Guide students through the legislative process on your schedule!

What’s in a Capitol Classroom PLUS Curriculum Kit?

Because many teachers’ class schedules do not align with the legislature while it is in session, Teach With TVW created Capitol Classroom PLUS, a flexible alternative to our flagship program, Capitol Classroom. Capitol Classroom PLUS helps you guide students through the legislative process on your schedule. Like Capitol Classroom, Capitol Classroom PLUS centers around a lobbyist tracking actual bills through the legislative session and guiding students through the process to show how it all really works. The difference is that rather than scheduled Zoom meetings, the lessons are divided up into short session update videos to better adapt to your curriculum schedule and easily share across multiple classes. These Curriculum Kits, offer teachers an option to teach the legislature anytime and are a popular option for FALL CLASSES!!

Meet your Lobbyists: Your Guides through the Legislative Session

Volunteer Lobbyist, Marissa Ingalls introduces students to the bill the class will be tracking during the 2023 Legislative session and some of the dynamics a play with regards to this bill.

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Firearms Sales

Lobbyist Adán Espino dives deeper into Affordable Housing by covering three facets of the issue:
1. Zoning & Development 2. Rental Tenant Relations 3. Homelessness

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Affordable Housing

The content stream at the heart of Capitol Classroom PLUS is the lobbyist guide who provides updates from an insider’s perspective on the legislative session. The lobbyist covers an important issue and provides intel on actual bills moving through the process, referencing the journey through committee hearings (on TVW) and explaining the politics at play. These lobbyist guided lesson plans can be easily leveled to fit middle school and high school curriculum. Along the way, students will receive an authentic perspective into the legislative process and learn the importance of public engagement and the tools that are available to do so effectively.

Your Legislative Toolkit:

Meet your trusted guide to the legislature and leg.wa.gov!

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Pre - Session Primer
CIVICS 101: Mike Hoover Intro PLAY VIDEO - 1min.

Hello, I am Parliamentarian Mike Hoover and I will explain the Legislative Process
I’ve been a Parliamentarian for most of 3 decades - Somebody has got to do it.
I’ve done it for the Senate, the House, King County Council, even my Cub Scouts Troop.
A Parliamentarian is just a fancy word for someone who works in parliamentary procedure and that is just a fancy word for legislative process.
One thing I warn students is that the legislative process can seem overwhelming - don’t be overwhelmed, it’s easy
There’s a lot of steps but you just need to focus on where it is now and where it goes next.
Don’t need to know everything, just the key steps and we’re going to go through those in detail.

Watch Entire Civics 101 in 120 Sec. (ish) PLAYLIST HERE: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLumnzmg4AgFK4hJvG-2R1eMOEOhwQ9Q0X

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Supplementing the Lobbyist guided tour through the process, is the Legislative Toolkit. The Legislative Toolkit is comprised of two video series that guide the class through the basics of the legislative process. These videos are integrated into each curriculum kit.

Civics 101 in 120 Seconds with Parliamentarian Mike Hoover, explains the nuts and bolts of the legislative process covering topics from fiscal committees to decorum on the Senate Floor. 

The Legislative Navigator, with lobbyist Melissa Gombosky, shows how the public can participate in the legislative process by accessing essential tools on the Washington State legislative website. She covers essentials from How to Look Up a Bill to How to Identify Your Legislator and How to Find a Public Hearing on TVW.

A little more about the CC+ Curriculum Kits

All of the curriculum kits are available for FREE and are designed to easily adapt to middle or high school level learning: 

Each Curriculum Kit is available on Google Drive to download and customize them as you wish before sharing them with your students and include:

• 5 to 6 week curriculum map
• A teacher’s guide
• Weekly student notebooks

Additional resources provided in the Kits:

• Links to relevant news coverage
• Legislative resources
• TVW coverage, such as highlights from public testimonies, executive actions, and floor debates.

Check out an EXAMPLE of one of our curriculum kits.