Student Civic Pathways
Resources for Students and Educators
Student Civic Pathways is a new and exciting collaboration between the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, LWVMN, and the YMCA Center for Youth Voice. Newsletters are sent bi-monthly and offer various civic engagement opportunities, events, and resources for students and educators. If you would like to receive the next newsletter, please complete our Form below:
Upcoming Opportunities
Please see the current offerings from Student Civic Pathways. This includes impactful civic programming for faculty and administrators and opportunities for students to be leaders in their community.
MN Youth in Government
Registration for Minnesota Youth in Government is now open! Students in grades 8-12 will take on the role of legislators, lawyers, judges, lobbyists, or journalists and spend four days in January running a model government at the Minnesota State Capitol. Email YouthVoice@ymcanorth.org to find out how your school and students can get involved!
Civics Bee Application Open
Do you know a 6th-8th grader ready to change their community? The National Civics Bee is coming to Minnesota and applications are now open! Students showcase their civic knowledge and could win up to a $100,000 education savings plan. Email YouthVoice@ymcanorth.org for more information.
Youth Day at the Capitol (YDAC)
Every year YDAC brings 600 secondary students from schools and community groups to spend the day learning about personal advocacy and speaking about the issues they care about in meetings with their state legislators. If you haven’t brought a group from your school before, consider a field trip to the Capitol on March 3, 2026.
Recordings: National voter registration day & OSS Lunch & Learn
If you missed these events, be sure to check out the recordings and resources:
Additional Resources and Opportunities for Students
Please see the videos from NVRD to learn more about each of these programs and opportunities:
Youth Civic Engagement
An Initiative of the Shumer Family Fund
and LWV Minnesota
Program Overview
The Fellows program is part of the Youth Civic Engagement Program, which is an initiative of the Shumer Family Fund and the League of Women Voters of Minnesota to integrate a space for youth voices throughout the voter process, while engaging youth in meaningful civic engagement work. Specifically, the Fellows program seeks to encourage students of diverse backgrounds to participate in voter registration, get-out-the-vote initiatives and National Voter Registration Day in September within their local communities, in partnership with local LWVs. The program has a specific goal to ensure that all eligible 18 year-olds in MN are registered to vote (and 16-17 year olds are pre-registered to vote), and to better include GOTV activities within all youth voter registration efforts to improve youth turn-out. In addition, Youth Fellows learn about advocacy as an important part of participation in our democracy.
Check back soon for updates.
Past Projects by Fellows
Videos by Minneapolis Fellows
Videos by St. Paul Fellows
Videos by Dakota County Fellows
A Conversation with Steve Simon
Join students and Youth Fellows in a conversation about voting with Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.
Video by Duluth Fellows
Lawn Signs by Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Hopkins
Get more info or place an order
3 designs available
Learn More
For more information, or to get involved, please contact Amy Perna (aperna@lwvmn.org).
Youth Civic Engagement Groups
There are many other valuable groups working on youth civic engagement. As part of our program, we are creating a clearinghouse of programs and opportunities for youth to build their civic engagement skills and to better connect with our government and democracy. See our emerging list of local, state and national organizations.
Meet Rob Shumer
Dr. Robert Shumer has been involved in education for almost 50 years. He has taught middle school through graduate school and conducted research in many areas, from service-learning, teacher education, and character education, to career and technical education, civic engagement, and participatory evaluation.
Rob has published more than 85 articles, book chapters, and even a few books on service-learning, youth-led participatory evaluation, career and technical education, teacher education, and community-based learning. He has also taught courses and consulted in many countries around the world. He received his Masters in Educational Psychology from California State University, Northridge, and his Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
About the Shumer Family Fund
The Shumer Family Fund is dedicated to the legacy of Susan Shumer. She was the Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Metropolitan State and committed to a life of active pursuit of connecting young people with the civic/democratic process. The Fellows program was established in her memory.