Sitka High is the Alaska Mock Trial champion — again.

Two Sitka teams traveled to Anchorage to compete in the all-schools tournament last weekend , and brought home first-place and fourth-place trophies.

It’s the fourth state championship for the 10-year old program at Sitka High School.

The last bell of the afternoon has rung and  Sitka High’s championship mock trial team is gathering in the classroom of their head coach, Social Studies teacher Howard Wayne, for a press conference.

“My name is Aani Perkins, and I’m a senior.”

Perkins is co-captain of the team. Mock Trial is an intellectual team competition, but the pressure on individual performances is huge. Think of it as a swim meet, where students challenge the choppy waters of the law. In this case, a civil trial involving a legal principle called “adverse possession.”

“So there are three attorneys and three witnesses, and each of them gets various scores throughout,” Perkins explains. “Each attorney gets a score for how well they direct-examined a witness, and how well they cross-examined an opposing witness. And then witnesses get scores for how well they do on direct, and how well they deflect on cross, basically. And then you also have your opening and your closing speeches. So for my team I gave the opening, and Joe gave the closing.”

“Joe” is Joe Pate, a senior and Perkins’s co-captain. Pate is also a state champion debater — but he says the two events have more differences than similarities.

“Unlike debate, you do know before you go into the courtroom what side you’re going to be on,” said Pate, “but it’s not that helpful especially considering the finals we only knew about 10 or 15 minutes before we went in. So it’s fast preparation, trying to get your mind set to which side you’re arguing, because it’s easy to get confused.”

And the other differences between mock trial and  debate are 1) the judges are real attorneys and judges, rather than volunteers from the public,  2) the competition is held in the actual Alaska Supreme Court chambers, rather than in a classroom, and 3) the state tournament is the only time mock trial holds a competition, whereas debate competitions are held over a season of several months, allowing students to hone their skills.

Perkins says the intensity of mock trial is overwhelming, and she has to remind herself to eat over the tournament weekend, which may involve six trials lasting up to two hours each.

“In terms of the work and preparation beforehand in order to win: I don’t know, we just spent all day Thursday and Friday just working with our teams and making sure our case was cohesive and all together, and everybody just felt prepared going in,” she said.

Teams — plural — may be the secret behind Sitka’s success in defeating all four of Anchorage’s large high schools, West, South, East, and West Valley. A few years ago head coach Howard Wayne created a second Sitka team in order to scrimmage. They held three practice trials in front of Sitka’s judiciary, and the top scorers in those scrimmages formed the team which ultimately took the state title.

Besides Howard Wayne, Sitka’s team is coached by Sitka High mock trial alumni Owen Fulton, who’s student teaching in Social Studies this year, and by Americorps volunteers Abe Kanter and Ashley Nessler, who just graduated from DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania.

Nessler competed in mock trial at the collegiate level. She jumped at the chance to work with Sitka’s students.

“When I interviewed for the job initially I was talking to Ms. Rogers, who’s the principal here, and she mentioned that there was a mock trial team,” said Nessler, “and I told her — mid-senior year of college — that I would be on the next flight out, hearing that there was a mock trial team. It’s something that’s very hard to walk away from. It’s a vortex you get pulled into, with competing, and the stress — it’s probably the most stressful part of your entire life.”

But it’s also clear at this press conference that mock trial is fun. Amra Kojic, a junior exchange student from the Balkan nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, says the event transformed a random group of students into close-knit friends. Kojic competed in the role of an expert witness in land surveying and boundary law. It turns out that adverse possession — where someone can legally claim ownership of land simply by using it — plays out a little differently in Kojic’s part of the world.

“The problem in Balkan countries is that even if somebody’s using the land, somebody else will take it. So, that’s the difference,” said Kojic.

None of Sitka High’s mock trial competitors expressed a firm interest in pursuing the legal profession in the future, but they all say they now really enjoy talking about the law — as long as it’s not about adverse possession!

“We’re happy to win it, but now when someone mentions ‘land dispute’ we’re like… oh god!” said Kojic, laughing along with her teammates.

The Sitka School Board is unwilling to prepare a budget for next year that is 25-percent lower than this year — simply on the odds that Gov. Dunleavy will succeed in rolling back education funding. Neither is there consensus on the board to play it safe and draft a budget at half of that amount, or 12 percent, just in case of a political compromise.

Instead, the board is betting that Alaskans will reject the governor’s scheme and its “catastrophic” impact on schools, in favor of supporting the state’s children.

And at least one board member would like to send that message to Juneau with a visual aide.

Note: The Sitka School Board will hold its next budget worksession at 6 p.m. Monday, March 11, in the Sitka High School Library. They’ll be joined by Sitka Assembly members at 7.

Here’s how Sitka superintendent Mary Wegner described the potential loss of 25-percent of the district’s funding.

“41.5 positions being eliminated is significant. It is catastrophic,” she said.

And she wasn’t talking only about the impact on schools. She gave the size of the cut some context.

“We are the second-largest employer in Sitka. This will have a significant economic impact on the entire Sitka community.”

Wegner and district business manager Cassee Olin presented a worst-case scenario if the governor’s cuts were to somehow pass the legislature. The doomsday budget would eliminate 42 jobs from the district in all: 5 district-wide administrators and staff, 7 school-based administrators and staff, 22 non-tenured teachers, and 8 tenured teachers.

In addition, the district would have to shed the Performing Arts Center, and the Head Start program, many extracurricular activities, and possibly the Blatchley Pool.

And, due to arcane accounting procedures within the state school-funding program, known as the “School Size Cost Factor,” the district would save no money at all by closing one of its buildings.

So what to do? This was the dilemma before the board at its regular March meeting Wednesday night (3-6-19).

One idea, backed by member Elias Erickson, was to take the advice of Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, and assume that through political compromise, the governor will only succeed in getting half of his 25-percent budget cut. That would mean drafting a budget with a 12-percent reduction — or around 20 jobs.

Tim Pike is former president of the Sitka Education Association, which represents Sitka’s teachers. He was reluctant to see the district lean toward so many layoffs.

“This is more of a gamble than ever,” Pike said. “Whichever way we go we’re probably not going to make it. We’re going to be wrong one way or the other. If we’re wrong in cutting more people than we need to, we’re going to lose a lot of quality people. When you build a budget that says we’re cutting 20 people, a) make sure they know, and b) do it as quickly as possible. But realize that if you’re wrong, you’ve still lost those people most likely.”

High school teacher Mike Vieira also testified, saying that giving the governor even half of his cut was playing into his game, and giving him the win.

Most of the teaching layoffs would likely be in the upper grades, but the elementary level would still see increases in class size — possibly up to 28. Fourth grade teacher Heather Lockwood said that came at a price.

“You add one more child and that is not a number in a room,” Lockwood said, her voice filling with emotion. “That is a human being. When you add those children, you remove the opportunity for us to really know them. And when we know them, we can teach them.”

The testimony of staff helped pull the board away from looking further into a compromise budget.

Board member Amy Morrison, especially.

“I feel like the majority of what I was hearing from teachers and staff was ‘We can’t afford to make these cuts. We can’t afford to have these large classroom sizes,’” she said. “And I really feel like compromising is saying we can.”

Member Elias Erikson, however, still urged caution — and a reality check about layoffs.

“I would maintain my initial position of a 12-and-a-half percent reduction,” he said. “And one thing I would want to know is a hard deadline when we would want to notify teachers by, and to come back to the table next time with a safe minimum number of teachers to notify that they’re going to be looking for another job.”

Erikson received partial support from Joe Pate, the student member of the board, who said that the stripped-down education the district could provide with 12-percent less funding would be nothing close to what he was privileged to receive over his years in Sitka’s schools, but nevertheless he was afraid of what the governor could do — presumably, veto any budget proposed by the legislature that restores full education funding.

If this was all shaking out to be a political game played by the governor and his allies, board member Eric VanCise wanted to call their bluff.

“If a bunch of people fold,” he said, “it’s like ‘Ah, I got ‘em!’ And excuse me if I need to be thrown out of the room, but I’m kinda giving him (Gov. Dunleavy) the middle finger if I could. And forgive me for saying that!”

Board member Dionne Brady fell into that camp — albeit less colorfully. She thought the governor’s budget plan would falter when Alaskans realized what was at stake.

“And so we’re looking at a governor that won largely on a platform of protecting a dividend check,” she said, “and I think a lot of people didn’t realize that the dividend check would come at the expense of all the things our state provides.”

Board president Jenn McNichol agreed that the governor’s plan was far out of line, and may never come to pass, but that didn’t mean that the district wasn’t facing problems. Even if education is fully funded next year, Sitka is looking at a budget $1,380,000 in the red.

“To be frank, though, we still haven’t had the discussion about how we’re going to address the $1.38 million of our initial preliminary budget,” said McNichol. “What we learned tonight: We’re not going to meet that by closing a school, we’re not going to meet that by finding additional efficiencies. We’re already talking about more than three staff members (to be cut) — that’s obvious.”

Before the board adjourned its three-hour 45 minute meeting, district business manager Cassee Olin reminded members that their task was more than settling on a number — whether 12-percent or 25 — to cut the budget, but rather to keep an eye on all the moving parts, and to think about education. She said “I can create 50 different budgets with 50 different numbers.”

Joe Pate speaks to Sitka High students who walked out at 10 a.m. on Friday morning to call for gun reform. (Photo/Ella Lubin)

Students at Sitka Sitka High walked out of school on Friday morning, joining a student-led demonstration calling for gun reform. The day holds significance as the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School Massacre. KCAW’s Katherine Rose spoke to organizers of the walkout before the protest took place and filed this report.

Downloadable Audio

“There have been three national walkouts. The first one was on March 14, I believe we were on spring break, right?”

Howard Wayne stands at the front of his American Government class. He’s talking about the school district’s expectations for a “walkout.” Even if protests are student led, Wayne says the e adults still get to set  some ground rules.

“It doesn’t mean because there’s a national demonstration going on that you get the day off, Wayne says, “and you just check in the following week and say ‘Well I was protesting.’”

This Friday at 10 a.m., students at Sitka High School will stand up and walk out of class along with teens across the country. The walkout, on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School Massacre, is the third in a series of nationwide student protests for gun law reform since March.

This isn’t the first time students have self-organized. Wayne reminds them of a walkout that happened in 2017, organized by now school board member and Sitka High senior Elias Erickson, to protest a 5 percent cut to the state education budget.

“How many of you participated in that? Anyone here?” Wayne asks.

Nearly all of the students in the classroom raise their hands. But two of the organizers of this walkout, Ella Lubin and Joe Pate, don’t know what to expect this time around. Lubin doesn’t know how many of her classmates are going to participate.

“It’s exciting,” Lubin says. “It’s going to be exciting to see how many of our classmates decide to stand with us.”

Ella Lubin and Joe Pate (Photo/KCAW/Kelsie Barbour)

Both juniors, Lubin and Pate have been following the national student movement closely, ever since the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida in February. Pate recalls the moment he heard survivor and student activist Emma Gonzalez speak, prompting him to think about how Sitka kids could get involved. Pate explains how she stood in silence for 6 minutes and 52 seconds, the exact time in which the shooter, 19-year-old, Nikolas Cruz was at large.

“That was super impactful upon me,” Pate says. “I felt like if we want to get done what we want to get done, we need support from across the nation and that includes support from smaller schools like Sitka even to the larger ones.”

So why are students mobilizing now? Lubin has a theory.

“The last presidential election showed the quick polarization that’s taking place in the country,” she says. “I think for our generation right now that kind of was a wake up call. Wow, if people can change and digress to one side so quickly, why can’t we rise up so quickly?”

But Lubin, Pate and their fellow organizers did get some pushback from peers. They presented their idea for a local walk-out a  recent student council meeting.

“Somebody spoke out saying they weren’t quite comfortable,” Lubin explains. “But because it’s a small school, it was very respectful how they did that. We didn’t want to infringe on their discomfort on the topic so we decided to take it out of the administrative body of student council.”

After Lubin and Pate presented their walkout plan to Student Council, senior Anders Marius organized a counter-protest. (Photo/KCAW/Kelsie Barbour)

And Lubin says there are advantages to organizing the event as an independent group.

“Now we can make it on a more specific agenda which is gun reform instead of just school safety.”

The two specifically want to challenge state lawmakers on House Bill 75. That legislation would set up new procedures, allowing judges to bar those they deem mentally unfit from purchasing firearms. Psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors can also make that judgement of mental unfitness. The law would further allow police to seize weapons from those individuals for a period of time.

“I think that’s really important because we’re not taking people’s guns away, we just don’t want them in the hands of someone who would pose a danger to our lives,” Pate says.

HB 75 has been met opposition from the NRA, due to what the organization says is a lack of ‘due process.’  As the state legislature nears the end of session, the bill remains stuck in the house judiciary committee.

Pate and Lubin hope the walkout puts pressure on the legislature to act, but they also know gun reform is tricky in a place like Sitka. Many people own firearms and safely use them in day-to-day life.

“I know my own family, we subsist, hunt and many many other families across the state do the same thing,” Lubin says. “It’s a huge part of people’s lifestyle, so you have to go about ensuring school safety in a very special way. This is a message towards lawmakers that, hey as students we understand this is a difficult situation but we still want our safety guaranteed in schools.” 

Lubin and Pate are used to considering all sides of an issue. They’re debate partners. But on the matter of tightening gun control laws, they’re taking a stand — and now hoping their peers stand with them.  

KCAW will publish a follow-up story and interview with counter protest organizer Anders Marius on Monday. 

Joe Pate of Sitka High School practices a humorous interpretation piece for the High School Alaska DDF State Championship this weekend. Pate also competes in debate and won first place in public forum debate with teammate Ella Lubin last year. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

While the Olympics come to a close in Pyeongchang this weekend, another competition is underway at East Anchorage High School. That’s where over 100 students and their coaches have gathered for the state’s annual “Drama, Debate, and Forensics” Championship.

DDF is an after-school activity grounded in public speaking. Sitka has two teams: one from the local high school and one from the all-Alaska boarding school. Despite the many rules, DDF offers kids an unusual amount of freedom.

Downloadable audio.

I attended DDF practice at Sitka High School a few days before the state competition. It was crunch time. Students were running lines, researching debate points, and fine tune their orations on laptops. DDF Coach Christian Litten laid down masking tape on the carpet, in a square.

“Joe’s too active, so we gotta bring it in a little bit,” Litten said.

His student, Joe Pate, rolled out the cricks in his neck before practicing his HI. That stands for humorous interpretation. The DDF judges will be looking for Pate to keep his performance inside of a 3′ x 3′  area. “It’s not my favorite exercise, but it keeps me in good shape for state,” Paid said.

Practicing at home, he’s broken a sweat. Pate’s HI is adapted from “World’s Best Teacher,” a play by Clint Snyder, and he’ll portray four characters in 10 minutes. At one point, his teacher character – Ms. Porschtov – hands back the results from her pop quiz to her three terrified students, all played by Pate.

Porschtov: You failed. (Paper sound) You failed. (Paper sound) You failed. (Paper sound)
Phil: Look guys, Morgan failed! Look at that. Big fat F. Dance party!
Morgan: Wait, I failed. I give up. (Sobs)

Pate doesn’t stay quite within the box, but he does hit all the bells and whistles of what it’s like to be a high schooler: to be the teacher’s pet, the class clown, the loner. He’s been polishing this piece for months.

“It was hard finding a piece that really fit me as an actor. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of variety. I’m absolutely terrible at doing a British accent,” he admits. I wasn’t quite convinced, so asked for proof. “Tea and crumpets. H’ello gov’na,” he recited, laughing at himself.

The Sitka High DDF team is a diverse group of fifteen, some with a knack for research and debate, others with a flair for the dramatic arts. As a coach, Litten’s job is match a student’s unique strengths with 16 unique events.

Unlike a sport or a particular school subject, there are three types of events – drama, debate, and forensics (“Not CSI, but competitive speech”)  – and so many ways to be good at DDF. Litten said that’s what drew him to this after-school activity in the first place. “When I was a high schooler, I was a kid that was not really into the academics of things. I was acting out, which is a funny term to use. I needed some way to do that in a healthy environment.”

Litten said the ability to explore his emotions within the safety of a character got him through high school. When the coaching job opened up in 2016, he applied.

The classroom is wallpapered with awards, a few from last year. Pate and Ella Lubin took first place in public forum debate, fending off fierce competition from Juneau and Anchorage. Sitka High won “Best in Drama,” “Best in Debate,” and “Best Sweepstakes” among small schools. While it’s a big legacy to uphold, Litten said what’s most important is cultivating an environment where students can act out – in a healthy way.

Mt. Edgecumbe students Aria Phillips, Esther Burdick, and Muriel Reid practice their reader’s theater, a Shakespearean parody of ghostbusters. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“The hardest part of being in high school is just trying to survive and just trying to figure out, ‘How do I be a person and be a good person?’ And then move on from high school and be a healthy adult. It’s tough. It’s a tough transitionary period for kids,’ he said.

Some students make that transition at a young age. Just across the bridge is Alaska’s only state-run boarding school, Mt. Edgecumbe High School. During one lunchtime practice, three students on Mt. Edgecumbe’s DDF team ran their “Reader to be ghostbusters, in the style of Shakespeare.

Esther Burdick: Be you serious, this catching of ghosts?

Muriel Reid: I, still serious.

Esther Burdick: From thenceforth, we shall be known as…

Aria Phillips, Esther Burdick and Muriel Reid: The Ministers of Grace!

Coach Marcia Drake chuckles, jotting down notes as the three Elizabethan ghostbusters aim pretend proton packs. Mt. Edgecumbe’s team this year is smaller than Sitka High’s, with six students instead of fifteen. Drake says her focus is less on winning awards and more on encouraging students to do their personal best.

English teacher Marcia Drake has been coaching DDF at Mt. Edgecumbe for nearly fifteen years. She was chosen by fellow coaches as Coach of the Year last year. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

“T-ball is my favorite sport because everybody gets to hit the ball and go out there and play in the dirt. DDF is kind of like that: everybody gets a chance to do a thing. In light of this latest school shooting, there isn’t one solution to it but we all have to do what we can do. This is what I can do,” Drake said.

In 2017, Drake was chosen as DDF Coach of the Year. She’s pretty humble about it. An hour after getting her plaque, she told me, she was helping a student who had thrown up in her hotel room.

Her students are big fans of Mrs. Drake. When I ask them why she won Coach of the Year, as they passed around a box of Tootie Fruities cereal, Freida Nicori and Esther Burdick put it this way.

Nicori: If you have a mountain in front of you and you’re trying to get to the other side and you have no idea how to get there, I think she’d just be one of those people that would hold out her hand and help you every step of the way.

Burdick: Yeah. Or even, she’ll help you until you don’t need it anymore.

Drake has been coaching DDF for nearly 15 years and said one of her favorite moments came from Taylor Stumpf, a student who performed an original oratory in 2014 about transitioning from a woman to man. Before competition, Drake took him to a used clothing store to pick out men’s clothes. Taylor won first in state that year.

“It really was a validation of who he could allow himself to become,” Drake said. “Teenagers need adults in their lives who care about them and who perhaps see in them what they [the students] can’t see yet.

Both Sitka High and Mt. Edgecumbe boarded a plan this week bound for the state competition, taking their orations and dramatic interpretations, their debate notes and their nerves. They also took their coaches, who will be there if they win, if they puke, and as they do their very best.

The Sitka High DDF team won the First Place in Overall Sweepstakes, as well as First Place in Drama and First Place in Debate. (Photo courtesy of Christian Litten)

Sitka High students walked away major winners after this weekend’s Drama, Debate, and Forensics Tournament in Anchorage. Taking part in the 3A division, the team won the First Place in Overall Sweepstakes, as well as First Place in Drama and First Place in Debate. 

Several students won individual awards. Zak Wright won 1st place in solo acting and second place in humorous interpretation. As sophomores, Ella Lubin and Joe Pate swept the competition in public forum debate, taking first place.

In the finals, Sitka debated a senior team from West Anchorage on the negative side. Pate and Lubin argued why the United States should not lift its embargo on Cuba.

At the award ceremony, Lubin was sure they got second place. “Me, Joe and the people we went against in finals are standing next to each other. You can feel the suspense in the room. They say, ‘In a second place, with a really hard decision of three to two judges, goes to…they kind of pause (laughs) moment of suspense…and they announce the other team. Our jaws dropped. We could not believe what just happened. We were overjoyed. It was amazing,” Lubin told KCAW over the phone. 

Coach Christian Litten says that the two went in prepared, but truly peaked at state. “They just did an amazing job. They had really good plans and were eloquent in the way that they presented their arguments. It was amazing to watch,” Litten said.

The group receives assistant coaching from Sitka Fellows Noah Starr and Paul McGlew.

Litten, who is a DDF alumnus, says the positive impacts of the program last a lifetime, such as critical thinking, research, and putting passion into your work. “It’s a lot of soul searching when you’re doing theater type stuff with kids who are already dealing with emotions. It’s a great way to learn how to deal with emotions. It’s a healthy means of expression,” he said.

Sitka students also made an impression in readers theater. Anders Marius, Quinlyn Holder, Ella Lubin, Joe Pate, Evan Ipock, and Maddy Quealey took second place.

Mt. Edgecumbe High School’s DDF team also competed in the state tournament, with Coach Marcia Drake winning Coach of the Year. The whole team won the Sportsmanship Award and Alek Adamson won third place in solo acting.

Mt. Edgecumbe’s DDF won the sportsmanship award. From left to right: Jesse Hanson, Breezi McClenahan, Haley Shervey, Alek Adamson, and Aria Phillips. Photo by Marcia Drake, who was chosen as state DDF Coach of the Year.