Youth and Government returns to in person conferences

STORY ETHAN KWAK

PHOTO JAYDEN TRAN

SPHS students returned to Youth and Government for a training and elections conference for four days over the weekend of Friday, Nov. 11 to Monday Nov. 14 that will prepare them for a final conference in Sacramento. Held at the Army National Guard Camp Roberts, high school delegates learned about current policy topics such as education, environment, and public safety in a model legislature program.

Among the over fifty delegations from across the California state that attended, about 35 students from SPHS participated from the SPASM delegation. Students from other surrounding schools such as the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts are also present in the delegation of about 45 students.

The conference kicked off with the joint opening session. Student leaders such as Statewide Chaplains made speeches, announcements and discussed events to look forward to. The delegates then split into program areas the following days with individualized pathways depending on different focuses such as Constitutional Convention, which seeks to build a mock version of the California Constitution by changing the writing of the document. Another program area is Lobbying, where delegates in political action committees push for the passing of specific model legislation.

Freshman delegate Scarlett Kirschenbaum, in her first year of participation in Youth and Government, ran for a position at the conference. In her campaign for Presiding Officer of Forum, a sub-program for freshmen to be introduced into Youth and Government, Kirschenbaum used posters, gave out lip balm with the slogan “Scarlett Kirschenbaum is the bomb,” and gave a speech. Krishchenbaum won the election and will be responsible for leading forum operations at the next conference.

Participants in Youth and Government have not experienced an in-person conference since the cusp of the pandemic, which had halted the experience of meeting students from all of California. For full high school participants like senior Josie Larsen, the conference was a way to reconnect with past acquaintances and rejuvenate interests in government.

“It was good being back in person. The best part was that I got to see the people I became friends with in my freshman year,” Larsen said. “The main highlight was the opening session where it was exciting to see people speak and feel the energy from other delegations like we did in our freshman year.”

The next conference, focusing on program areas, will be held virtually on Saturday, Jan. 21. The work from the two training conferences will culminate into the final conference in Sacramento.