RATE YOUR FUTURE WEEK SUGGESTED EVENTS
Below are just a few ideas for events that can build community and media awareness of Rate
Your Future Week and drive students to rateyourfuture.org.
High School Event
A good “kick-off event” for Rate Your Future Week is to have your governor visit a diverse
local high school and address students, teachers, local dignitaries and the media. After opening
comments, have a group of juniors and seniors take the survey. After they have taken the survey,
the governor can have a roundtable discussion with the students to get their thoughts on the
survey, their high school experience, and what they’d like to see change for students in the future.
If the high school can arrange for the students to take the survey the morning of the event, the
governor can still make opening comments and have the roundtable with the students. Gov.
Warner did a similar event in Virginia at the beginning of the initiative and got great media
coverage, especially of the roundtable with students.
Although a bit more logistically complex, the event can be taken a step further by challenging
several schools to a Rate Your Future contest. School principals or superintendents can tally the
number of junior and seniors who take the survey and report the totals to the governor’s office.
The prize for the winning school can range from a pizza party to the governor speaking at
graduation. To level the playing field, since high schools are different sizes, the winner can be
decided by the highest percentage of students who take the survey.
Community College or Trade School Event
During Rate Your Future Week, the governor can visit a community college or trade school. If
possible in your state, it would be best if it is a community college or trade school at which high
school students are taking classes. In any case, the governor can visit the school and, as with the
high school event, have a roundtable with students in a classroom, lab or the library. The goal of
this roundtable would be to ask the students what was good about their high school experience
and what changes they think can be made to better prepare students in the future. Paper copies of
the survey can be distributed prior to the roundtable and the students can give their feedback and
share their views on the questions.
Taking the event a step further, the governor also might meet with a select group of faculty to
discuss their views of how high school is preparing their students for the classes they are taking
and listen to suggestions for improvements.
College or University Event
The governor can visit a private college or state university campus and visit the school of
education. He or she can meet with a group of future teachers (preferably future high school
teachers). During the roundtable, the governor can ask about the positives and negatives of the
students’ high school experience, why they decided to become teachers and what they will do
differently than their high school teachers when they get into the classroom. The governor also
can ask the students about new, innovative teaching and learning methods that better engage
students and encourage success. This event would work best with college seniors or Master’s
candidates who have had some student teaching experience in a high school classroom.
Paper copies of the survey can be distributed prior to the roundtable and the students can give
their feedback and share their views on the questions. The governor also can ask that student
teachers in high schools encourage their students to take the survey.
Although there are scores of other events that can be conceived, we hope that these ideas will
help your governor build awareness of the Redesigning the American High School initiative, as
well as Rate Your Future Week and the survey. So that we can learn from your creativity, we
ask that you share the event(s) you hold with us, and we will compile descriptions of them and
distribute them to all governors’ communications offices as ideas for future education-related
events.