Trumbull’s We the People team earns Best in Northeast Award at Nationals

During the last weekend in April, Katie Boland’s class of twenty-four students from Trumbull High School’s AP/ECE American Government class traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” National Finals.  Trumbull High School won the Regional Award for Northeastern States placing them in the top 15 in the nation at the event, which is considered to be one of the most extensive civic education programs of its kind.  More than 1,300 high school students from the 50 states and various territories participated in the competition.  Trumbull earned the honors of representing Connecticut after they won the State Championship on December 16th, 2012.

The team members were Daniel Bond, Paige Bulter, Johnathan Bui, Anurag Chinepalli, Emma Connolly, Patrick Curtin, Elan-Paolo DeCarlo, Dan Flaherty, Ryan Freeland, Alexa Hiznay, Devon Kimball, Kathleen LaBoa, Rachel Laffitte, Tina Lapsia, Michael McGuigan, Natalie Probst, Meredith Ramsey, Benjamin Schoenleber, Silvia Sclafani, Stephen Scott, Shyamsundar Subramanian, Samantha Wesley, Alyssa Zabin, and Stanley Zheng.

Katie Boland, the teacher of the program, said “The competition was extremely tough this year at both the state and national levels.  We relied on the Town of Trumbull to help us bring the gold back to Trumbull.  I had the help of experts from Trumbull’s Academic Challenge for Excellence Foundation to our town selectman and council members to all levels of Trumbull Public schools from administration to teachers.  I am so proud of all the students involved who worked diligently all year and performed their best in Washington D.C.”

The students studied for months to prepare for their role as experts, testifying on constitutional issues in a simulated congressional hearing. Samantha Wesley, a senior attending UMass Amherst in the fall and majoring in Political Science said, “Through this class and the We the People competition, I have gained confidence in my knowledge of American government and my ability to answer any question on the topic.” 

The National Finals were held at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.  Now in its 25th year, the competition involved entire classes making presentations and answering questions from a panel of judges recruited from around the country.  Constitutional scholars, lawyers, governmental leaders, state Supreme Court justices were among the recruited to act as members of a congressional committee panel to judge the students’ performances.  Alyssa Zabin, who will be attending the University of Connecticut Honors Program in the fall said, “The competition helped me grow as a student and our achievements made me proud for both myself and my team.”

The combined scores of the two days of competition allowed Connecticut to achieve the honors of the Best in the Northeast Award which was given to them a special evening ceremony at George Mason University on Monday, April 30th.  Shyamsundar Subramanian, who plans to study engineering at the University of Connecticut in the fall, said “The feeling of triumph when we were announced as the Northeast champions was among the most memorable of my life.”