History Teacher Mr. Timothy Lengel’s Sixth Form Government & Politics elective spends a lot of time discussing the importance of civic engagement. This year, an election year, the class did more than just talk about it.
For their culminating project, Mr. Lengel tasked students in the course with running a voter registration drive for the Class of 2024.
“The point of the Government & Politics senior elective is to prepare young men to become voters, so this seemed like an appropriate project,” Mr. Lengel said.
Students in the class had big incentives for success. First, Mr. Lengel informed them that their final grade on the project would be equal to the percentage of eligible Class of 2024 students they registered. Second, the class had the opportunity to earn recognition for the school with a Governor’s Civic Engagement Award.
The Governor’s Civic Engagement Award is presented by the Pennsylvania Departments of State and Education. The award recognizes and celebrates the efforts of Pennsylvania high school students “to educate, engage and inform their fellow students about how to get involved in the voting process.”
To earn a Gold Level School award, high school students must organize a voter registration drive in their school and register at least 85% of eligible voters.
97.4% of the Class of 2024 are now registered to vote.
Statistics on voter registration are bleak. According to PoliticsPA, at the close of 2023, 18-24 year olds represented the smallest percentage of registered voters in Pennsylvania. The Civics Center reports that, as of January 2024, only 26% of 18-year-olds in the greater Philadelphia area were registered to vote. Older residents are registered at a rate of 80%.
“One of the problems we have as a democracy is that, unlike many other countries, the United States makes it relatively difficult to register to vote,” Mr. Lengel said. “It is time-consuming and a little bit annoying, which is a barrier.”
The Haverford Class of 2024 is the first class at Haverford to be recognized with a Gold Level School award.
According to research by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement only 39% of young adults are confident in their knowledge of how to register to vote. Moreover, disillusionment with the political system, skepticism about the efficacy of voting and barriers to registering discourage youth participation.
The Government & Politics students set up voter registration tables in school and worked one-on-one with their classmates to walk them through the registration process.
The Governor’s Civic Engagement Award program has been recognizing Pennsylvania High Schools since 2017. The Haverford Class of 2024 is the first class at Haverford to be recognized with a Gold Level School award.
