic Education

So back to High School Outreach, which has evolved and expanded over six years.

For many years, the League of Women Voters US and the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania have prioritized youth voter registration outreach, to high school and college-university students.

The LWV Education Fund grant directed outreach to Allegheny County High School students in resilient communities, with comprehensive new voter information and voter registration. Initially, we used Free and Reduced lunch statistics to focus on 19 high schools for our visits.

During the first few years, as I took on leadership, we came to realize that students in Pennsylvania did not have the context of sufficient civic education to participate meaningfully in the voting process.

We believed that there were at least two major reasons for this: Social Studies assessments were no longer part of Pennsylvania’s standards-based system, and therefore over time the Social Studies curriculum lost significant emphasis and funding, and upper-level courses became electives. And the most common curricular schedule in Pennsylvania called for Civics in 9th grade.

In 2018, Pennsylvania passed Act 35 creating a Civics Toolkit and making a Civic Education assessment a requirement for 7^th through 12th grade students. But along came COVID to upset this voluntary curricular enhancement.

Pegging a Civics Education program to your State’s Social Studies guidelines can make the program more useful for teachers who are trying to meet their curricular requirements. Eventually, we made our program available to all 43 county school districts, after offering first to those with fewer resources. We believed then, and we have feedback now, that reinforces our belief that our Civic Ed program has helped to address the civic education gap. And so, we decided early on, that voter registration would always be enhanced with a boost of civic education.

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WHY VOTE?

Your Issues

Your Lives

Reproductive Rights

Racial Justice

Immigration

Fair Housing

Healthcare

Community Police Relations

Free Speech

Access for People with Disabilities

Climate Crisis & Environment

School and Gun Safety

Student Debt

LGBTQ+ Rights

Jobs and Minimum Wage

Another key discovery in the early years was that the optimal setting for both voter registration and civic education was the individual classroom.

This slide is from our current lesson—”Why Vote”. We ask each student to share one issue that is important to them, whether it is on this list, or not. This gives us a window into what students care about.

This is also one place where we demonstrate our nonpartisan stance. The presenter’s response, to each student, with a smile, is the same in tone and words…”Great, thank you for sharing.”

Most other high school outreach programs at the time, placed voter drives in large-group settings like the auditorium or cafeteria,, or promoted peer-to-peer outreach.

While peer-to-peer programs have proven to be very effective, our program favors small-group instruction which incorporates best practices.

In the classroom, experienced, trained team members deliver a very interactive, and I’ll say, lively presentation, as they share their passion about the POWER of the VOTE.

As we promote CONCRETE actions like registering to vote, researching candidates and issues, and showing up to vote on Election Day, we display our faith in students to discover their right and responsibility to PARTICIPATE in our Democracy.

So it is in the classroom, when face-to-face with students, that we most effectively can teach with a hopeful faith in our Democracy and where we can promote a sense of agency.

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And then there were...

GRAPHICS

The Anatomy of an Excellent Presentation

Life and Times of a Mail-in Ballot

When the pandemic abruptly shut down schools in March of 2020, our High School team was in the middle of a schedule that included 15 high school visits—our most ever!

But with every terrible thing, there is a silver lining. For us, it was an opportunity to rethink and retool what we were doing, which has been a great benefit to Civic Education in the long run. Our entire program had to go digital, and like most others in the world, we mastered Zoom and Google Meets.

Increased pandemic isolation led me to finding an outlet for my restless brain. Ruth Quint, who is now our webmaster, will tell her own story, about how she created the first infographic, pictured here, and introduced me to the wonderful world of graphics. My big-picture thinking-style just felt at home distilling complex lines of text into essential elements and then illustrating those elements in a picture format. So along with the ongoing process of amateur graphic design and learning how to put the POWER in PowerPoint, Ruth was engaged in her own learning curve.

Ruth…

As Amy already mentioned, we spent 2020 scrambling for new ways to get information out to students during the pandemic. The arrival of COVID cut off our traditional ways of communicating – speaking to community groups and distributing printed materials through schools and libraries. And, 2020 was already going to be a huge year for community civic education in Allegheny County, because Pennsylvania had just passed the biggest change in voting laws in decades. There were new machines for in-person voting, and, for the first time, mail-in voting became available to all voters.

At the time, I was not the webmaster. I was working on Amy’s High School team, helping to revise the classroom slide presentation. Amy asked me to track down some disputed detail we were missing for a new slide on mail-in voting, and I chased this detail right down a rabbit hole.

When I reached out to the county for an answer, a county council member took the time to explain the whole process to me. Although it was TMI at the time, as the weeks went by, I realized that the big picture I had gotten really helped me to sort through the rumors and misinformation swirling on social media.

I went back to my notes and created our first infographic - The Life and Times of a PA Mail-in Ballot. Amy guided it through the Board approval process and then sent it out on social media and to our email distribution lists.

Back to Amy

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We began using the platform VENNGAGE for our graphics and have stuck with that platform, as it has the tools and templates to create unique graphics. The downside is that there is not a robust free version, and we have chosen a subscription for only two users, which does not allow us to share access with others.

I’ve been using the more versatile platform, CANVA, for the past 2 years to create slide decks and when possible, graphics. The upside of CANVA is the powerful free and nonprofit subscriptions that are available.

Between these two platforms, all our Civic Ed needs are met for creating slide decks for presentations and videos, and for designing distinctive graphics.

One more important point; before releasing, we VET ALL information, both graphics and web pages through a process that involves our Civic Ed experts and other knowledgeable LWVPGH members, who double-check for accuracy and for faithfulness to our LWV nonpartisan policy.

Ruth…

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Our growing collection of voter resources is the anchor of our website.

Almost 70 explainers and graphics about voting,

elections, government,

and the League of Women Voters

As if there weren’t already enough disrupters in 2020, our League was in the process of switching to a new web hosting platform and restarting the site from scratch. Since both the website and the Civic Ed team were retooling at the same time, the content we created naturally developed hand-in hand, and our experience with the infographics shaped the website in 2 ways:

First, From the start, the website has served as a home base for our Civic Ed Team and their growing library of downloadable resources. These resources, housed on the original Voter Resource Library page, were the anchor for the website, drawing more visits than anything but the home page, and providing a way for us to distribute information to schools and community groups digitally.

Now in our 3rd year the Voter Resource Library page has become the Explainers and Graphics page and is part of a full Civic Education Resources menu, which includes Schools and Community, the Video Library, Slide Decks for Speakers, and the “Your Government Officials” Directory.

The Explainers and Graphics web page offers almost 70 explainers and graphics covering topics like voting, elections, government, basic civic education, resources for students and for teachers, and topics that promote a better understanding of the League of Women Voters. Updating graphics or creating new ones is an ongoing process and just like other content on the website, the Explainers and Graphic page is always evolving.

To sum up–while our website has the usual calendars, contact info, program announcements, and membership information, it is still our Civic Ed focus that makes our site unique.

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Live Questions
Prebunking
Local detail
Lowbrow tone

2. So, what’s the second way the infographics shaped the website? Well, The development of our most successful infographics had a certain set of features. We decided to use these features to plan our civic ed objectives for the website:

First. They were based on “Live Questions” and responding to a “teachable moment”.

Second. They were designed to be Prebunking - instead of refuting misinformation point by point, they filled in the information that people needed to evaluate claims themselves.

Third. They focused on the local, Allegheny County community - using local details not readily available in information produced at the statewide or national level. And,

Fourth. They were deliberately Lowbrow – using a casual tone, lowered reading level, and an informal format.

Later in the presentation, we'll take a closer look at how these guidelines play out on the website.

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The foundation:

a New WEBSITE

and a new WEBMASTER

and a Web Team

Now, I was a fairly new League member when I agreed to take on the role of webmaster, and with the new platform providing a blank slate, I wanted a team of more experienced and knowledgeable members to help the new site take shape. Our web team has 15 members, and usually about half attend our monthly online meetings. As an aside, the ability to collaborate from home, on Zoom and other platforms, has been a godsend for our team. I don’t know if we could have created the site without it.

Most of our team members do not have any technical background and do NOT work with the page-writing software at all. Amy and I do most of the actual page-writing, and I handle the overall technical nuts and bolts. Amy and I enrolled in a page design “boot camp” a few months ago and learned some new skills that have really helped to tune up the site, along with the input of our team members.

The larger team’s role is largely editorial and advisory. Again, most team members do not have or need technical expertise. (I brought no technical expertise, either. I have a rusty, 20 year old, familiarity with network software, and in fact, did not reply to our League’s search for a new webmaster earlier because I felt I “didn’t know how.” )

As the "webmaster" I realize that I am working to achieve the goals of our local League. The web team is crucial to keeping the website aligned with those goals. At our very first meeting, we laid out an editorial procedure for creating and approving new content -- and we follow it! All new pages pass through multiple reviewers before being published.

Our website redesign was a major undertaking because of our unique circumstances at the time. If you subtract the web platform change, the pandemic, the drastic change in voting laws, and the high-interest election year, it doesn’t look so daunting. With the luxury of starting small, you can do as much or as little as works for you and your local League.

Now, Amy will take it back to talk about the elements of the Civic Ed program.

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CIVIC EDUCATION RESOURCES

Schools and Community Outreach, Explainers and Graphics, Video Library, Slide Decks for Speakers, “Your Government Officials”

Civic Ed in “Schools and Community ” Web Page

Civic Education MODEL

AND THEN WE NEEDED

STATIC WEB

PAGES

and a

HIGH SCHOOL OUTREACH COORDINATOR

We’ll describe our school programs in more detail, along the way we’ll describe the parts of our Student Voter Empowerment Tool Kit and then we’ll tell you about how we teach across the life-span, reaching all ages in our community.

To share our growing Civic Education program, we needed a “Schools and Community” web page which summarized all the aspects of our Civic Ed outreach. On that page users will find the link to our Civic Education Model.

And as our program grew, I needed help. So, right now I’d like to tell you about Joanne Moore, a High School team member who added the role of High School Outreach Coordinator to her busy life.

One of our best practices is to welcome many voices as we collaborate internally, but speak with only one voice, externally. Joanne took on all communications and scheduling with high schools– but she’s more than our chief logistics officer.

I just have to tell you that Joanne was responsible for the genius idea of our Happy 18^th Birthday poster. Her prior work experience of 40-years in the nonprofit realm has given her the skills to assist us with grant-writing. Jo reviewed my idea for sharing all the processes, philosophies, and products of our High School program, chuckled, and then got to work. Her help defining the components and co-writing our Civic Education Model was invaluable.

Kind of surprising to us, our Civic Education Model has had over 600 downloads, to date.

Joanne…

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The hierarchy and snail mail

High School Outreach

HOPE and AGENY for the Next Generation

Building Relationships

through Respect and Consistency

Thanks Amy, When you work in program development for a busy, forward moving non-profit as I did, you have an opportunity to learn many things-and I have been so pleasantly surprised to see how easily some of these skills have transitioned to supporting our League. Building relationships is at the heart of every successful venture and building solid relationships within the school system is critical right now. In the highly charged political arena we find ourselves, we must acknowledge that the LWV is often carefully scrutinized. We really must be mindful of our role. With that in mind, we have embraced a communication format that is anchored in respect and consistency. And in this you want to be the tortoise rather than the hare! SLOW, DELIBERATE, UNWAVERING.

Step one is to Know Your Audience. “Know Your Audience” may sound like a simple common sense rule of thumb that we all give a nod to, but we often do not take the time to fully explore. Sure, the direct audience for our civic ed program is the high school students we are eager to work with, but there are is another, maybe even more important audience, the indirect audience that we must consider: the school principals, teachers, and even parents. Toward that end we strongly suggest: Respect the Hierarchy. That means our communications are delivered to school principals, explaining our program and requesting they share our information with designated teachers, and sometimes even with School Boards for approval. Acknowledging school personnels’ authority is always appreciated. As we gain access and build relationships with individual teachers or department heads, we communicate with them as well, but we ALWAYS “Cc” the principal.

Of course it is mandatory to meet the State and individual School policies for visitors. Every visiting member must receive and share the required clearances. We offer our compliance information right up front in our communications so they have no reason to even ask!

And in this day and age where electronic communication is the norm, we have also found a need for snail mail! Our communications are essentially a cold call. We are not known personally or as an organization to many schools whose fire walls dump us right into the SPAM folder!!! So our first notification to the schools is a letter is sent to each principal and teacher on our list. All follow up is done via electronic communications or even through phone calls.

As Amy said, many voices internally, but only one voice externally. That’s ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL! Teachers and Principals need to know the one person who is speaking for the organization and who will be their contact for all needs. Communication with the schools for scheduling and procedures, AND communication with our civic education team for scheduling and procedures, MUST COME FROM ONE CENTRAL LOCATION - otherwise it can be chaotic, time wasting and disheartening to all involved. Avoiding these stumbling blocks will help to build successful relationships with the schools and with the volunteer team.

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Civic Education Model - Table of Contents

I. Components of the Program: Overview and Mission Statements

A. Forming a Civic Education Team

1. Staffing and Recruitment

a. Characteristics of Team Chair

b. Characteristics of Team Member

c. Forming a Key Volunteer Team

2. Presenter Training

a. PowerPoint Training

b. Virtual Training

c. Additional Training

B. Developing a Dynamic Program

1. Identifying Theme and Goals

2. Creating the PowerPoint Presentation

3. Gathering Support Materials

4. Sample Program Elements

5. Technology

C. Structuring High School Outreach

1. Prioritizing Student Populations

2. Communications

3. Suggested Timetable

II. Getting the Word Out

Utilizing LWV Chapter Resources to Promote the Program

III. Funding Civic Education Outreach

Defining Goals
Creating a Budget
Maintaining Records

Appendix

When developing a program, no one needs to reinvent the wheel. With a track record of success, and ongoing interest from local Leagues across the state, we started working on a comprehensive Model that could be shared. Again, another of those non-profit career skills that came in handy! This Model for developing a civic education program is available on our “Schools and Community” web page. With over 600 downloads, we can only hope this means other local Leagues are finding it useful.

Although one size NEVER fits all, starting with a review of the Model may get your brain moving! It does get into the nitty gritty from forming your team right through maintaining records. The volume of info may seem daunting, but it really isn’t. The strong, skeletal structure is there and it is tested and proven successful!. You can fill it in with what is particularly RELEVANT in your area. And we cannot emphasize RELEVANCE enough. We have revised content every year and as you will see, integrated technology as we can. The Model offers tips for virtual and in-person visits, although there is just nothing like being in the classroom. The What Not to Do’s are always my favorites.

As we have mentioned, our Civic Ed program ties into our state educational mandates. Your state educational mandates probably are different from ours. Check into them. Supporting the educational goals of your schools will make your program more relevant.

While there are certainly things that you may want to change or alter for your region, there are 2 guidelines we emphasize in the section, Developing a Dynamic Program, that are worth repeating here. Accuracy and Interaction!

Please vet your information! We cannot afford to be wrong! Secondly, be interactive- Interaction gets the students involved and that is essential!

Amy…

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How the Sausage Gets Made:

The Classroom Presentation

it's all about the TEAM

Thank you Joanne! I’ll jump in here to talk about our process of creating and revising our classroom presentation each year. We have had 5 iterations of our core message and our classroom presentations can be found on the “Slide Decks for Speakers” page.

From the beginning, we’ve had a sound educational foundation through the guidance of one expert team member– a former 40-year social studies teacher.

Just as Joanne highlighted “relevance”, we begin with a theme, taken from the current political climate.

This year, we’ve focused on WHY it is so important for young people to understand their right to participate in our Democracy – while highlighting the POWER of the vote. We always include information about the current election, the kinds and types of elections, and correct any misperceptions about “off election years”. Spoiler alert–there aren’t any. We repeat the mantra: “Every election counts, every year…You count!”

Following our experience in classrooms last spring, where many students just seemed LOST– demoralized, sad, and disengaged– we made it our goal this year, to amplify our message with both HOPE and AGENCY.

As defined by Gwinn and Hellman in their book, Hope Rising,

HOPE is defined as goals + road map + willpower

AGENCY is defined as “the capacity for individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential.”

When students actually experience the coming-of-age action of registering to vote, the are signing on as participants in our democracy. We communicate our hope they will not only become active, super voters but well-informed voters, as well.

I create the first draft of our slide deck in Canva, which then is introduced to the high school team in a series of 2-hour meetings where “the sausage is truly made”. Our eight experienced members add their insights to the process, keeping in mind the constraints of creating a powerful presentation that is 30-minutes long, visually clear, and verbally uncluttered. We add 10 minutes for voter registration to fill the 40-minute classroom period. About ONE MONTH later we have our trial run in the lucky high school to be first on the schedule. Following that, we finalize the script in PowerPoint NOTES, which every presenter is directed to follow, with fidelity.

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https://youtu.be/avj7XUDCdEk

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Presenting with a

League of Women Voters

Nonpartisan Mindset …

Student Feedback PowerPoint

…and with the Principles of

Diversity, Equity,

and Inclusion

For all of us representing the LWV, the guiding source for any program development, especially educational, must be the LWV Mission and Vision Statements. It is the professional standard that we abide by. You will notice if you look at the Civic Ed Model, that both our Civic Ed Team and our Model have mission statements. These statements are the touchstone, our guiding star.

When we are presenting in the classroom we must remember that we are representing the LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS and not our personal feelings. Program content and language must reflect the nonpartisan mission of the organization. I know it may seem like we are preaching to the choir on this, but when you are in the classroom and questioned by a student, especially if it is pushing a button for you, you must take that moment and think. Even if you have a comfort level with the teacher or the students, you need to keep the nonpartisan hat on your head! A question I have had three different times this year, “Can you just tell me the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?’ Well, lots of different ways to go with this, right? After suppressing what I wished I could say, the third time I was asked I just said, “What do you think the differences are?”

Besides following our mission statements and the LWV Nonpartisan Policy, we are guided by the LWV DEI Policy. This dovetails with the discussion of Know your Audience- the 43 school districts in our area run the gamut in population and socio-economic diversity. We visit in what we think of as blue, red, and purple areas. We do not let that alter content, as we do the same program for everyone. With a program that is guided by best practices for instruction and the nonpartisan and DEI principles as our foundation, we insure we engage with all students fairly.

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Stand on the shoulders of those who have fought for Voting Rights in our history: people of color, women, the disabled, incarcerated, and returning citizens.

CLAIM YOUR POWER and exercise Your RIGHT to VOTE!

One Final Reason to VOTE

There is nothing like the classroom experience with the students. It is energizing, enlightening, humbling and often times, very funny! We love this slide in our presentation as it gives us an opportunity to inject personal stories around our experiences with the War in Vietnam and the protests for the 26th amendment and the civil rights protests. Or stories of the Suffragists, where being a woman just a little over 100 years ago you ran the risk of having your children taken away, if you engaged in protests for the right to vote. These stories humanize us as presenters as well as tell an important story about voting.

And the students tell us stories too. We had one teacher offer us an apology for the laughter in her class. We did not quite understand. One of our presenters was talking about being a POLL worker- POLL, and it was mistaken for being a POLE worker-POLE. Hence the laughter!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about the issues of “older” voters, and was leading the students to thinking about Social Security. I said, “OK, I turned 65 this year- what’s important to me?” One young lady blurted out, “Dang, are you planning your funeral?’

And the teachers have stories to tell too. We are consistently told how important it is for the students to hear this information from folks others than their teachers!

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...and new relationships

Hope and Agenecy for the Next Generation

And then there was a genius idea:

Happy 18th Birthday and Claim Your Power posters...

And when you are energized by the students you begin to think about “how can we reach more?” How can we reach new eligible voters? And it is tough because we have limited time and human resources available for classroom presentations. But in 2022, the Universe was smiling on us and brought an idea, technology, and funding together all in one project.

Based on a message in our classroom program, that voting is a “gift when you turn 18”, and the explosive use of QR code technology, we came up with our Happy 18th Birthday poster! This poster was printed and sent to all the senior high schools in our five county area. This poster reminds students of their new eligibility to vote and includes a QR code that, when scanned, leads students to Rock the Vote.org, then to Pennsylvania’s state registration portal. Sent with a welcoming letter, the project introduces many school administrators to the LWVPGH and our free, nonpartisan resources. Our previous directory of 68 school contacts in one county has grown to 172 contacts in the five-county Western PA region! The combined number of students enrolled in their senior year in these five counties is 22,783!

The poster became a simple outreach project with many applications. The message was reworked as “Claim Your Power”, and sent to local colleges and universities for posting in dorms and other public spaces. Through our Senior Housing Team we were able to place them in senior housing facilities and reach another audience!

And now back to Amy….

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And then there were THREE Teams-

Civic Education in Schools and Community

Video Team

High School Outreach

College-

University Outreach

HOPE and AGENCY for the Next Generation

As our outreach continued to grow, what worked for us was having three teams that could respond to different needs and spread the Civic Ed message in different ways.

College-University team members are responsible for specific college- university contacts in the Pittsburgh area. Their focus is twofold: to provide timely voting and election information to campuses in the form of short snippets of information we call “Teasers”, for college websites and student email. The second is, with the help of Voter Service, to support student-led voter registration drives.

A word about our VIDEO team. Last summer, with our new producer in the lead, our VIDEO team produced nine videos on a variety of topics, in the studio of Pittsburgh Public Access TV station, PCTV21. Four of the videos included signing by a very enthusiastic ASL interpreter.

During the summer, we participated in a collaboration with individuals and organizations who have long histories with social justice, and the result was two well-received videos for Returning and Incarcerated Citizens. These and other videos can be found on our VIDEO LIBRARY page under “Resources” in the Menu.

We are looking to new young League members–our student membership is now free–to join this team. TikTok and Instagram are their second languages, and we realize that to reach young folks we need to speak those languages, effectively--chunking information into short videos.

We cannot be everything to everyone. But by pulling in and tapping members’ individual interests and talents while accomplishing the mission, League programs can reflect local membership and take on their own unique flavor.

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Voter Empowerment Toolkit

Posters
Postcard
Presentation
Videos
Ready-Set-Vote bags
Zip Folders- Feedback
Your Government Officials
Website Resources

So, what are all the goodies that make up a Student Voter Empowerment Toolkit?

Believe it or not–PRINTED materials! Sharing printed posters, printed resource postcards, and printed “Your Government Officials” pamphlets as funds allow, are surprisingly well-received by students. We will talk about how we fund our projects and resources in a moment.

Adding QR codes to printed materials, like our Resource postcard can be very effective. This postcard extends our outreach. We print 10’s of thousands each year to pass out at all our events, including school visits. On the Resource Postcard, with QR codes routed to a voter registration platform and to our website, we engage in voter registration and civic education at the same time.

The key is “trackable” QR codes that provide data about the success of our outreach. We use QR Tiger and have a paid subscription which gives us 12 reusable, trackable QR codes. The mystery of QR codes took a while to unpack, but as with any new technology, a user can just click on the “Help” or “Chat” button when needed.

The toolkit may involve high school visits where a dynamic classroom presentation is a must, with the option of including any relevant short videos. Feel free to download ours.

After we visit a school, we send zip folders to students and teachers with graphics and other digital documents..

We also send a Google feedback form and encourage teachers to gather helpful information from students for us, so we can continually improve.

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How do we teach across the life-span?

Ready-Set-Vote bags, Videos, BizTown,

Your Government Officials

So, finally, how do we teach across the life-span? In addition to the web pages that Ruth will describe in more detail, we have two major projects.

During the pandemic, we became more aware of our older neighbors who lacked reliable internet. We responded with printed voter materials for both schools and for our community. Our Ready- Set- Vote bags with relevant graphics, resource postcards, Voteriders ID cards, voter registration applications and instructions, are created, and then assembled and distributed by a large number of dedicated volunteers.

Over five elections, we have distributed 18,000 Ready-Set-Vote bags to schools and community thanks to our generous funders and willing volunteers.

From a collaboration with the Pittsburgh YWCA, the second project involves our support of a major Junior Achievement project. Our League has recruited some volunteers and provided graphics and resource postcards for the 4th-5th-6th grade students who visit Junior Achievement’s BIZTOWN installation, located in Bridgeville, PA. After receiving 9 hours of instruction from their own teachers, 4000 students from southwestern Pennsylvania will cycle through BizTown during the last half of the academic year. BizTown showcases the best of our country—our youth in action!

Now Ruth will tell you about how the website is the key resource for teaching across the life-span.

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Learning Across the Lifespan…

…increasingly happens online.

“Hey, Siri…”

After leaving high school or college, we don’t get our civic ed delivered anymore. We have to track it down ourselves. I call this “Graduating to Google.” Think about the last time you had questions about your state legislature, or voting rights, or election administration. I’ll bet that you started your research online, or as my son advises, “Mom, just ask your phone.”

When someone in Allegheny County asks their phone about government or elections, we want to have answers for them.

And, we want Google and other search engines (but especially Google) to recommend our answers to them. That’s a whole ‘nother story, but some of the pages we have produced perform well on Google without any special “Search Engine Optimization” simply because we are filling a gap in resources.

Which brings us back to the 4 design goals that our civic ed infographics and web pages have in common.

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Live Questions

The First is Identifying and Addressing Live Questions–the questions that your audience actually brings to you.

As a former teacher, I am tuned to look for "Live Questions" and "Teachable Moments." For example, I used to teach computer programming and had to cover topics like coding different types of programming loops. Students never came to class asking, “What are the 3 basic types of programming loops?” What they really wanted to know is “How do I write a video game? How do I make it run faster?” These live questions create teachable moments. That is the time to say - “Let’s look at your gaming code. Which type of loop makes the most sense here? Which type will run the fastest?”

Some live civic ed questions are quick, process questions that we all have when we do something for the first time.

How much postage do I need on my mail-in ballot? How do I change my address? What if I don't have ID? Where do I vote? ….

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Voting Sub-Menu

…and New voters, and new voting rules will always provide a steady stream of these questions. And most LWV websites answer these questions with registration information, links to forms, and to official state voter registration portals. Partly because we wrote these pages as new voting rules were announced, our pages are very comprehensive and try to address common points of confusion..

These process questions are answered on our website by the pages on our Voting submenu, with full pages of information on Voter Registration, In Person Voting, Mail-in Voting, Voter Rights and a page with Spanish language voter resources. These pages link to related infographics and other resources. These pages are fairly static – we have one panel at the top with current dates and deadlines, but the rest of the information carries over from one election cycle to the next.

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I feel so stupid asking this but...

What does County government even do?

Other questions go beyond the process instructions to ask big picture questions about government and our roles as citizens. The High School Outreach team discovered a Civic Ed information gap that needed to be filled in order to empower students. We believe this same gap needs to be bridged for the general population.

The 2016 Election drew in new voters of every political persuasion, and created a large group of newly engaged citizens who wanted to get involved, but didn't really know where to start.

In a neighborhood group I joined, we asked each other all kinds of basic questions - are judges elected or appointed? Which level of government does what? Where do I go to address this issue?

People need this info before they can feel confident about voting. I believe Low information drives low interest, low confidence, and low voter turnout.

And, I believe we are still in this "teachable moment" for Civic Education.

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Government Sub-Menus

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Prebunking

(and “defusing”)

https://youtu.be/lmjRm4LH_n4

Our next design goal is “Prebunking”. You may have heard this term crop up in discussions of disinformation. It means finding and filling an information gap on a controversial topic to make it harder for disinformation to take hold. Our original Mail-in Ballot Infographic and our recent video about the "Journey of a Ballot" are both examples of prebunking.

A broader understanding of a topic can change people's thinking, and more importantly their feelings, without directly addressing the controversial point. I think of this as "defusing." For example, on our Elections in PA page, we show examples of voting practices over time, and in other states. Although it doesn’t address specific points in the current debate, it helps counteract people's underlying feelings that there's always been one right way to do things, and that a change will cause problems.

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Local means "League Classic" on the web.

Our third design goal is to keep the content Local. The LWV has always been a key source of information about local government and candidates. We post digital versions of our candidate guides, candidate forums and "Your Government Officials" online. I call these resources “League Classic”.

We still produce our print versions of Your Government Officials and the Voters’ Guides, which are still well received. On line, where the pixels are free, the digital versions are able to do more - both more pages and more types of content. For instance, YGO has been retooled to incorporate web resources like live links to district maps, live-streamed government meetings, meeting calendars, and more.

And we supplement our printed Candidate guide with local “mini-guides” for selected “hot” school board, municipal, and minor judicial races that don’t fit in the print version. These mini-guides can then be posted to local social media platforms like Nextdoor, or localized FB groups.

We are now "inlining" these resources rather than posting them as downloadable PDFs to allow Google to index them.

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Local also means “News Yinz Can Use”

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Lowbrow

"... regardless of your political affiliation...

...it doesn't matter if you are registered in a political party or not...

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Grants and Awards

The Generous Donations of

Members, Volunteers, and Supporters

Fundraising takes a village. You probably already know that! Our experienced Director of Development has been cultivating relationships with funders for many years. Again, it is always about building those relationships!

Currently, what appears to have high visibility within the funding community, is a pro-democracy wave that is laser-focused on youth voter engagement, especially within marginalized communities. Specifically, our Civic Education mission is experiencing this wave of intense interest. How do you hop on that wave? Do the leg work! Explore all possibilities. Do the research. If you are looking at a foundation- be clear about what they like to fund- and know that their priorities may have changed since the last time you checked.

Look around your region: Who are the visible companies in your area? Who likes to get their name on something?

You never know until you ask!

Tangible projects like our printed materials, our website, even our videos, have led to success breeding success. Funders are also looking for reputable, established organizations to work with. They are doing their research! And when they see our League has a contemporary website filled with relevant resources and information, as well as an active and engaged membership responding to the needs of the community, they have a comfort level with granting financial support. The funding community is tight knit- they talk. You do not want to overreach. So, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Start small. Understand the abilities of your chapter to appropriately steward monies. Blaze a trail of success. Build the relationship because when the current wave rolls into a new one, and it will, what remains is the reputation of your organization and a successful funding venture.

Amy…

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As I said in the beginning, HELP has come to our League in the form of serendipitous discoveries, the consistent hard work of our member volunteers, and through the collaborative relationships we have formed over the years.

Helpless, Hapless, Hopeless.

That was how I was taught to recognize someone who was depressed or was having thoughts of self-harm or suicide.

It’s difficult to read statistics about the mental health of our post-pandemic young people. In the past three years, we’ve all been through so much.

This is how we begin our classroom lesson. By acknowledging what students have experienced in the past and sharing our hope that things may be getting better for them. While we display our optimism, at the same time, we make a space for their real anxieties and concerns.

We tell them that we admire how they have persevered and continued to learn. We tell them that we are very, very high on this generation of young folks, who seem to understand what is truly important in their lives.

With this definition of Hope, I think that maybe, we have learned along the way, that Civic Education can become a natural part of the “road map” for hope.

And with Agency– we tell students by our demeanor, our words, and our actions that we believe in them and are there to support them with any information they may need.

We help them see the PURE POWER of the vote.

While many things may be out of students’ control, registering to vote, doing some research, and then voting are concrete ACTIONS that they can take, to positively affect their own lives.

When they do that, they are also building up our Democracy.

And THAT gives US hope!

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"The Youth Vote" WQED Video

In February 2020, the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh High School Outreach team visited Brentwood High School.

https://youtu.be/TGsxLTkdOgQ

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League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh Website at www.lwvpgh.org

Civic Education Model 2021-23

Resources for Educators

Resources for Mis-and Dis-information

Sources and Resources

Ruth webmaster@lwvpgh.org

Joanne civic.education@lwvpgh.org