Photo courtesy of Mary Stephens Pugh.
Students at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School vote for their favorite book series in a special election designed to teach the students about the election process.
Students at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School learned about the voting process by participating in a special school election called Series in Chief.
In light of the national election, students in grades K-8 cast their votes Nov. 2- 3 for their favorite “candidate,” which was a library book series. To prepare for the election, they learned about their “candidates” using virtual Bitmoji “rooms,” and they cast their votes online at school.
“The ‘candidates’ for our election were the most-checked-out book series over the last four years according to our library catalog statistics,” Karen Sullivan, OLS School librarian said.
For grades K-3, the choices were the Fly Guy series by Tedd Arnold, the Piggie and Elephant series by Mo Willems and the Color-licious series by Victoria Kahn. For grades 4-8, the choices were The Amulet series by Kabu Kibuishi, The Smile series by Raina Telgemeier and the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.
The day the students voted, the 8th grade Peer Helpers managed four polling stations outside of the grades K-3 classrooms to assist them with electronic voting on Google Chromebooks. Sullivan oversaw the electronic polling stations for the older students in the library. After casting their votes, student voters received a God Bless America sticker. Proper sanitation procedures were enforced to stay in alignment with all safety and health procedures.
“We were so pleased with our school book series election,” Mrs. Mary Jane Dorn said, the OLS Principal. “We felt it was a great way to teach our students about the election process and the importance of voting.”
The winner of the book series election was Piggie and Elephant for K-3 and Harry Potter for grades 4-8. New library-bound volumes of each winning series for both upper and lower grades will be purchased for the school to meet the high demand for checkouts. Sullivan plans to contact each author of the winning series to announce their victorious status as the OLS Series in Chief.
Submitted by Mary Stephens Pugh.
