Even before the pandemic made gathering difficult, the Wheaton League of Women Voters realized that changes in the journalism industry had hit the coverage of local civic news especially hard.
“Newspapers used to send reporters to cover every city council meeting. But that isn’t happening anymore,” said Barb Laimins. “The League noticed and started brainstorming how we could help.”
To start, the League began training observers to attend meetings and report to members. But fellow members, Pam Zimmermann and Julie Wachowski had another idea—get local high school students involved.
As a former high school civics teacher, Ms. Laimins was excited about the idea. “Involving students in a meaningful project that connects them to their community and broadens their knowledge of local governing bodies—that’s a teacher’s dream come true!”
Together, the three former educators have created a “candidates in the classroom” project. As a final project, student journalists create video interviews of candidates for upcoming elections. Interviews are conducted using the League’s non-partisan rules and later posted to the League website, as part of the organization’s mission to provide the community election information.
With support from the Regional Office of Instruction, journalism classes in both Wheaton high schools are involved. Instructors, Grace Garbrecht at Wheaton Warrenville South, and Wesley Solether, at Wheaton North, have invited the League into their journalism classes to discuss non-partisanship, the role of local government and how to develop interview questions.
“This was actually cool,” one student was overheard saying after the interviews. “I could see myself doing journalism now.”
Candidates running in a variety of local elections are invited. Each candidate has a chance to be individually video interviewed by a small group of students. Afterward, they answer students’ questions in a casual panel forum. Candidates seem to enjoy the opportunity as much as the students.
“We are so proud of how this project turned out,” said Judy Beaver, President of the Wheaton League of Women Voters. “We’re hoping to expand the program to other local high schools and get more students involved.”
The project is making news in more than one way. Chicago’s local CBS affiliate sent a reporter to find out more about the project ahead of the spring elections.
View the CBS segment and student interviews.