What's it like to be a Kid Governor?

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believe in what we do helps keep curiosity thriving. Head to buttwikids.org/donate to become a buttwifan club member or make a gift in any amount to support the show. Thanks and stay curious. This is but why a podcast for curious kids from Vermont Public. I'm Jane Lendol. On this show we take questions from curious kids just like you and we find interesting people to answer

them. A lot of the time those experts are adults. But as we've learned in the ten years

we've been making but why you all are experts in your own rights. Our guests today are governors.

They're finding ways to learn about civics and government and make their home states better places all while they're in the fifth grade. Now in the United States voters in each state elect a governor who then serves a two or four year term as the top government official in that state. Governors get to approve or veto bills for new laws sent to them by that state's legislative branch and they run the day-to-day business of the state and their adults. If that sounds like

something you'd like to do maybe you'll get into politics when you get older in a few places you don't have to wait. Five states participate in a civics education program called Kid Governor. Fifth graders in those states develop political platforms focusing on an issue they care about. Participating schools will vote for one student that they want to put forward for statewide candidacy. Seven students across the state are nominated as final candidates.

They create campaign videos about the issue they want to focus on and why kids should vote for them and then students around the state get to choose. The six finalists who are not elected governor get to serve in the eventual Kid Governor's Cabinet. The five states with Kid Governors are Connecticut, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Vermont. Since we live in Vermont one of the states that now has a Kid Governor we thought we'd check out what it's all about.

And since Melody and I both spent a lot of our careers working in news as hosts reporters, editors and producers we thought it would be fun to host a Kid press conference where the Kid Governor and Cabinet could answer questions from Kid reporters. Today on the episode we're going to hear a little bit from that Kid press conference and what it's like to be the Kid Governor of Vermont or a member of the Cabinet. And we'll also hear from Kid Governors in Connecticut

and Nebraska. When we hosted our Kid press conference I started by asking the 100 or so people in the room if they'd ever watched or listened to a press conference before. Some of them raise their hands. Then I asked if they ever thought about becoming politicians at some point. Again a smattering of hands went up. Fewer hands were raised when I asked who wanted to become a reporter which was a little sad for me but not all that surprising to be honest. But I wanted

to see if there was something everyone in the room might agree on. All right one more question

“anyone here think it's important to know what's going on in your community, in your state”

in your country, around the world, what the big issues are, and what the leaders who have power are doing to address the issues. Anyone here think that's important? Good. I was worried not all the hands would go up and just about all the hands went up. You are in the right place today. Before we got to the Kid Governor I then invited Vermont's Secretary of State up to the podium. The Secretary of State in each state is in charge of making sure elections run smoothly and

fairly. And for the state's participating in the Kid Governor program it's the Secretary of State who runs it. Here's Vermont's Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanses. I am so excited that all of you are here. I'm excited that you get to hear from the Kid Governor and her cabinet

and I'm excited that you get to ask them questions too because one of the most important things

about living in a democracy is that we get to ask our leaders questions and we get to tell them ideas that we have. Have you ever thought about or what would you think about doing this instead

“of that? That is our job as citizens in a democracy is to ask our leaders questions and I think”

it's so exciting that we are here today with the butt-wide podcast and the whole team from Vermont

Kid Governor program. We had over 1,000 fifth graders this year participating the Kid Governor

program 47 schools across the state and over 20 students ran for Kid Governor including some of the kids in the audience today. We like this program because it does more than just hold a mock election. It actually teaches kids how to put together a platform, how to put forward an idea of something that they want to fix in the world and the exciting thing is is that our office gets to work with this fabulous group of cabinet and governor and we get to help try to implement some of their

ideas. So remember in a democracy it is our job to hold our leaders accountable for the things that we think are important. So I'm looking forward to hearing your questions today and team Kid Governor and cabinet. I'm looking forward to hearing your answers. Thank you so much for being here. Because this event was a press conference and all the people in the audience were the press, I wanted to make sure we all understood the role of the press. Reporters and other journalists

who help make sure you know what's going on in the world and who ask tough questions of politicians. So I invited my friend and colleague Bob Kinzel to give us some tips. Bob is one of our political reporters here at Vermont Public where but why is made and he's been covering governors since the 1970s. I've covered Vermont politics for pretty much my adult life and one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much and I still enjoy it is the access that we have to public officials

and being able to ask them questions. It's really quite remarkable in Vermont and it's something that I really enjoy and I also have the feeling that all of you who are here today, you're here

“because you care otherwise you wouldn't be here. So I think that's a great sign for the future.”

All right so Bob what is the point of a press conference? What is a press conference designed to do? There are two different types of press conferences. One might be the Secretary of State might hold a press conference to talk about a ballot initiative. So it's very narrowly focused on that

particular issue. Another one might be the governor's weekly press conference. Now it's an incredible

tradition in Vermont that the governor holds a weekly press conference and the governor will come in. Governor Scott this week came in yesterday talked about his housing initiative and then said okay I'll take questions from the floor. This does not happen in many other states that it's a wide open press conference. You can talk about anything. So often the politician or the person who calls a press conference has something that they want to say something they want to

get out to the public through the press and then often they do take questions. What do the

“reporters who are the attendees at a press conference? What are they trying to get out of it?”

I think we're trying to understand what the issue is and I'll take the example with the Secretary of State of a ballot initiative. She might be talking about mail-in balloting and we allow mail-in ballots 45 days before an election and so we're trying to understand what is the issue that Secretary of State trying to tell us about and then you may have some questions about it. Well how is this going to work? What's the cost of this? Why do you think this is a good idea? Sometimes the

best questions are the simplest ones of just why do you think this is a good idea and to be able to get a response in that way. Now sometimes people don't answer questions and then we ask the question again. What do you do after the press conference? You've gotten the information that you want but your job isn't done. No, my job is just started so I go back to our office here in my

“pillar and I think about what is the story here? What is what we call the lead of this story?”

And then start to fill in the blanks as we go along and tell a story as best as I can. Do you have advice for the kid reporters in our audience today of how they might think about framing a question or what they might ask the kinds of things? I would say keep your questions simple. Don't piggyback them. Don't say well I'd like to know this and what about that and while

you're at it let's talk about this. So make your first question just very concise. What is

it that you want to know? Ask that question and then listen to the answer. Well this was really helpful. Bob thank you very much for helping us understand what our job is here as the people who are watching the press conference. Thank you for your reporting. Oh thank you.

up today to speak with us kid governor, Roslyn Fortin of high gate, come on up, Roslyn.

Hi many of his Roslyn and then Vermont's kid governor. I'm from high gate remote in intent high gate elementary school. My platform is homelessness. I chose homelessness because everyone deserves a safe place to live and I want to help bring awareness and hope to be

“who needed. And did you know that Vermont is the fourth highest in the country for homelessness?”

I have also learned that working together is really important projects like these because you need a lot of ideas here. Others ideas and you need a lot of teamwork too. Thank you.

In addition to Roslyn there are six cabinet members who join her and making their voices heard.

Here's just a tiny bit about what each of them is focused on. I'm Dale and Macnaut and it's an weather school school. My platform is an improving school lunches because I was here kids complaining about the taste and nutrition. My name is Krin Ashley. My platform is mental health and I chose mental health because I used to live in Japan and in Japan like you can like trust people but when I came to America our school had to do safety drills and you don't have to

do those in Japan and I was thinking that the main reason usually for people like

and in treating schools is when they were a little they didn't have a good time at school so

I decided to make that my issue. Hello my name is Lincoln Rada. I go to a Lincoln community school. I currently live in Lincoln Raman but I was born in Hawaii. My platform is healthcare accessibility. 3% of people in Raman are uninsured or about 22,000 people. Raman has a shortage of doctors, dentants, nurses and other medical professionals. Also since we live in such a rural state it takes some time to get to a hospital or other helps that people need. I, my name is Ramanow.

I go to Champlain Elementary School in Burlington, Burma. My platform is called Vermont Strong inside and out. I wanted to run for a kid governor because I started noticing that a lot of people in my community were struggling with their mental health. I saw kids feeling stressed and adults feeling overwhelmed and it made me realize this is something we should talk about more and work on together. That inspired me to run and try to help make a

difference. My platform focuses on helping students take care of their minds and support each other. My name is Weston Dren 4th. I go to Bradford Elementary. I'm also from Bradford, Vermont.

“My platform is anti-boying. I chose anti-boying because I believe it's a very important topic.”

One out of every five kids get bored. I believe that that number can be lowered. The sixth member of the cabinet Phoebe was sick the day of the press conference and wasn't able to attend the event. Her platform is addressing mental health issues. Now remember how Bob Kinzel told us that politicians will often start with a little bit of information and then reporters get to ask whatever questions they might have on those topics or others.

After the opening remarks from each member of the cabinet and the kid governor, it was time for the kids in the audience to ask those questions. Here are just a few of the ones they directed to Vermont's kid governor. This is for a rust one. Do you know anyone that's homeless? I don't know anyone that's homeless but I have like seen like I don't personally know anybody that's homeless but I have seen people like homeless people. What can Vermont

“do to help to homeless? I think Vermont could help by like donating like clothes that they don't use”

or like um like clothes or like blankets or something or they could donate to local homeless shelters and yeah. One of my favorite questions of the evening went to Galen whose platform is to improve school lunches. There were a lot of kids in the audience who had questions about that.

and allergies. Do you have any ideas to help their meals become better?

“Yeah. So recently we changed things for lactose intolerant. They never get chocolate milk.”

So we have chocolate almond milk now for those kids who can't have the regular milk because they thought it was not fair to not have the same things that the kids without the allergies have and we have sun butter and jolly sandwiches and sometimes we have gluten-free

dairy and free most of the time not free meals but others we always have paraphay sandwiches

and other things like that but that's I'll keep that in mind because a lot of meals are not competitive with dietary problems like that. I like that question and answer in particular because it showed a reporter asking a question about people in their community who might not be getting served well by school lunches and Galen who is working to improve them was able not only to share what he's been doing at his school to try to make sure everyone gets to enjoy

chocolate milk if they want to but also that then the question reminded him to think a little

bit more deeply about what else he could do in his role. Thanks to the Vermont kid governor and

kid cabinet and all of the kid reporters in the audience for making our kid press conference such a big success. Coming up we'll hear from kid governors in Connecticut and Nebraska. This is but why? I'm Jane Lindholm and today we're learning about kid governor, a civic education program where fifth graders take part in a statewide election to choose a kid governor for a one-year term in their state. Five states have a kid governor this year

and each governor is working to raise awareness and take action on a specific issue. In Connecticut kid governor Tessa wants to address inclusion for students with disabilities. It's great to be able to make a change in Connecticut and work with a team to help make this day a better place.

“What changes are you hoping to make to Connecticut that would make it a better place?”

I'm hoping to make it more inclusive and more non-judgmental towards disabled children. How do you get to do that as a as the kid governor? How do you use that platform to try to achieve those goals? Well I'm going to use my three platform steps which are creating videos to show how to include students of disabilities. Creating a buddy system where fifth graders pair with students with disabilities and creating a buddy lunch table where students can sit together and have an

inclusive lunch. I know you're only a couple of months in so far but how are you implementing it? Like how are what who's helping you? How do you use this role to like make that happen statewide? Well my school, my teachers, my friends, my family have all been helping me and I've been doing a lot of interviews. I've been out a couple of events where I've told people about my platform and helped raise awareness about what's happening. But so far we haven't moved forward on my

platform as much. We will get started soon now. That sounds a lot like politics at the adult level too. You run with all of these ideas and then you get started and it's hard. There's a lot to do and there are a lot of different people who have to get involved and sometimes things are harder

than just saying here's what I want to do and I'm the governor and I get to implement it.

Are you experiencing some of that? A little bit. There are some kids who don't know who I am

“so I have to explain myself over and over and then there are some kids who I think a little”

afraid to talk to me because well I'm much more statewide known than most people have than people most people of that. Yeah, it's or they intimidated a little bit to talk to you do you think? I think so. So what do you do when you think people either don't know who you are or are intimidated to talk with you? If they don't know who I am I try to explain a little bit and if they're intimidated I try to just talk to them like I would to my friends or to somebody before I was a kid governor.

fourth graders this year who are thinking maybe I want to do this or maybe my state doesn't have

“a kid governor program and I think I'd like to encourage them to have one. Do you have advice?”

I would say go for it. The kid governor community is an awesome program and it's a great way to learn about civics and it's also a great way to think about what you want to do, how you want to change your state. And I would say that if you're feeling nervous just take a deep breath and make sure you have people who are proud of you no matter what. That was kid governor Tessa of Connecticut. Meanwhile in Nebraska, kid governor Charlie wants to raise awareness about cancer

an issue that's really important to her. I know that I'm a natural leader and I really want to

help people with that. At first I didn't actually think of it as like this big. When did you

start to realize uh oh I've gotten myself into something big. When I was one of the seven candidates

“for the statewide election because I honestly didn't think I would get that far. I would see only”

one from my school to be in the statewide election because the other one, Delaney, my best friend, she for some reason didn't make it into the statewide election. So then you were in the statewide election and kids from all over Nebraska got to vote and one I mean kids in your school know who you are so they might know oh yeah Charlie's a natural leader this makes sense but kids around the state don't necessarily know who you are and so one of the things that you had to do was have a platform

that you run on some ideas of the things that you'd like to work on to benefit your state if you

“were elected kid governor what's your platform? My platform is cancer awareness. How did you choose”

that? Both of my sisters their father died of cancer I wasn't born yet but their father died of

cancer and I just I've never experienced what it felt like but I came pretty pretty close to because

in 2024 my my father had a heart attack. So this feels personal to you. Yes. Yeah and it affects people you love. Yes. So how do you hope to bring awareness to people in Nebraska or to the issues of cancer and cancer research and cancer care and prevention? First off I want to raise money for places that can help people with that like campcassum and I also just want to have people to be aware and know how hard cancer is if a friend or family member doesn't and for people who do have friends or family

members that have cancer I want them to know that you're not alone and that we can help. Is campcassum a camp for kids who've been affected by cancer in their families? Yes. So campcassum is for kids ages 6 through 18 for kids whose family members or friends even have been affected by cancer and my sisters went there when their father died. So part of your platform is raising money for organizations that that help people who are affected by this. Clearly your platform

resonated or spoke to kids who were voting for who the governor should be. So you won the state election. How did you get the news? We waited a while for the news, but one Friday after school, Mr. Bill is back, our science and social studies teacher, he called me down to his room after school and then I said that we needed to talk about something. So I didn't assume I was in trouble. I just didn't know what was going on and then he broke the news that I won and my brain was just

two other kid governors, Livia in New Hampshire, who's working to address the dangers of smoking,

“vaping and drugs and Caitlin, the kid governor in Oklahoma, who wants to address issues of animal”

abuse. So far, only five states have kid governors. If your state isn't one of them,

maybe you can help get it started. Ask your teacher to look into the program. Even if you don't

“want to be a kid governor, we have some homework for you. We want you to think about an issue”

in your community that you think needs attention. Then come up with three ideas for how you could work to address that issue. Write them down. Then talk to an adult about what you can do to

“move forward on your goals. After all, it's not just governors, kid or adults who get things”

done in our communities. You too can make a difference. That's it for this episode. As always,

if you have a question about anything, have an adult record you asking it on a smartphone, using an app like voice memos. Then have them email the file to [email protected]. Our show is produced by Sarah Bake, Melody Bodet and me, Jane Lindholm, at Vermont Public, and Distributed by PRX. Our video producer is Joey Palombo, and our theme music is by Luke Reynolds. If you like our show, please have your adults help you give us a thumbs up or a review on

whatever podcast platform you use to listen to us. It helps other kids and families find us. We'll be back in two weeks with an all new episode. Until then, stay curious. From PRX.