WEATHERSFIELD — Two Upper Valley fifth-graders are in the running to become Vermont’s first Kid Governor.
Gaelen McNaughton, 10, representing Weathersfield School, and Westyn Danforth, 11, of Bradford Elementary School, are among seven final candidates chosen by the program’s organizers from a pool of 26 nominees.
“Each of these inspiring students has an important role to play,” Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, D-Bradford, said in a news release earlier this month. “And I can’t wait to work with them all!”
The program, free to participating schools, was created by the nonprofit Connecticut Democracy Center in 2015, to teach kids about state government and civic engagement. The program works through affiliate organizations in the individual states, such as Vermont Secretary of State’s Office. Nebraska, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Oregon also participate.
“The Kid Governor program gives young people an opportunity to get involved in civics at an early age,” Kid Governor Director Brian Cofrancesco said in a news release earlier this month. “And it’s our goal to empower them to remain engaged in our democracy and within their communities for the rest of their lives.”
Sixty-five Vermont schools participated in the first year of the program, VTDigger reported. Other participating schools in the Upper Valley include: Thetford Elementary, Open Fields School in Thetford, The Ottauquechee School, Sharon Elementary and Hartland Elementary, according to a map on the Vermont’s Kid Governor website.
“Increasing civic engagement, particularly among young Vermonters, has been one of my top priorities since taking office,” Copeland Hanzas, who took office in 2023, said in a June news release.
Over 1,000 fifth graders across Vermont have voted this month to elect a single Kid Governor. The other six on the ballot will serve on the cabinet.
Ranging from school lunches to health care to anti-bullying, the seven finalists in the race each focused on a primary issue facing students in the state.
They also developed three-point plans to address the issues with the help of the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office.
Voting ended on Wednesday, and the Vermont Secretary of State’s office will announce the results on Nov. 19.
In January, the Kid Governor and the cabinet of six will be sworn into office at a State House ceremony.
The students will serve a one-year term of advocacy, venturing to Montpelier once a month to fulfill their campaign platforms, especially encouraging students to make changes in their own communities, according to the Kid Governor website.
Lunch Reform: Gaelen McNaughton
Gaelen’s campaign aimed to improve nutrition by giving students a voice in what they eat for school lunch.
He decided on the platform after being both personally dissatisfied with school lunches at times and what he has seen online of school lunches across the country, he said in a phone interview last week.
Under his three-point plan, Gaelen would improve school gardens for small-scale produce, remove “ultra-processed” foods and make it so that one-third of school lunches are locally produced.
While neither Gaelen nor his school currently grow garden fruits or vegetables, the candidate has appreciated lead cook Heather Gokey bringing in pickles and carrots from her home, he said. She helped inspire him to increase local food access and develop his school’s garden, he said.
Gaelen acknowledged that the biggest issue facing his plan is “financial,” he said. “It’s a high bar. But if we hit that, it would shift our health.”
As California banned ultra-processed foods during his campaign, Gaelen hopes to guide Vermont into following suit.
A self-identified Democrat, Gaelen is “not exactly happy with who we have in office right now,” but appreciates the work of several of his local representatives, he said.
He hopes to work closely with adult legislators.
“Individually, I can speak up to my school, and I have really cooperative staff members there that will listen to me,” Gaelen said about following through with his initiative. “But now that the state knows, maybe we can make it a statewide thing.”
Gaelen’s ambitions extend beyond politics. He will be competing in the Junior Olympic regional championships for cross country this weekend, from which, in the last few years, he’s progressed onto nationals. He also plays hockey, and missed the trip to the Secretary of State’s Office last week for a tournament, he said.
Law and Order: Westyn Danforth
Having seen his friends get bullied throughout his years at Bradford Elementary, Westyn felt most strongly about addressing the issue of bullying.
“I have friends that have gotten bullied,” Westyn said in a classroom interview on Wednesday. “I just felt sad for them, and not happy with the other person that’s bullying them.”
Bullying can be anything from “verbal, word bullying” on the phone or hitting and pushing at school, Westyn said.
Westyn can be seen as the candidate of law and order. Under his proposal, those who bully someone three times would face a two-day suspension and those who are suspended five times would face expulsion.
The school currently uses “Restorative Practices” to address bullying, which means they “try to make things right and help people learn from their mistakes,” the school website says.
He doesn’t find his own approach harsh, as “that would mean they bullied someone 15 times.”
Westyn’s proposal also includes various events and activities to address the issue of bullying, including additional mental health counselors and monthly atonement days.
His forgiveness days would give space for people to apologize to those they were mean to, which hopefully would lead to forgiveness, Westyn stated in his campaign video.
Megan Dubuque, Westyn’s English teacher, sees him as a “hard worker” who can always be counted on to participate in class discussions, she said. “He wants to do well,” Dubuque said.
He reminds his classmates of the rules when they get out of line, so Dubuque said she can see him as the “law and order” candidate.
“We need kids like Westyn,” Dubuque said, “to step up and speak out for students who are being bullied, so that they know someone’s in their corner.”
She added that Westyn was able to get traction because bullying is “a very real issue for a lot of kids” that can make it “hard sometimes to come to school.”
Westyn has held leadership positions before as the captain of his baseball team. He also plays hockey and football.
While he took a vacation this past week to Hawaii, he doesn’t see these kinds of trips affecting his work.
“I can work on what I’m going to be doing next on the plane rides,” he said.
More information about the five other candidates and the program itself is online at vt.kidgovernor.org.
