For over a decade, Noble Schools has been registering our students to vote. In 2024, we started marching to the polls properly, taking our seniors directly to polling sites to increase voter participation beyond registration.
Next week, we’ll be sending our students again! And this time, they’ll be able to vote for the leaders who will impact their schools.
This election is the first time the school board will be fully elected. Since 1995, Chicago Public Schools has had a mayor-elected board. In 2024, the board was half elected and half appointed. This November, voters will elect all 21 board members, including the board president.
370 students from all 17 of our campuses will head to the polls next week. 15 campuses will go to the downtown supersite next Wednesday and Thursday to vote with support from our partner organization, Chicago Votes. Over the past few weeks, many of our schools have hosted events to help students register and prepare to make an informed vote, in collaboration with Chicago Votes and other partners, including ICIRR, the League of Women Voters, and the Chicago alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Sabrina Shelley, a Noble Schools’ family engagement associate, organizes this effort across our campuses. Every year, seeing the pride and excitement of our first-time voters reminds her this work matters.
“Creating opportunities for Noble students to vote is about more than casting a ballot. It’s about helping them recognize their power and understand how to use it… We’re not just taking students to vote for one day; we’re helping them find their voice and shape the future they want to see.” Shelley said. “We’re reminding them that they matter.”
Check out the highlights from last year’s march:
“I think a lot of young people don’t realize how much power their voice has. The place we are with our government— it’s a great time to use that power. I think it’s a great time for us to speak our mind and stand up to what’s going on in the world.”
– Jack Linares, Golder College Prep
“It matters to me because I want to feel safe in my own country, in my own state, and wherever I live. And I feel like everyone should want to feel safe, and they should want to vote. I feel like, if you don’t want to vote, why? Why? Why don’t you want to vote? You should want to vote because you should want to feel safe. You should want to have a say in who runs your country and where you live.”
– Makiyah Stanciel, Noble Street College Prep
“I decided to come vote today because we are the new generation here. Since, we’re getting the most affected now, I think it’s important for us to speak up and try to be the change… We hold the power now to make a change in society today. it’s really important to address these struggles right now and vote for people that will help ease them and bring a change in society.”
– Arianna Guzman, Pritzker College Prep
“I feel like a lot of older generations try to lessen our generation, try to silence us. And I feel like if we speak up more, and our voices are more heard, people will take us more seriously, especially since we’re younger.”
– Ingrid Griffin, Gary Comer College Prep
“It feels good to finally get my voice out there and let my voice be heard because everybody deserves to have an opinion on what’s going on in the world… The issue that matters to me most is the fact that a lot of young kids go through things they shouldn’t go through. I feel like certain people in office could really change that.”
– Quincy Stone, Rowe-Clark Math & Science Academy
“Being a first-time voter feels great, because it feels like it’s our first time to open our mouths and speak for who we want to choose. We get to pick the right person to have a positive impact in our community and our state.”
– Evelyn Gomez, Mansueto High School
“{Voting} doesn’t feel real to me just yet. I never thought I’d get to a point where I get to have a say-so on how my city, my state, my country is run. I always just saw how people complain about it; I never saw the beauty of it until now. And now I have a choice. I have a voice.”
– Sean Lawson, Baker College Prep
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