Design for Election Season
2024
is Now Available!
Leadership+Design is excited to build on our 2020 Design for Election Week program by creating an updated Design for Election Season experience that will leave educators feeling confident and prepared to build civil discourse skills with students.
Design for Election Season offers experiences for school communities that build institutional trust, deepen human relationships and inspire learning - about the political process, about critical election issues, about one another, and about oneself.
Our Game Plan
Leadership+Design has created a new and updated Election Season experience for your school that is fully downloadable. This year, have designed the election season experience for schools around three modules:
1) Preparation - This module provides you with everything your school needs to prepare for the 2024 elections season including how to create an election design team, how to facilitate conversations with the professional community, the board of trustees, students and parents that set clear expectations and agreements for election conversations, design tools to set goals for the year and create touch points for students. These materials are suitable for schools that serve students grades K-12 but with an emphasis on middle and high school students. AVAILABLE NOW!
2) Engagement - This module contains countless activities for students that can be used in classes, advisory, assemblies, club time, lunch conversations or anywhere you might find you want to engage students in deepening their capacity to engage in civil discourse across diverse political ideologies, critical thinking about election issues, and personal reflection around their own biases, values and lived experiences that shape their beliefs and opinions. These materials are designed with a high school audience in mind but most can be used or adapted for middle school audiences as well. AVAILABLE AUGUST 1, 2024
3) Action - One of the primary goals of this program is that students will be inspired by having critical conversations across political ideologies and they will want to take this work of anti-polarization forward into their communities. This module provides tips and resources on how students might spread the work beyond their campus. AVAILABLE AUGUST 1, 2024.
The Design for Election Season platform will be made available to anyone in you community when you purchase the program.
The cost of the full experience - all materials and resources- is $499.00.
Interested in Learning More?
Consider joining us for an info session where an L+D partner will walk you through the platform and answer your questions.
We have assembled set of materials that we hope you will find helpful this year, both as you plan for the upcoming school year and as you support students throughout the election!
Does the election make you anxious?
We have heard from educators that they are anxiously anticipating the fall election. Over the last four years, our schools have reflected the changing way that people relate to each other regarding the larger political landscape. More specifically, the 2016 and 2020 elections marked an inflection point that has continued to reflect a deeply divided country. Fast forward to 2024, and we are looking ahead to November and anticipating emotions running high with an outcome that is likely to test our school communities. What used to be an opportunity to learn about the democratic process and about important issues has become a polarizing experience, leaving many schools wondering how to approach the election. If we can get past the understandable anxiety, we see a huge opportunity to develop the capacity in our students to have conversations across diverse political ideologies, think critically about election issues, and be prepared to participate fully in the democratic process.
Design a better experience.
As a human-centered design firm, we felt compelled to provide opportunities for school teachers, students and leaders to come together to better understand one another and to deepen curiosity for different perspectives. Knowing that Election Season will trigger emotions and that emotions will underpin the conversations, how might school communities be intentional about how we talk, where we talk and how might the election week experience be deeply human and designed to meet students where they are?
We have assembled set of materials that we hope you will find helpful this year, both as you plan for the upcoming school year and as you support students throughout the election!