Forsyth School students learn about elections by voting for a new mascot

When visitors walked into Forsyth School near Forest Park, they were greeted by colorful signs and a lot of red, white and blue.

Tucked in the back of one of the buildings was a room that closely resembles a traditional polling station, which millions of Americans will visit on Election Day.

Except at this station, the poll workers were much younger, and the election was for their beloved school mascot — Freddie the Falcon.

The recent contest, which included students as young as 2 years old to sixth graders, was a schoolwide lesson for students to learn about how elections are held in the U.S.

"Just recognizing how important civics education is and how we're in such a politicized and polarized world, I think it's incredibly important that kids learn about the voting process," said Stephanie Teachout, upper division director at Forsyth School. "When a lot of schools and a lot of educators are saying, 'No, I can't touch this. This feels too big, too scary.' I love the way that we made this accessible for students who are 2 years old all the way through sixth graders."

Schools have been at the center of political controversies in recent years — including book bans and battles over curriculum.

The election for school mascot had three candidates, which were three different versions of the school mascot.

Freddie No. 1 has a red neck, brown belly and a pretty fire-colored head, according to sixth grader Leo.

Freddie No. 2 has no fingers, yellow legs and a scary-looking beak. The students agreed he was the scariest-looking one.

Freddie No. 3 has a red neck and belly and red-tipped wings.

Over the last month, sixth grade students served as campaign managers and developed platforms for each of the Freddies.

Benjamin, a sixth grade student, said he served as the campaign manager for Freddie 3.

"We had to come up with a catchy phrase first," Benjamin said. "So we decided 'Freddie 3' for Forsyth family."

Students had to incorporate the school's honor code, which includes practicing honesty, kindness and respect, into each of their campaigns and then created signs to hang around the school to accompany their campaigns.

Third graders created the neon green "I Voted" sticker.

Sixth graders learned how to work with polling pads, provided by a software company called Knowink that specializes in election security. It's a small touchscreen that is used to check in voters and verify their identities at polling stations around the country.

Once the student voters were checked in, the pad printed out a receipt, which was then turned over to the ballot clerks. They double-checked the student's name and then handed them a ballot.

Students filled out their ballots and then dropped them in a traditional red, white and blue ballot box.

"I think it's important [to learn about the election] because we have an election this year," said Owen, a sixth grader at Forsyth. "We need to know how to vote because we're going to be doing it in eight years."

Another sixth grader, Maddie, said she was excited to learn that she can work as a poll worker in a few years. St. Louis allows children ages 15-17 to work as greeters, technical specialists or election judges.

"We can talk about the electoral process," said Joe Kaminski, a social studies teacher at Forsyth School. "We can talk about the Electoral College. We can talk about the process of voting, but finding something that's real and tangible and impactful in our students' lives, picking a new mascot, and that's something that is their decision, they get to live with."

Students broke up into teams and counted the ballots at the end of the day.

The final result: Freddie 2, the kind of scary-looking one, was the winner.