For the past nearly 20 years, Scott Symons has been dedicated to giving his students a voice. For this 19-year history teacher, school is about much more than lessons and testing.
“When you folks register to vote, you are going to be asked to pick a party affiliation,” said Symons, a Windsor High School history teacher.
With election season approaching, Mr. Symons spends a portion of the week getting 18-year-old students registered to vote, and pre-registering younger students.
“As kids start to become 18 where we usually register them to vote, they get really busy and all of a sudden they miss that election cycle and we have had a low voter turnout across this country from young kids, and young kid’s voices are just as important as older people,” said Symons.
Over his past 19 years of teaching, Symons has witnessed his students becoming more and more interested in politics. Of the Windsor seniors, nearly all who are eligible have now officially registered to vote in the upcoming election.
“The kids the last two election cycles have been really into the presidential election. They know who’s running, they know where they stand, they talk about it with their parents and they bring those ideas into school so it’s been a lot of fun around election time,” said Symons.
But as Symons helps these students become new voters, they’re also learning about the importance of local elections. They now have a voice in everything from the school budget to local laws.
“Some of the kids didn’t even know we had a mayor of Windsor so just they understand that there’s local level officials that are walking around in our neighborhood creating policy that can effect them is really important,” said Symons.
Symons knows these students are the future and as long as he’s teaching, he’ll push to make sure their voices are heard. Young voters had a record turnout of 50% in 2020, which was an 11% jump from 2016.
