DeEaris Green, a senior at Davis Aerospace & Maritime High School, has been preparing to cast his first ballot for months, if not years.
Young people need to approach politics that way, he said, to avoid being swept up by biased news and partisan talking points. Through research and debates with classmates, he’s formed his own opinions, he said.
“Our younger generation needs to fact check people because you can’t take everything at face value,” Green said. “I feel like we need to have our own identity, and we have to stop looking at the past and look at the future. And whoever you vote for, is that a step towards the future?”
Green arrived at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections to vote on Tuesday, along with more than 100 other Cleveland Metropolitan School District students. They marched to the polls as teachers and members of Greater Cleveland Congregations cheered them on.
Gayle Gadison, CMSD’s social studies content manager, organized the march with GCC as part of the school district’s Civics 2.0 program. GCC is a local advocacy organization, and Civics 2.0 is an extracurricular school program that encourages students to engage with government and their communities.
Civics 2.0 students had already registered their classmates to vote at a handful of schools in the leadup to the election, but Gadison and GCC wanted to take it a step further. Your first time voting should be memorable and celebratory, Gadison said.
“I want a generation of proactive citizens, as opposed to having a generation of reactive citizens,” she said.
Making their voices heard
For Jr Billups, a senior at Cleveland High School for Digital Arts, getting politically engaged is a must.
“I kind of grew up with the idea of me being an African American person and me being queer, there was kind of no way around it,” he said.
Billups is nervous about the election, but he’s excited to use his voice at the ballot box.
“Definitely try to get your voice out there, especially for your communities, and speaking out for other communities is the best that you can do,” he said. “If you want change, you got to make it.”
To Green, the change he wants to see starts on the local level. He cast his ballot with issues such as gun violence and poverty in mind, he said.
“I want to fix our problems before we fix the world’s problems,” he said.
Still, voting can be intimidating for young people, said Maxwell Campbell, Green’s classmate. He spent a lot of time researching all the issues on his ballot, but the language of some of them gets confusing, he said.
“When you do get to those longer issues and statutes and all that, reading the changes, it can get a little bit confusing,” Campbell said. “Even the summaries are long.”
That’s why he appreciated teachers walking him through the voting process, he said. In fact, he wants to see more events like this for adults. It could help re-engage people who feel left out of politics, he said.
“This affects your life,” he said. “I think you should participate in it at all ages.”
