Political Science Educator: volume 29, issue 2
Reflections
By Austin Trantham (austin.trantham@saintleo.edu)
I thoroughly enjoyed working with students to promote civic engagement and serving as co-faculty advisor for the first campus-wide “Civic Engagement Day” in 2024 at Saint Leo University. With a student-created theme of “Empower, Elevate, and Educate,” the program included speakers discussing the importance of voter registration and community involvement. However, one community is beginning civic education much earlier than the university level. This essay presents a case study of the Cumberland County Civics Club as a pioneering model for high schoolers.
A distinctive initiative instilling civic awareness in high school students is currently thriving in Cumberland County, Kentucky. County Judge Executive Luke King is one of my former students. He, alongside County Magistrates Lane Cope and Larry Anderson, partnered with several enterprising, young county residents to form the Cumberland County Civics Club in 2024. Current members include Sadie Arterburn, a high school senior and current Civics Club Judge Executive. Former Civics Club members are now high school graduates and have reflected fondly on their own roles in creating and independently leading the group. The Cumberland County Civics Club mirrors the structure of the Cumberland County Fiscal Court, the organization responsible for county governance and administrative matters. This helps to cohesively allow students and adults to collaboratively discuss issues and seamlessly learn from one another. Students elected their own Civics Club Judge Executive, Magistrates, County Attorney, and other local officials to replicate Court members’ duties.
The rationale for this Civics Club originated from a grassroots desire from Cumberland County High School students to hone meaningful civic skills. Civics Club Magistrates campaign for their positions and once elected work to pass motions and ordinances. The Civics Club Judge Executive engages in executive functions including evaluating and nominating candidates for Civics Club positions. Civics Club meetings are run by parliamentary procedure, so all members must learn and apply Robert’s Rules of Order. With the Civics Club’s structure broadly understood, it is important to understand exactly how Civics Club members contribute to local governance. The students’ level of direct collaboration with County officials sets the initiative apart from other “mock government” programs for high school students, including Boys’ and Girls’ State organizations.
King initially visited Cumberland County High School and held a Mock Fiscal Court to give students the opportunity to tackle legitimate county-wide issues, noting many left the school day having learned more about local government taxation options than long-time residents. Once formed, the Cumberland County Civics Club officers began working with the Fiscal Court on different initiatives. This innovative partnership replaced Cumberland Country’s former motto of “making decisions for our youth” with the more civically minded “making decisions WITH our youth.” Youth councils, like this one, demonstrate potential for civic engagement (Collins et al. 2016).
The club quickly decided on their chief county improvement goal at their initial meeting: building a splash pad for Cumberland County youth. While the County Fiscal Court members supported the idea, they asked club officers specific questions regarding the project’s overall sustainability and budgeting needs. The students accepted this challenge and found themselves going to neighboring countries to discuss their plans. They independently met with companies to discuss construction logistics while surveying county land for a suitable location for the splash pad while building support among stakeholders. Through formal presentations and in-depth conversations with King and county magistrates, their plans became part of the Fiscal Court’s agenda and bids were formally opened for development of the first splash pad in Cumberland County. This project would not be coming to fruition in summer 2026 without club members engaging with their local community, as hard sells “for anything except asphalt” are hard to make in the county. The club has been instrumental in lending their voice to county-wide policy discussions and raising community awareness of civic issues.
In another instance, Cumberland County was deciding whether to not to allow cannabis dispensary businesses in the jurisdiction. Club members to consider the issue from a younger generation’s perspective. Through deliberative discourse—a hallmark practice of civic engagement— along with independent research and utilizing Facebook for wider discussion and input, the students provided an important voice to the County’s ultimate decision to not allow dispensaries. When a tornado was in the air over Cumberland County early in 2025, club members were tasked with drafting a press statement—spending three hours on the document and giving their final work to the County Emergency Management Director for review.
Finally, club officers have worked in tandem with the Fiscal Count in signing independent and joint proclamations recognizing commemorations of Youth in Public Service Day, National Diabetes Month, and a National Day of Service and Remembrance for a recent anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Before signing these documents, students meet with Fiscal Court members for an open discussion about the importance of the respective issues, further honing their civic engagement skills.
Because of their continual involvement in County matters, club members have earned the ability to represent Cumberland County youth on regional boards; youth voices were simply neglected prior to these developments. Stoneman (2002) notes that having youth be directly involved in issue advocacy and policy formation is a far-too-often untapped resource for public advocacy. To put this finding into hopefully wider practice, it is instructive to know how those at two and four-year institutions interested in adopting this model in partnership might proceed in conjunction with their local county governments.
A critical first step is the importance of having an overarching vision for a youth civics club. The Fiscal Court secured initial funding for the program by renting a spare room in their courthouse and gained necessary support from school officials. King pitched the initiative to career fairs and spoke directly with interested students. Interested individuals should expect implementation challenges with long-time county employees who believed that the youth were being trained to compete for their jobs one day.
Teacher involvement was secured through conversations with the local school board and the superintendent. The most powerful and consequential ingredient to make this club a reality was, understandably, the students. An initial petition received seventy signatures in one day in a school of only three hundred students—approximately 23 percent of the entire student body. Finally, students attended school board meetings to further advocate for youth interests in civic engagement and Cumberland County governance. This illustrates how civic learning can be practically integrated beyond the classroom through deliberate partnerships with local governing bodies.
The hard work from the Cumberland County Civics Club team is being noticed. One year in, the Cumberland County Civics Club has received statewide media attention (Cumberland County Workforce 2025) and was honored earlier this year with a well-deserved award from the National Association of Counties (NACo). The group traveled to Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, to further promote their innovative efforts at the annual Kentucky Conference on Counties. Its success and recognition demonstrates the top of the Mitra (2006) “Pyramid of Student Voice” (with “Being Heard” on the bottom level, “Collaborating with Adults” on the middle tier, and finally “Building Capacity for Leadership” at the top). Cumberland County and its boutique Civics Club are certainly instilling leadership and civic skills in some of its youngest residents—with a hope that counties across the nation will soon join them.
References
Collins, Mary Elizabeth, Astraea Augsberger, and Whitney Gecker. 2016. “Youth Councils in Municipal Government: Examination of Activities, Impact and Barriers.” Children and Youth Services Review 65: 140-147.
Cumberland County Workforce. 2025. “Cumberland County’s Pioneering Civics Club Receiving
State-Wide Media Attention.” Cumberland County Workforce. https://cumberlandsworkforce.com/cumberland-countys-pioneering-civics-club-receiving-state-wide-media-attention
Mitra, Dana. 2006. “Increasing Student Voice and Moving Towards Youth Leadership.” The Prevention Researcher 13(1): 7-10.
Stoneman, Dorothy. 2002. “The Role of Youth Programming in the Development of Civic Engagement.” Applied Developmental Science 6(4): 221-226.
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Austin Trantham is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Saint Leo University.
Published since 2005, The Political Science Educator is the newsletter of the Political Science Education Section of the American Political Science Association. As part of APSA’s mission to support political science education across the discipline, APSA Educate has republished The Political Science Educator since 2021. Please visit APSA Educate’s Political Science Educator digital collection.
Editor: Matt Evans (Northwest Arkansas Community College)
Assistant Editor: Colin Brown (Northeastern University)
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