{"id":72711,"date":"2016-01-23T08:39:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T13:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=72711"},"modified":"2016-01-23T08:39:25","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T13:39:25","slug":"vwhs-does-best-ever-at-we-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2016\/01\/23\/vwhs-does-best-ever-at-we-the-people\/","title":{"rendered":"VWHS does best ever at ‘We the People’"},"content":{"rendered":"

VW independent\/submitted information<\/i><\/p>\n

COLUMBUS — Van Wert High School did the best it ever has during Friday\u2019s \u201cWe the People\u201d competition at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, finishing with a score of 2,944 out of a possible 3,480 points — the most a Van Wert team has ever scored. VWHS students finished second in the competition to perennial winner Findlay High School, which scored 3,187 points.<\/p>\n

\"VWHS<\/a>
Shown are members of the VWHS “We the People” competition team, along with teacher Jeff Kallas. Absent are Josh Braun and Gavin Ferckel, who had to leave early for a basketball game.<\/strong> (photo submitted)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI was so very impressed with our students today,\u201d said first-year advisor Jeff Kallas. \u201cThis is my first year teaching this subject and I\u2019ll be honest: I have never seen an academic achievement like this!<\/p>\n

\u201cThese students can sit down with some of the best law professors and attorneys in the state of Ohio and develop a position on a topic, support it, and then inform these professionals why their position is the right one,\u201d Kallas added. \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating and so very rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kallas also had good things to say about the Findlay team, which is led by Findlay High School teacher (and Middle Point mayor) Mark Dickman.<\/p>\n

\u201cFindlay has a great reputation and Mark has been so helpful, but they are a school of 2,000 students and we have 550,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The competition features six individual units and, as a rule, each school can only win one unit award, while an overall champion is then selected based on points accumulated during the competition.<\/p>\n

Van Wert\u2019s outstanding unit award was for Unit 1, which focused on \u201cPhilosophical and Historical Foundations of the American Political System.\u201d Unit 1 competitors for VWHS included Shianne Baldwin, Hayley Bradford, Hailey Crawford, Ashlynn Friesner, and Haley Richardson.<\/p>\n

Kallas complimented all the VWHS students who participated in Friday\u2019s competition, noting that many hours were spent practicing for the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these students are involved in other academic and athletic programs, and perform at the highest level in all their classes,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, we had a student have her mother drive her down after her basketball game last night, and two boys leave today just as soon as they were done because they have a basketball game tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were two rounds of competition during the \u201cWe the People\u201d event, and five questions asked, along with bullet points for each question. Students have 4 minutes to give a prepared response to each questions asked, with judges having 6 minutes to ask additional questions related to the original question.<\/p>\n

Questions range from asking for historical and contemporary examples, solutions to problems, and explanations for how things have changed, and\/or why they existed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VW independent\/submitted information COLUMBUS — Van Wert High School did the best it ever has during Friday\u2019s \u201cWe the People\u201d competition at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, finishing with a score of 2,944 out of a possible 3,480 points — the most a Van Wert team has ever scored. VWHS students finished second in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-16 04:00:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}