Spartans celebrated a number of firsts–the first time in school history that St. Stephen’s hosted the Austin Regional Civics Fair sponsored by the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at UT Austin, it’s the first in-person central Texas fair since the Covid-19 pandemic, and the first time Spartans have been involved in the competition. Now two Middle School teams are advancing to the State Regional fair.

Some of their project ideas include connecting job recruiters with shelters for people experiencing homelessness, increasing access to drivers’ education and licensing, revamping a school’s recycling program and expanding extracurricular activities in underfunded schools.

A panel of judges rate the 10-minute presentations with a rubric of 19 standards. Other teams, parents, teachers, and administrators watch, but only judges can ask questions. Students stand as a team with their slides and identify the issue they are addressing, its significance to the community, and the steps they plan to take (or are taking) to find a solution. St. Stephen’s History Chair Shelley Sallee and Latin instructor Jackson Yates judged alongside graduate students from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Sallee and Yates only judged high school teams to avoid a conflict of interest. 

“To see young people care enough to delve into issues, meet with stakeholders, put research skills to use, and actually enact reform is a great way to spend a morning, but it was hard to choose the winners,” said Sallee “Everything is weighted equally on the rubric, but how do you really weigh those who have gone further to already enact change with those who have stellar research or stronger presentation skills?”  

“We were all impressed by the poise and thoughtfulness of the Middle School students,” said Nick St. Mary, UT Austin Civic Education graduate assistant who also served as one of the judges. “Each group was extremely knowledgeable on their topic and carried themselves in a professional manner beyond their years!

Recruiting the Fair to campus was initiated by 7th grade History instructor Drew Smith who is in his second year on The Hill. Standing before the audience of dozens of middle and high school students from across the region, Smith introduced the event by telling the story of his own civics awakening in first grade. He said he noticed a lot of trash on his walk home from school, and decided to take action to solve the problem. Smith used that same motivation at a young age to teach his current students about the importance of their civic duty.

Smith has independently held an annual 7th grade Civics Fair for all of his classes but last school year, after the event at St. Stephen’s, someone sent him a link to UT’s “Speak Up, Speak Out” program. It was very similar to what he had been doing on the campus-level, but included teams of students from all over the state working to solve issues they were passionate about. 

In the weeks leading up to the event at St. Stephen’s, Smith took a group of students to Texas A&M University-San Antonio to observe the San Antonio regional civics fair. The field trip also helped Smith prepare to host, and opened his eyes to the potential growth of the Central Texas program over the next few years.

Smith is looking forward to the state competition in April, and hosting the Central Texas regional round at St. Stephen’s again next school year. He is on a mission to get even more Central Texas students involved.

“Drew has forged a terrific connection to UT, and I am eager for Spartan involvement to grow,” said Sallee.

Here are the St. Stephen’s Results:

Ten high school teams competed for four spots to advance to the state competition, which will be held at the UT Austin campus in April. Winning teams will win $1,000 to support their projects. More than 300 high school and middle school teams will compete in the state competition for a chance to be awarded $1,000 to support their projects.

The four 8th grade St. Stephen’s teams were the only teams in the Middle School division. Two of those four teams are advancing to state.  Smith reached out to middle schools and hopes to get more involved in the future.  

Team 1, advancing to state
Presentation: RAFT Tutoring
Athena Toba-Keith, Audrey Sileo, Anna Yang, Allie Nelson, and Ellie de Montfort-Walker

Team 2, advancing to state
Presentation: Extracurricular Activities For Underfunded Schools

Smyan Sharma, Sean Yue, Vihaan Subramanian, Rayyan Khan, Vyan Vemuganit advance to state

Team 3, earned a “Creative” superlative

Presentation: Deer-Car Collisions in Austin, Texas

Laksh Kadam, Fiona Wu, Caden Chen, Clark Schutt, and Perry Walters

Team 4, earned a “Community Engagement” superlative

Presentation: Increasing public transportation

Maya Lawrence, Sydney Gray, Lucy Bartram, Ayza Ali