{"id":20384,"date":"2025-10-10T15:57:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=20384"},"modified":"2025-10-10T15:57:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:57:27","slug":"mcclure-works-to-engage-high-school-students-in-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/20384-mcclure-works-to-engage-high-school-students-in-government\/","title":{"rendered":"McClure Works to Engage High School Students in Government"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High school students from across Central Illinois recently had the opportunity to try their hand at the legislative process through a program hosted by State Senator Steve McClure (R-Springfield) in Springfield.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis is an opportunity to encourage students to become the next generation of leaders,\u201d said Senator McClure. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to see these students explore their interest in politics and government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Senator McClure\u2019s Youth Advisory Council welcomed 78 students from across the 54<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Senate District to the University of Illinois campus in Springfield. There students learned more about government by hearing from the Mayor of Springfield, the Illinois Auditor General, and a Senate Caucus spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs young people, we are the future of this country. I know a lot of people don\u2019t like to get involved with politics, but they\u2019re the same people who are greatly affected by stuff like this, by the laws and policies put in place,\u201d said Central A &amp; M High School student Lynna Kearney. \u201cThis has definitely opened my eyes and helped me try to figure out how I can connect to people and put my ideas out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf we don\u2019t understand how it works, how are we going to vote and know what we\u2019re voting for,\u201d said Gillespie High School student Douglas Neverdowski. \u201cWhen you vote for a president, or even a Senator that goes to the state, that\u2019s going to affect your county, that\u2019s going to affect your schools, your businesses, your districts, maybe even your income tax will be affected by that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The students also proposed ideas for their own legislation, including bills that would improve access to mental health for schools, increase access to assessments, and make food healthier. In the afternoon, the students held a mock legislative committee hearing, where they served in various roles, from legislators to lobbyists and concerned citizens.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI am stuck at a table with people I\u2019ve never met before, and it\u2019s really interesting to find common ground on things that we want in our society, and I find that even though we\u2019re from all over and of different kinds, that we all want the same things,\u201d said Effingham High School student Hollann Thoele.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe learned a lot about the basics of the legislative process, city level, state level, things like that, how to do bills, talk in committees, debate bills, and have good debates about other stuff,\u201d said Springfield High School student Caiden Bietsch. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of adults I know that don\u2019t even know how this works, and for us as a nation to make more informed opinions and to be able to kind of rewrite the script of agreeing with each other, or disagreeing, respectfully, understanding how that process works, how voting works, how bills are going through that process, will overall help us in that pursuit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Senator McClure\u2019s Youth Advisory Council is open to all high schools in the 54<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Senate District. If you know of a student who may be interested in taking part next year, they are encouraged to talk to their principal or superintendent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High school students from across Central Illinois recently had the opportunity to try their hand at the legislative process through a program hosted by State Senator Steve McClure (R-Springfield) in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>McClure Works to Engage High School Students in Government - 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