Solid turnout for high school mock election
Even before the start of the first block, more than 300 students had cast ballots in Niskayuna High School’s first school-wide mock election. “I’m really impressed,” said student poll watcher Anastasia Sakhno. “I didn’t expect so many students to turn out to vote.”
By the second block, senior Louis Serafini spent time sorting and counting approximately 500 ballots during AP MacroEconomics/AP Government class.
Social studies teachers predicted that at least 1,000 students would cast ballots before the polls closed at 1 p.m.

Elementary vote: first civics lessons
Voting began early at Hillside Elementary—as nearly half the school population had stepped into a makeshift voting booth in the school’s main lobby before 9 a.m. to make their selections.
Lines at Birchwood, where fifth-graders manned the polls, were long but moving at steady pace. The fifth-grade classes hosted the school-wide election as part of their study of the U.S. government and how our democracy evolved
“Our students have been learning about the executive branch and the duties associated with the office of the president,” said grade 5 teacher Carol Van Alstyne. “We also studied the electoral college, and red and blue states.”
After voting, Birchwood students received a sticker indicating that they had done their civic duty.
At Glencliff Elementary School, teacher Erin McMahon’s first-grade classroom was divided into three voting districts so that the three first-grade classes could experience their first civics lesson. Just as their parents are required to do to vote in the general election, students had to find their name on the registration sheet and sign in before heading into the booth to cast their ballots for president. “My mom is probably voting right now,” one young student said.
Meanwhile, Beth Montrello’s fifth-grade class studied the presidential candidates’ positions on issues such as the economy, foreign policy, trade, immigration, national security, education, the Iraq War, energy, climate change and healthcare. Students read about the issues and selected the top three that were most important to them. They worked in pairs to create tables with brief information about each of the candidate’s opinion on the nine issues that were researched. Their homework was to share the information they learned with their families, and discuss the issues most important to them and why.
“The students really got into this activity. They came back with stories about the awesome discussions that they had with their families – even friendly debates,” Montrello said, adding that parents seemed enthusiastic about the assignment when we met with them during conferences last week.

Middle school students study the candidates and issues to make informed decisions
Developing an informed electorate was the focus of election lessons at the middle schools.
At Iroquois Middle School, Dennis Frank's grade 8 students spent many flex periods watching and critiquing campaign advertising to understand the issues that contribute to the ebb and flow of the campaigns, as well as become more skilled at recognizing methods used by politicians to sway voter opinion.
In Aubrey Salisbury's sixth grade social studies class, students learned to develop their own opinions about the candidates and support their opinions with facts. To do this, students analyzed materials from the Junior Scholastic and other sources. After watching the presidential debates, students spent two days in class preparing for and then actually debating the issues. “My hope from the debate was that students would be exposed to a variety of issues, and also how the issues were constructed into arguments and supported with evidence from the reading,” Salisbury said.
Eighth-graders at Van Antwerp Middle School began the year with an intensive two week exploration of the election process that culminated in careful research and presentations by students describing the candidates’ positions on various issues. In addition to studying the electoral college, students also had to watch at least one of the debates and investigate other mediums to complete an analytical writing on examples of media bias.

Mock election results by school
Similar to yesterday's national election, the results of mock elections in Niskayuna schools revealed most students favored Sen. Barack Obama for the next U.S. president.

(November 2008)