Creating Civically Engaged Students

Founded by Richard Marcus in 2015, March to the Polls established their Student Voter Empowerment Coalitions to address a Texas state mandate that high school seniors be introduced to the process of civic engagement twice a year. After all, most high school seniors are or will be of voting age. This includes registering students to vote.

According to March to the Polls, only 31% of high schools in our area met the mandated obligation to register student to vote. March to the Polls says that they have raised that number significantly.

Each semester, March to the Polls gives presentations to senior-level social studies classes. In these presentations, that school’s Student Voting Empowerment Coalition is formed, which allows students to engage on campus throughout the year. March to the Polls started their high school initiative in Dallas County, but now there are Student Voter Empowerment Coalitions across the Metroplex. And March to the Polls is working to build these coalitions on all high school campuses in North Texas.

Camila Correa Bourdeau is March to the Polls’ executive director. She is passionate about giving young people the best tools to become actively involved in their communities.

Coming from an educational background, Bourdeau said, “I immigrated from Chile; my parents were recruited to teach. Because of them, I was encouraged to go into teaching myself. I realized how little I was able to do as a teacher in terms of influencing change. That’s when I started volunteering for school board campaigns and got elected to be a union representative at one of my school campuses.”

Eventually, Correa Bourdeau left the classroom to work for an educational non-profit focused on school boards. It was through that job that she discovered the work March to the Polls was doing with high school campus outreach. She started volunteering with them in 2017 because she saw the chance for a different level of engagement.

Engagement is important. In the past, a high school voter drive might have been a parent sitting at a table in the cafeteria, hoping to register students during their lunch break. Now, as Correa Bourdeau said, “We’re going into the classroom and making sure we’re talking with every senior, putting the registration form in front of their face.”

March to the Polls presents to approximately 20,000 high school seniors every year. Sample ballots are given to the students, encouraging them to research the candidates. A significant part of the classroom presentations involves making students aware of government beyond the national races, familiarizing them with their local elections for city council and school board. At one school, March to the Polls took 50 students on a field trip to a school board meeting so they could see the decisions that impact them most directly being made.

Former Texas State Representative Lon Burnam and March to the Polls board member Athena Chavez were integral in expanding March to the Polls’ mission into Tarrant County schools. Lin Patton joined March to the Polls in 2019 and has been the Tarrant County Voter Engagement Leader since December 2021, working with volunteers to coordinate this important outreach.

“I’ve always been active with voting and voter registration; it’s one of my passions. So when I had this opportunity to work with the youth [of Tarrant County], it was really exciting for me,” Patton said.

In March of 2022, March to the Polls organized meetings with Fort Worth ISD’s leaders, including Dr. Cherie Washington, the districts’ Director of Secondary Schools. She authorized March to the Polls to establish Student Voter Empowerment Coalitions on all 21 secondary school campuses in the district.

Part of the work on school campuses is training volunteers to be licensed to register voters. In order to register voters, a volunteer must become a Voter Deputy Registrar. March to the Polls now offers Voter Deputy Registrar certification training. “We’ve brought four counties together, Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant, so people can learn to register voters in all of those counties with one training [session],” Correa Bourdeau said.

Voter Deputy Registrar certification training occurs in the summer. Many teachers and a growing number of parents took advantage of March to the Polls’ certification programs this summer.

Correa Bourdeau knows politics is a divisive subject.

“At the end of the day, it all comes down to trust. Our work is absolutely on the side of the law [which mandates student voter registration] … we have to provide opportunities for students to register to vote.”