The Leveraging Equity and Access in Democratic Education initiative housed at UCLA and UC Riverside released a new report entitled Breaking New Ground with California’s State Seal of Civic Engagement: Lessons from Year 1. The report highlights the efforts of seven early adopters of the State Seal of Civic Engagement (SSCE) and provides themes and recommendations for educators interested in rolling out the SSCE in their own districts and schools. In addition, the report details the important role that students can play in the planning and implementation of the SSCE at the state, district, and school level. With student voices at the center of the SSCE, districts and schools can effectively model democratic participation, skills, and dispositions for young people.

Riverside County Office of Education

The Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) has committed intentional professional and financial resources in support of the Civic Engagement Research Group's (CERG’s) efforts to assist participating Riverside County school districts with implementation of the SSCE. In June of 2021, RCOE funded a summer institute for teams of educators (e.g., district- and school-level administrators, teachers) who were interested in rolling out the SSCE over the next school year. More than 60 educators from 10 school districts attended the two-day institute, where participants analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of existing civic learning opportunities in their local contexts and drafted a SSCE action plan. The summer institute was chiefly created by CERG leaders Dr. Joseph Kahne, Dr. Erica R. Hodgin, and Dr. Leah Bueso, and was operated in collaboration with Carolyn Power from the Riverside Unified School District, R. Tolteka Cuauhtin from Mikva Challenge, and RCOE administrators Dr. Michael Roe, Don Powell, and Kevin Goodly. Importantly, RCOE's financial support of certificated teachers provided stipends to fund their attendance at the summer institute and the time required for additional planning as they put their action plans into place. RCOE administrators will subsequently provide personalized coaching to district teams over the 2021–2022 school year focusing on classroom, campus, and community strategies to exponentially increase civic engagement in authentic and relevant ways. You can read the full RCOE report here. 

Riverside Unified School District

The Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) serves a total of 41,617 students across a politically diverse Southern California community. In 2017, RUSD embarked on a district-wide effort to advance civic education in its schools. The first step they took, in partnership with the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside, was to survey middle and high school students and conduct focus groups with students and teachers to understand their existing access to civic learning. These data are now collected yearly to determine the kinds of learning opportunities available to students and the extent to which their schools are responsive to their concerns. Building off of what the data have shown, the district has provided teachers with professional development and support to help them design civic learning projects for their students. In 2020, RUSD was accepted as a model action civics site through Mikva Challenge (Mikva), an organization supplying teachers across the country with action civics youth leadership curriculum materials and professional development resources. In their work with Mikva, RUSD teachers implemented the Project Soapbox curriculum, through which students identify, research, and present issues that affect them and their communities.

With increasing support for this initiative, and in alignment with the district’s “world ready” graduation standard, the school board in 2019 adopted civic engagement as a priority, thereby making a public commitment to ensuring that all Riverside students have access to high-quality civic learning. The district’s History-Social Science (HSS) Specialist has also developed a district-wide civic engagement plan to scale K–12 civic education programs across all schools in RUSD. You can read the full RUSD report here.