The First Annual Washington State Senate Civic Education Day was held at the state capitol in Olympia on February 21. The event was the result of a bipartisan effort of the Washington State Senate. Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt led the effort. At the event, We the People Programs coordinators, teachers, and students were honored.
Ten Outstanding Civic Educator Awards were presented; five of the recipients are involved with the We the People Programs. These recipients were Ken Brown, We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution teacher of the 2007 Washington state champion class from Gig Harbor High School; Tom Coraggio, We the People competing teacher and trainer at Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines; Kathy Hand, Washington We the People and We the People: Project Citizen state coordinator; Patti McMaster, Project Citizen District 3 coordinator, trainer, and competing We the People teacher at Evergreen High School in Vancouver; and Jennifer Reidel, We the People competing teacher at Lynden High School.
For the Outstanding Civic Educator Award, legislators were asked to nominate people who had demonstrated commitment to civic education. Judi Best, Senate Civic Education and Intern Coordinator and a National Conference of State Legislatures’ (NCSL) America’s Legislators Back to School Program Coordinator, was responsible for organizing the event. Best said that award recipient Kathy Hand was honored for her “very long, distinguished service for civic education in Washington state” and recognized for her “efforts all over the world.”
During the event, a vote was held on Senate Resolution 8637, which recognized civic education and civic educators, and the state senators took turns speaking on the floor. Hand said that many of the senators referred to the We the People program and proudly described their own involvement. One senator said that she frequently judges an elementary school competition. Another mentioned his former teacher, award recipient Patti McMaster. Hand said that State Senator Karen Keiser made sure that her child took award recipient Tom Coraggio’s We the People class because Corragio was such a wonderful teacher and because she recognized the importance of the program.
In the afternoon, four students from Donnetta Elasser’s former Project Citizen classes from Touchet Elementary and High School in eastern Washington made a presentation to the state senators. The students discussed how Project Citizen had affected their lives and described why they continue to work on their projects despite having graduated from junior high school. They presented an overview of Project Citizen and discussed three projects their respective classes had undertaken.
Courtesy of Senate Civic Education Program, Washington State Legislature
A Junior Statesman student (left) converses with a We the People: Project Citizen student (right) at the state capitol in Olympia during the First Annual Washington State Senate Civic Education Day, February 21, 2007.
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Teacher Ken Brown and his We the People students from Gig Harbor High School were also present.
Karl Kurtz, director of the Trust for Representative Democracy for the NCSL, and Booth Gardner, retired governor of Washington, were guest speakers. Judi Best said the idea for the Washington State Senate Civic Education Day came from a meeting of coordinators of the NCSL’s America’s Legislators Back to School Program during the Project Citizen coordinator conference in October 2006. The event will be held every year. The next Washington State Senate Civic Education Day will be February 20, 2008.
Courtesy of Senate Civic Education Program, Washington State Legislature
Karl Kurtz, director of the Trust for Representative Democracy for the National Conference of State Legislatures, was a guest speaker.
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