Connect young people with community leaders to shape civic engagement

Young people have always been at the forefront of social and political movements. Their presence there has helped shape our history. Why, then, are students in our communities often overlooked when “the adults” have conversations about our future?

Young people bring a unique and innovative perspective to local issues because of their ability to dream big and not be tied down by existing systemic expectations. Encouraging students to get involved in local civic life can help them develop a sense of belonging and ownership for their community. And an active civic life can empower young people to understand and lead the change they want to see — a mindset that will surely follow them into adulthood.

Local news has a stake in youth civic engagement, not only as a new way to engage with younger audiences but as a way to help shape the future of the community it covers.

CivicLex sits at the intersection of civic life and local journalism, and our work in Lexington, Ky. focuses on getting residents of all ages more informed, connected and engaged with how our community works. But in 2023, we launched a new set of programs exclusively serving young people in Fayette County led by Stephanie Mobley, our Director of Civic Education. What started with developing a curriculum focused on local government has grown into a multifaceted program connecting students with local leaders, teaching them about the issues they care about and supporting their civic engagement.

Through this program, we’ve seen students become more confident and eager to get involved in their communities. We attribute this to two core elements that may inspire other newsrooms to reimagine or expand their local government and neighborhood beats. CivcLex first provides nonpartisan information that equips students for conversations with local officials and second, creates the space for them to connect with those local leaders.

View your school teachers as partners in your information ecosystem

A local organization received a grant to plant trees on this high school’s campus, and they used the Civic Expo as an opportunity to gather student input on where students would like those trees to go. (Photo courtesy of CivicLex)

Government can be confusing and unapproachable, and schools mostly teach about the federal and state levels, not local. That’s where CivicLex steps in. We bring student-friendly versions of our workshops on local government and municipal budgeting into teachers’ classrooms, where students get to play Go Fish with cards that have local elected officials on them and a board game that builds a city budget.

Developing nonpartisan resources to help teachers and young people better understand local government is essential. Local newsrooms can use their knowledge and expertise on local government issues and processes to empower young people.

We’ve found that teachers welcome nonpartisan local government resources. However, getting into the school system can prove challenging. Here’s what’s worked for us:

• Find one person at the school to work with who can advocate for you and your resources — more will follow!
• Be reliable, consistent and accessible when working with teachers — relationship building is key.
• Listen! Talk with the teachers and students about what would help them better engage with local civic life.
• Be fluid. The information can stay the same, but the population at each school is different. Sometimes small tweaks can make all the difference.

Equipping students with information on local civic life levels the playing field when they are talking with local officials. If the goal is for students to drive these conversations, they need to know what they’re talking about.

Create space for students to connect with local leaders

Early on, teachers told us they wanted a way to educate students about the resources our community offers. What came out of these conversations were our Civic Expos that bring community organizations, city departments and divisions, and Councilmembers to the schools to connect with students about their work. Set up similarly to job fairs, our half-day Civic Expos instead focus on civic and community engagement in each of Lexington’s public high schools.

We’ve learned a lot from our Civic Expos over the past two years, and there are some elements that we think make them successful:

• They’re hosted at the individual schools during the school day. Bringing these local leaders to a familiar space empowers students to be more confident and have more frank conversations.
• The Expos aren’t too big. These aren’t district-wide events, making them more manageable and giving students more space to have those one-on-one conversations.
• Tabling format works for us, but your partner teachers will help determine the format most fitting for their school population. For example, one teacher requested a smaller, more focused opportunity, so we organized a Round Table with presentations and a Q&A.
• We’ve seen the power of organizations that bring not only fun tabling supplies, but also an activity where students feel their voices are heard. For example, our local writing center takes ideas for new classes to offer.
• There is a massive difference in the Expo experience of students who have taken our workshops and those who haven’t — so much so that we now ask schools to host our workshops before students participate in an Expo.

Local newsrooms can similarly leverage their connections with local organizations and leaders to engage with students. It doesn’t have to be as involved as the Civic Expos — start with approachable opportunities like sending the email of a local judge to a student who is interested in learning more about the justice system or collaborating with a teacher to host a panel about housing in their classroom. Our experience is that if you make yourself available as a trusted, unbiased resource for community knowledge, teachers and students will reach out.

Measure success by engagement

Students connecting with a city Councilmember at a Civic Expo. (Photo courtesy of CivicLex)

Reflecting on the 12 Civic Expos we’ve hosted, we’re proud of the impact we’ve had on more than 7,000 students and almost 80 community partners. Success of a program like this can be hard to measure outside of the numbers, but the pride in the outcomes we’re seeing — both big and small — shows not only the drive and impact of these students, but also how our community is becoming more civically minded. Just to list a few:

Local organizations are prioritizing connecting with students. While we had to build momentum, almost every organization that has attended one Expo tries attending the others. We’re also getting many requests to be added to our invite list. You can watch organizations share benefits they’ve seen from attending Civic Expos here.

Lexington city government has hosted two events based on our model. Through other work we’ve done evaluating our city’s public input processes, we proposed the idea of an issues expo as a new way to gather public input on issues before they move through the Council. Expos have been held on transportation and digital accessibility, which connected residents with local stakeholders to talk about Lexington’s future.

Teachers are more confident connecting curriculum to local issues. We couldn’t say it better than this quote we received from a high school government teacher: “CivicLex builds capacity for the classroom teacher to create transformative learning experiences. Examples include logistical aid, scheduling guest speakers and field trips, facilitation of lessons, coaching students from ideation through development of Civic Fair topics, and, of course, hosting the meaningful experience of the Civics Fair.”

More students are completing Civic Engagement Projects. After the lessons and Civic Expos, we support students in creating a Civic Engagement Project where they identify an issue within their community, research it and propose a solution. In only our second year, the number of projects has gone from eight to more than 40. Topics have ranged from reimagining a local park to working with our library and transportation systems to address knowledge gaps among Spanish-speaking populations in town.

This work will benefit our community for generations to come and we look forward to seeing how our young people build a Lexington they want to stay in, contribute to and lead.

Haley Wartell is the Communications Manager for CivicLex and oversees all external communications including social media, graphic design, and email marketing. She has a background in education and has worked closely with the Director of Civic Education, Stephanie Mobley on CivicLex’s civic education programming.