Franklin High School Constitutional Law (Con Law) Team placed sixth at the state level competition on Feb. 4, 2023 after approximately seven hours of competition at Lake Oswego High School, marking the completion of their 2022-23 season. The team came out of regionals with a confirmed spot at state, and competed against Central Catholic, Cleveland, Grant, Lake Oswego, and Lincoln High Schools. Competing at state this year, Franklin’s Con Law Team continued its legacy, as it has attended over ten times.
Behind the team was months of practice, at least two hours every Monday. David Marsh, social studies teacher and the organizer of Con Law at Franklin, explains that “there are six units, each of these units are represented by a subgroup of students.” Each of these six units get assigned a topic or theme from “We The People: The Citizen and The Constitution.” This textbook was created by the Center of Civic Education, who are the organizers of the Con Law competition. Each unit has three to four students who study their section of the Constitution and government. “This [competition] format is a congressional style presentation,” says Marsh. Before competition, they are given a set of questions to prepare a four minute response. At the competition, they give their prepared response and then they are asked questions by a panel of judges. Another aspect of the competition is scoring; “each unit is scored individually and then all the scores are combined into one, this is what the teams are [ranked] on,” Marsh explains.
The We The People competition, created by the Center for Civic Education, started in 1987 and has versions for high school and middle school level students. This competition is to help ‘promote civic competence and responsibility,’ according to the Center for Civic Education. In Oregon, the program is organized by the Classroom Law project, who are also responsible for other government and law student programs, including mock trial.
Franklin has had a Con Law team since 2005, when social studies teacher Portia Hall brought the program to the school. Under the leadership of Hall, the program was integrated with the AP Government class which is only available for seniors to take. While Franklin has never made it past the state level, other Oregon teams have. In fact, Oregon has some of the strongest teams competing in the nation, even taking the national top spot multiple times; these schools include Grant and Lincoln.
Stella Schumock, a student on the team, says the key to their success is “all thanks to the coaches, they put everything in motion.” Fellow student Sofia Allen seconds this opinion, saying that the “coaches are fantastic, they balance the fun and academic support incredibly well.” On the coaching staff there is a mix of lawyers and judges, including both current and retired Oregon Supreme Court justices.
Current juniors at Franklin who are excited about joining this program should remember that it is a large time commitment. However, according to Allen, the skills that you will learn make up for the difference, as they spoke to the new skills that involve teamwork and working as a group that students will learn in the program.
