The city has found itself in the headlines in recent months for several incidents involving allegations of racist vandalism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism. Mayor Warren, now serving his second term, held a townhall meeting here in April to clear the air. According to The Boston Globe, it devolved at one point into a shouting match among adults, while the students in attendance were markedly better behaved.

“How do we make sure we have a inclusive and welcoming community and we’re all contributing to that and we’re not leaving it up to an elected official? … We have a lot of work to do around those questions,” Warren told me. “It’s not just Newton but everywhere. There needs to be a concerted effort to bring our communities together around civic engagement. It doesn’t mean everyone has to agree with each other all the time. But we have an understanding of each other’s perspectives and positions.” The city is working to increase civic engagement among its residents of all ages, Warren says, and the public schools are a critical piece of that puzzle.

Alan Ripp, the coordinator of history and social sciences for grades K-8 in Newton Public Schools, agrees. Ripp was aware of the elementary students’ anti-Trump petition, and, politics aside, their decision to take action is not out of line with some of the lessons the district tries to teach. “That’s answering the question of ‘How do I as an individual impact the quality of life for myself and others?’ We try to instill that from kindergarten on,” Ripp says.

One of Ripp’s summer priorities is developing a game plan to help teachers address the presidential election when classes resume in the fall. (He attended the May training session led by Harvard professor Levinson.) “I want to make sure that kids can express who they are, but that we think about where kids are developmentally, and what’s appropriate,” Ripp said. “We’re a public school—there are certain conversations where we need to say, ‘You asking these questions or thinking about these things is really good. I hope you will talk about this with your family.’”

Finding trustworthy resources to share with teachers is another challenge, Ripp says. “I worry about it because I think some of our most vulnerable students are going to be hearing really horrible messages about who they are, who their families are,” Ripp said. “I’m not a parent and I don’t know how parents do it … How do you balance knowledge and protection?”

* * *

To be sure, ensuring an engaged and informed citizenry has historically been considered one of the strongest arguments for free public schools. But civics is typically a low priority during the instructional day, in part because most states don’t require knowledge of the subject on high-stakes tests.

There’s been a national push in recent years to make civics education more of a priority, even as some individual states have taken steps on their own to do so. In 2014, Arizona became the first state to require high school students to pass a citizenship test to graduate. Florida and Tennessee have both added high-school civics exams, and as of July 1, Illinois requires all high-schoolers to complete a semester-long civics course.