By: Avery Eskin
On Thursday, April 13th, Garnet Valley’s Youth and Government Club left to go to Harrisburg till Sunday. Here they were going to the Capital and participating in many government-related activities.
When the students first arrived in Harrisburg, some of the students went with the club’s advisor to a nearby museum, while others in the club had a day of training. By the end of the day, everyone from the club was joined back together for a meeting where everyone went around the room sharing their favorite and least favorite part of the day.
Friday, the following day, starting by heading to the Capital for the first time on the trip. Here, the club split up into their respective branches: legislative, judicial, press, and executive.
Students in judicial began presenting their oral arguments to a court of elected justices. Legislative students argued for the bills they wrote, as well as speaking pro and con on the ones they listened to. During this, individuals in the press corps were reporting on it. The executive branch ran all of this, with Garnet Valley’s own Riley Stoddard serving as youth governor.
Saturday consisted of similar events, but with junior Natalie D’talia accomplishing getting her bill passed all the way through the committee, house, and senate. Freshman Nahla Cooper also made this amazing achievement of getting her bill passed. Another outstanding accomplishment was freshmen Saanvi Singh and Eden Goldstein making it to the gold-level judicial semi-finals and finals on account of their outstanding oral arguments. For the blue-level judicial, juniors Jude York and Praharshitha Nagraj made it to the semi-finals and finals as well for their excellent performance. The night ended with team bonding activities in the hotel.
The last day, Sunday, was one with many successes. The day consisted of listening to farewell speeches from presiding officers and the announcement of who won the judicial competition. Garnet Valley accomplished a full sweep of judicial, with Saanvi Singh and Eden Goldstein winning best oral argument for gold-level judicial and Jude York and Praharshitha Nagraj winning best oral argument for blue-level judicial.
As well as Garnet Valley emerging with many successes for that model convention, a few were guaranteed great opportunities. Jude York and sophomore Daniel Dada were selected to participate in NJC, a national judicial competition in Minneapolis. Praharshitha Nagraj was selected as an alternate for this competition. Senior Riley Stoddard and junior Rylie Parsons for selected for another competition by the name of CONA (Conference on National Affairs).
Congratulations to everyone who participated in the model convention!
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