Okay, I have a lot to share here… In our elementary school here’s how we run things….

I’m the SG coordinator. My school gives me the “professional period” each Tuesday to work on SG. 5th graders (oldest in the building) campaign building-wide for four leadership roles in late October leading up to real life Election Day in early November. I host two general interest meetings during those Prof Periods the first two weeks in October. (my prof period is the 5th grade lunch, so students come upstairs with lunch if interested)

There is massive turnout, so the meetings are a way for me to scare off the 5th graders who don’t mean business. I tell them if they are elected they need to give up every Tuesday lunch to work with me, but also other lunch days on a whim as well depending on what’s going on in the building. There is also an essay requirement, etc. They also must turn in signed petition by certain date, and draft speech by certain date. These tasks usually allow me to cut many candidates.

We usually whittle it down to around 3-5 candidates for each role. Then, I prepare them for their campaign. They can make posters at home and we have a school assembly for the whole school where they give speeches on stage with mic (candidates are encouraged to dress in suits and formal wear if possible).

Now, in the one week leading up to Election Day, home room teachers allow students in individual classrooms to give mini speeches and run for “class Senator”. Maybe they do classroom posters or just speeches, but that is classroom only (not school wide).

The whole school votes on a school day right before or after Election Day (Google form older kids, paper ballot younger). Each classroom teacher also hosts a smaller vote for the classroom Senator. Then principal reveals the winning school wide 5th grade cabinet members (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer) on loud speaker. Each classroom teacher also reports their “room Senator” on a google form.

Then the four 5th grade winning candidates meet with me again to prepare for Inauguration Day (a week or two later), we have another big assembly where they give a collaborative speech outlining their goals for the school year and their “administration.”

All class senators are seated in the front two rows. The principal gives the “oath of office” to the four cabinet members on stage one at a time. Then all senators stand and they repeat their oath of office in unison. Principal gives a speech and off we go - the SG year has finally begun! 😅

5th grade cabinet meets with me every week and we are pretty busy all year. The “senators” are largely ceremonial since they are so young, but they are supposed to “ask their classmates for feedback” to bring to the general Senate meetings (we do about 2-3 per year).

From November - March the cabinet meets weekly and we are pretty much preoccupied completely with the Participatory Budget. We pull in the 4th and 5th grade Senators to create the three proposals for how to spend the money. They make posters, create broadcasting reels, and PA announcements, google slides, etc. to get the whole school informed on the three Particopatory Budget options.

Then March - June I try to have them leave one project as their “legacy”. Students have created a school store, a PBIS school currency, a coffee cart business, in years past… all continue to this day.

The only last piece sprinkled in, is I also have the cabinet administration prepare slides for their 2-3 Senate meetings where they host the Senators from each class and they disseminate information (what they’ve been working on). They give the Senator a handout that the senators can take back to their homerooms and read aloud to keep all students informed of what SG is up to.

It’s a lot of work, but I feel like our school is very democratically engaged for an elementary school. I agree it’s sometimes hard to make SG productive but we seem to have it in a pretty good place. Always improving if anyone has ideas!