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Foothill High School’s competitive civics team earned third place in the 2023 national We the People competition in Washington D.C. after taking home first place in the state level for the first time in school history earlier this year.
“Being able to take third place … is just insane,” Foothill senior and We the People competitor Jenna Besh told the Weekly after the results were announced April 24. “It was an amazing experience and I can’t even begin to put into words how it has sort of changed me.”
We the People is a national educational program where high school seniors demonstrate their understanding of the U.S. government and the Constitution by participating in simulated congressional hearings, according to the program’s website.
Foothill, as well as its Pleasanton neighbors, Amador Valley High School, each represented the state of California at the We the People national finals that featured more than 40 teams and approximately 1,000 high school students from across the U.S.
Amador’s team, the 2022 national champions who received a wild-card spot into D.C. this year after placing second in the state championship on Feb. 4, also earned a top 10 finish at nationals, taking home ninth place.
Besh said that she didn’t expect Foothill’s third-place finish just because of all of the other students she got to meet during the competition and how civically engaged everyone was.
“It definitely gave me hope for our future as a nation that there are students like this, who are going to be the future heads of government,” she said.
But while she had nothing but praise and love for her Foothill teammates, whom she said have become like a second family to her, she had many others to thank for getting her and her team to the national competition — including coaches Graham McBride and Jeremy Detamore, who are both U.S. history teachers at Foothill.
“This achievement belongs to a phenomenal group of students”, McBride said in a press release from the district.
Pleasanton Unified School District Superintendent David Haglund also praised both the coaches and the students in the press release and also congratulated Amador’s team for making it to the top 10 nationally.
“Congratulations to both Foothill and Amador Valley High School competitive civics teams on finishing in the top 10 nationally. I was incredibly impressed with how well the students were prepared, and especially amazed with how insightful their responses to the judges’ questions were,” Haglund said. “These brilliant students are guided by phenomenal teachers. Thank you to Foothill’s Graham McBride and Jeremy Detamore, and Amador Valley’s Stacey Sklar for the work that they do each year to get our students ready to compete.”
Sklar, who also commented on the press release, said she was just as proud of her Amador We the People team for their hard work and efforts.
“They have been a pleasure to work with this year,” Sklar said. “We had a tough spring leading up to nationals, filled with COVID quarantines and other lingering illnesses. The fact that the team could place in the top 10 in spite of these obstacles was impressive.”
For Besh, there were several moments that she enjoyed throughout the trip and the competition such as visiting museums and national buildings of historic significance that she has been learning about in school.
But for her, one of the most memorable moments was when she said a current Georgetown University Law Center professor judged Besh’s specific unit of teammates who focused their mock congressional hearing on the three branches of government and federalism.
“She was saying, ‘You guys know more than my current Georgetown law students about this field,'” Besh said. “That is something that’s so incredible to me. And she was like, ‘You guys are our future,’ and I would say that that’s something that’s been super impactful.”
Besh, who said that she wanted to pursue a career in law after eventually attending law school, also added that while she has been able to improve her public speaking skills and her overall civic knowledge, she more importantly was able to learn the value of teamwork.
“I am a person that has difficulty trusting people, especially in terms of writing these testimonies,” Besh said. “Because We the People is such a team-based class, I really had to just put trust into my unit mates … that was something that definitely took me a while at first, but because I was surrounded by so many of these incredible people that are just as self motivated as I am, it sort of allowed me to overcome that obstacle.”
She also said that when the competition ended it was bittersweet because it meant that all of the teammates will be moving on to other schools, including herself with plans of attending Northwestern University in Illinois.
“I feel like it’s the first time in high school where I’ve really found people that are interested in the same things as me, that I’ve really been able to connect with,” Besh said. “It’s almost sad that I feel like I finally found my people in high school during my senior year before we all go off to different places.”
But regardless of that, she still said that she was proud of her and her teammates achievements after putting in around 25 hours of studying, preparing and practicing with her team over the past year.
“It’s just been such an incredible experience and I’m so lucky to (be) able to consider myself a We the People alumni now,” Besh said. “I would definitely consider it the highlight of my high school experience.”
