Mountain resident Jillian Kyle has a tough decision this fall when it comes to
electing her president, because, as she notes, both candidates are her really
good friends. And with the stakes for this election so high, with the winner
receiving a four-week term as the president of Kyle’s fifth grade class at
Welches Schools, every vote will count.

“They’re both really really good students in the classroom,” said Kyle, 10, of
the two candidates, Abby Perez and David Hernandez.

The classroom election was the brainchild of teacher Kalee Adams, who took
the structure of the national presidential election and set it in her classroom.
For the unit, Adams broke up her class into various groups: two political
parties (each with a president, vice-president, campaign manager and three
team members), one to create a voting booth, one for ballots, one for voter
registration cards and a final one for debate questions. All students were
randomly assigned to a group, with the roles (such as president) also
randomly assigned.

Furthermore, the two political parties - the Wildcats Party and the Welches
Party - created donation letters to solicit donations of fake money (distributed
to school staff) to buy supplies for banners, stickers and other materials.

“We’re trying to make it as real life as possible,” Adams said, adding they may
try to make commercials on Chromebooks. “I think the thing that most of
them are excited about is because they have to earn that money and they’re
creating it, each team has a creativity piece.”

The non-party groups mirrored real life aspects of the election, with those in
charge of voter registration finding alternatives to the typical questions, such
as, “Are you 10 years old or older?”

The two candidates were honing their message for the electorate, while also
working hard to get that message out.

“The hardest part is working with your team and managing them,” said
Hernandez, the top of the ticket for the Welches Party, who is pushing for
more variety for the school’s pizza lunches and adding a wider range of
dietary options, such as gluten-free.

Perez, 10, the candidate for the Wildcat Party, noted she’s focused on raising
donations because, “running for president is not free.” But she noted that she
may have an advantage due to the staff around her.

“My campaign manager, Jacob, he’s like, ‘We’re not going to let you lose,’ she
said. “It feels good. Ms. Adams said that’s a really good campaign manager.”
Landen O’Donnell, 10, was on the group coming up with debate questions,
and noted the difficulty was in narrowing down all the possibilities to get to a
final list of 20. He noted that among the questions that made the cut include
ones about wearing hats at school and chewing gum.

“There’s a lot of questions we could ask them, but we had to choose some,”
he said, adding that the debate will play “a big role” in determining his vote.
Timothy McMillion, 10, worked on the ballot for the unit and noted he learned
a great deal about the election process.

“I just thought it was a bunch of paperwork,” McMillion said, noting that a big
factor in casting his vote will be “how well they handle things.”

Tytan Rocha, 11, worked on the voting booth (something utilized in most
states, but not in Oregon), which ran into some issues.

“The tape isn’t strong, so it’s been a challenge to get up the roof with tape like
that,” Rocha said.

He added that he’s learned a lot about the three branches of government,
while he has some ideas that his ideal candidate would support.

“I like recess; maybe we could add on just a little bit more, 20 minutes of
recess,” Rocha said.