Farías asks about electoral and governmental civics instruction
Amanda Farías asks how DOE teaches electoral and governmental civics, including voter pre-registration and understanding the two-party system. She says community members often think young people are not engaged in voting.
Councilmember Farias.
Thank you, Chairs.
And apologies if this was discussed earlier in this way.
We've had several hearings today that I've had to pop in and out of.
I just want to get a better idea of how, even if adjacently, we're teaching electoral and governmental civics to students through this programming.
I hear, and I want to reiterate what all of my colleagues are saying, when we go in community, people are coming to us, and their initial thought of hearing civic engagement always directly aligns to voting power and electoral power
and how they don't think young people are engaged in that way or being auto-enrolled or understanding our two-party system in New York State and how there's influxes across the tri-state and the nation.
So can you help me?
better understand how we're encouraging that since this is K through 12 and we are, we know folks can, young people can enroll early into their voter registration status and then, you know, be ready to vote when they're 18.