Bowling Green High School hosts Citizenship Day with voting simulation
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – At Bowling Green High School, students learned what citizenship is and how to do their civic duty.
“This summer, we came up with the idea of having Flex Wednesdays. Once a month, we’re going to pause from all our classes and we’re going to go over something that people might say, ‘Why don’t you teach that in school?’ Today was about citizenship, and we had a voting experience for our students and then a panel discussion from local public officials,” principal Kyle McGraw says.
The panel consisted of state officials as well as local city commissioners, who spoke to students about how they can get involved in their community.
“Part of what I love about this high school is that… we’ve got people from all over our city representing all different kinds of cultures and religions and walks of life in this place. We know when all of our voices are heard and we see things from different perspectives, that we’re going to make better decisions when we’ve learned about the issue from all sides,” commissioner Dana Beasley-Brown says.
Students were able to cast their vote – not for any candidate or decision that impacts their city, but on issues that will shape the future of their school.
“The name of our coffee shop that’s coming up,” junior Drake Dew says.
“Parking’s always been a bit of an issue here. It was last year, it’s not as much this year,” senior Ben Klein says.
“We’re voting on a bunch of school decisions for everyone. I think that’s cool that we all can do that together,” junior Madelyn Drane says.
“Assigned parking spots, which I feel like could be either very chaotic but also very good at the same time for the school,” sophomore Devynn Gardner says.
Commissioners hope the students take away more than just how to properly cast a ballot.
“Even if they run themselves one day, even though if they lose… kinda like Commissioner Beasley-Brown said about failure or if their candidate loses, it doesn’t mean that their issue is automatically dead,” commissioner Carlos Bailey says.
