By Laura Lane
But administrators in East Meadow and other school districts have grown concerned about the partying that allegedly goes on during the political debate club's weekend trips to compete with other schools.
The problem even prompted W.T. Clarke High School, which was the first Long Island school to charter a Model Congress, to abolish the club three years ago. Now students like sophomore Lisi Powers are fighting to get it back.
Kids who join Model Congress are into politics, Powers said. They-re the kinds of kids that go above and beyond in school. Members of Model Congress want to meet other educated people.
Model Congress, which began in Westchester County-s New Rochelle 41 years ago and came to Clarke four years later, was created to teach high-school students how to debate issues and improve their public-speaking skills, while expanding their knowledge of government and politics. Once-a-week meetings sharpen members- skills in preparation for Model Congress weekends, in which they compete with clubs from other schools.
Dr. Vincent Cirello, Clarke-s principal, said it was these weekends, which have included two overnight stays at the homes of host-school families, that prompted him to dump Clarke-s Model Congress. The weekends caused me anxiety, Cirello said. The kids were chaperoned until 8 or 9 at night and then they didn-t come home, but were housed by parents of the host schools. They might have ended up with a parent who said the kids didn-t have to follow a curfew. We can-t control that. And the houses were not single-sex.
Cirello remembered a call he received six years ago from a frantic parent whose daughter had been left at a diner in Lawrence at 1 a.m. She got left behind by the host kids, Cirello said. As a parent, I-m uncomfortable with sending kids to homes where I don-t know the parents. Society has changed over the years.
The overnight stays have been a concern for other schools with Model Congresses, too. East Meadow High School barred its club members from the sleepovers three years ago, though they still attend the weekend debates. I don-t know who-s in the house and what they-re doing, said Principal Mark Scher. I have enough problems making sure kids are safe in my own building during school times. Nothing of educational value happens after the actual debating.
Scher said he supports Model Congress and believes the club benefits East Meadow High. These are the higher-functioning kinds of kids that are into government, he said. They-re the kind of kids you-d want your kids to bring home. They talk about topics like governmental policies, capital punishment, the Patriot Act.
Michelle Geluso, the Model Congress adviser at Seaford High School, acknowledged that administrators have expressed reservations about the club. Model Congress has a party reputation, Geluso said. I wasn-t allowed to do the sleepovers when I was in high school because of the bad reputation.
Geluso said that administrators and superintendents from school districts across Long Island offering Model Congresses met last July to discuss these concerns. At the top of their list was abolishing the weekend overnight stays.
Clarke High wasn-t represented at the meeting, since its club was disbanded. But Powers, who had taken part in Seaford High School-s Model Congress as an independent delegate, was aware that the meeting took place. She claims it was the administrators- intention to abolish all Model Congresses, but that students vehemently spoke out against the move at Board of Education meetings across Long Island in September.
They-re worried about the weekends, but the kids who are in this club are only in it to learn, Powers said. On the weekend overnights they usually do things like play Twister, watch television or play cards.
Since there was such an outcry at the school-board meetings, Geluso said, administrators agreed to meet again on the issue in November. This time, Model Congress members were asked to sit in. Together, they crafted a new constitution for the club that specifically addressed the weekend-overnight issue.
The new rules specified that only one overnight would be held at the weekend debates instead of two, and no more than 15 students could be assigned to a house. Busing would be provided to the school, and students would be not be permitted to leave the host house after they arrived.
Unfortunately for Powers, the new constitution barred independent delegates from taking part in Model Congress, essentially ending her participation in the club. She has spoken to Cirello several times about bringing Model Congress back to Clarke.
There are so many kids who want desperately to be in Model Congress at Clarke, Powers said. I have [had] at least five or six kids ask me, ÔWhen is Model Congress coming back?- I-ve made my best friends in Model Congress, and I wouldn-t know anything about how our country works, about the laws, if I hadn-t been in it.
Cirello said he would consider reinstating Model Congress. If we are able to reorganize the club without the weekend overnights down the road, maybe we could even host a weekend debate at our school, he said. And I would consider busing the kids for the weekend debates to other schools, as long as they return that same day after the debates on the bus to Clarke. I-d have to get the funding for the busing, but the district has been more than generous with that.
Powers said she is prepared to compromise in order to get Model Congress up and running. But she believes the club needs to have the weekend debates, with or without the overnight stays, to remain a fully functioning club. Not having the weekend debates [would be] like being on a sports team that keeps practicing and practicing and never competes with any other school, said Powers, who added that she doesn-t understand why Cirello is so concerned about the behavior of kids who join the club. All of Dr. Cirello-s concerns are things that happen every day. I-ve never seen a Congress weekend as bad as what I see walking down the hall each day at Clarke High School. The kids in Congress are good kids.
Comments about this story? LLane@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
