In the upcoming days and weeks you may be approached or called by your CFT Building Rep, a fellow CFT Teacher, or an AFT staff member working out of our office to ask for your support in doing a little bit of election work for this November.  There are two different ways in which you can be of assistance in this upcoming election. 

The first activity is that if you are in a high school you could assist 18 year-old students in registering to vote and then voting early through the Hamilton County Early Voting Process.  We will have voter registration forms and early voting applications in every school.  You can even help organize early voting trips for your students and/or parents from your school to the Board of Elections any time in October.  Call the office if you would like support in pulling that together.  If you are a social studies teacher in a High School, you can download from the Home Page of our CFT website a voting rights curriculum to use in your classroom.  It is entitled: Fulfilling the Promise of America: The Struggle for Voting Rights.  This PDF booklet contains Standards Based Lesson Plans, Primary Source Material, and a student directed Interview Project about Voting in America.  Created by Ohio Youth Voices, this curriculum can be a great addition to the work 7-12 social studies teachers are already doing in their classrooms. 

If you are in an elementary (or a high school), you can also help the parents of your students to do the same thing by registering parents before October 6 and then assisting them by providing the early voting application form.  We will be glad to assist you at any sporting events, Parent Organization meetings or Parent Conference Nights.  All of these activities, including the Voting Rights Curriculum do not involve advocating for any candidate or party for the presidency or any other elected office.  This is totally non-partisan and part of our civic duty as teachers to help our students and parents to become more engaged in the political life and process of our country. 

Secondly, if you would like to be more involved in the election please help us in our efforts to elect the AFT/OFT & CFT endorsed candidates for political office starting with Barack Obama and Joe Biden for President and Vice President.  Inside this NewsLiner we