First Time Voters are Head of Class ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Students from two English classes at Freddie L. Thomas piled onto three buses Tuesday morning wearing T-shirts that identified them as "Titan Major League Voters" (the school teams are "Titans," and the school's motto is "major league") -- and weighed down with flags, signs and balloons.

Most of the students chanted Obama slogans as the buses rolled them from the school on Scio Street to their polling places around northeast Rochester. Those who already turned 18 wrapped up their fall study of the electoral process by taking part in the final step for the first time.

Principal Sandy Jordan said the idea was to create lifetime voters, and students came up with the idea of a building-wide get out the vote effort. She says they registered 50 students who turned 18 by election day as new voters.

The school buses wound from church, to library, to community center -- and at each of those polling places students got off by ones, twos and threes to cast their first votes.

Willie Hawkins, Junior was the first into the voting booth at Baden Street Center. He said he read and watched the internet, watched television coverage and read the newspaper to get ready for today.

Teacher Ayanna Abdul-Mateen said her students were assigned to track candidates and races, and to watch candidate debates. She says she's been able to watch them change from the first day of school to election day. © Copyright 2010, WXXI