EASTHAMPTON – The Easthampton High School (EHS) We the People team won the 2021 Division A award during the national finals of the We the People competition.

The divisions are relatively random, but the EHS team is the  first team from Massachusetts to score the highest in their division, according to Kelley Brown, teacher and coach of the EHS We the People team.

The EHS team, which won the We the People National Competition in 2020, competed in the 2021 national competition over Zoom during the weekend of April 24 to 26, after winning their fourth straight state championship back in late January.

“It’s almost rewarding, just the fact that we were at nationals in general,” said Abel DeBerry, student and member of the team. “Most of the teams have been doing this since elementary school, so the fact that we did it and made it that far…it’s pretty amazing.”

The We the People course is a constitutional hearing course where students engage in conversation with adults they do not know about modern constitutional issues. Students can take this course when they are an 11th or 12th grader, but there are no other prerequisites or filters before taking the class. Students can only participate in the class and competitions once while in high school, and the 2021 class included 12 students within the curriculum.

Shane Cudworth, a junior at EHS, told Reminder Publishing that he got involved with We the People after taking an AP U.S. History course that Brown also taught. “She sort of convinced our entire AP U.S. class to do We the People,” said Cudworth. “A lot of seniors also talked about it, and they really loved the class.”

According to Cudworth, the class did all of their classwork and competitions over Zoom, which made it a little more difficult to initially build a group dynamic. “I think spending a lot of time in the Zoom meetings, and figuring out how each person is as a speaker…I think it took some time over Zoom,” said Cudworth. “Despite it, we were able to find that rhythm.”

During nationals, the team competed against approximately 1,000 students from 48 classes across the country in half-hour Zoom meetings.  Much like during states, the students had to become experts in certain topics and prepare a four-minute statement in response to questions they receive ahead of time. During the competition, the team reads their statement, and then answers questions from judges – which consists of lawyers and professors – about their topics, and then back up their responses with feasible evidence.

According to the students, the nationals topics included revolutionary principles and ideas, habeas corpus, the debates that occurred during the constitutional convention, a Supreme Court question, as well as another question about political parties.

The We the People EHS team also includes students and alumni who participated in the course before, and returned to the team to be mentors to the current students.  DeBerry found the mentors to be extremely helpful. “I don’t think we would have been nearly as successful as we were…they taught us so much,” he said.

According to Cudworth, Brown brings in past mentors to judge their practice hearings, which helped strengthen their preparation, as well. “I’m going to be a mentor next year,” said Cudworth. “I want to try and make the process for next year’s team just as enjoyable as it was for me this year.”

Brown told Reminder Publishing that preparing her students for this year’s competition was more difficult since a lot of what We the People does involves building community and a team.

“With this group, we had to build community over Zoom the whole year,” said Brown, who added that a lot of the team-building benefits they usually do in a normal year were impossible over zoom.

According to Brown, the students were given more questioning time during the competition over Zoom. In normal years, it is usually six minutes of questioning, but this year it was eight minutes of questioning. Students would normally be able to see each other’s hearings in past years, but for Zoom, the students could only see their small group.

Right before nationals, Brown was also named National Teacher of the Year by the National Lawyers’ Alliance, which is an award she said she is “honored” and “humbled” by. “I really think it’s the We the People program that we’ve built that won that award,” said Brown. “Because of the We the People community and the many students I’ve had who continue to support the program…I think we’ve created an award-winning program.”

Brown has participated in the competition since 2011, and has been teaching We the People as a course for four years. Since she has been teaching it as a course, EHS has won the state competition every year. “I think that each year the level of excellence and expectation goes up, because I think as a collective, we learn more, and students who have done it before really want to see the next team be successful,” said Brown, who added that her team this year spent all of April vacation meeting from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. to prepare for the competition.

Because students are learning about topics that pertain to everyday life, Brown hopes that she can help her students decide what type of citizen and community member they want to be. She also believes that you cannot have a democratic-republic if people do not understand how the government works.

“For young people, I really want them to always speak from a place of knowledge,” said Brown. “So it is fine with me if students decide that they want to resist something, but I always want them to do it from a place of knowledge…Those are some of the life skills I want every student to leave high school with.”

The EHS We the People team has won the state competition in 2012, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. They won unit awards in 2018 and 2019, as well.