North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics students pitch their legislators
“Why am I here?”
Keegan Storrs said that he tries to keep that question at the forefront when designing educational experiences for his students. Most of the year, he is a Spanish instructor at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM). But during the school’s short January term, he shares his other passion — advocacy.
Storrs and his students shared their experience creating projects to address current policy issues with the Eggs and Issues Breakfast audience on Tuesday. They followed it by presenting their ideas to legislators at the General Assembly.
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At NCSSM, students have a “January Term” where they can sign up for unique educational experiences. Storrs’ advocacy projects are one of the term’s offerings. For four weeks, students spent time researching, writing, and getting feedback on their proposals. Students worked independently or in pairs, and they had to pitch multiple representatives since they were not all from the same county.
Students’ ideas ranged from ways to support teacher retention to mandating a reproductive health course for all students.
Storrs first got involved with political advocacy after being an education policy fellow with the Public School Forum of North Carolina. He said the experience resonated with him after realizing that “everyone’s voice matters.” During the experience, he also said he could see visible results of networking and building relationships with policymakers.
Storrs piloted the project in his role as an English teacher at Roxboro Community School. He said he combined elements of the curriculum with skills students would need to become effective policy advocates. These skills included close reading, persuasive writing, speaking elements of logical fallacies, rhetoric, and what Storrs said was most important — storytelling.
“Because none of us is likely to be the most educated, the most well-researched, the most eloquent person in the room, but each of us has access to something that no one else does, and that’s our story. You’re the leading expert when it comes to your story,” Storrs said to the Eggs and Issues audience.
The main challenge for most of the students was zeroing in on one topic.
“Overall, I just went with what I had the most experience in — being a part of the public education system my whole life. I think that is what geared me towards education because that is what I knew most about,” Monserrat Castrejon, a senior at NCSSM, said.
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Prior to taking this course, most students said they had a vested interest in politics.
“Ever since the 2020 election, I’ve been really interested in politics,” Cameron Shue, a senior at NCSSM, said. “And last semester, I ran a student-led forum on the election, and that was kind of like my peak interest in it. It was really fun. So when I saw this J-term class was open, I was like, ‘Okay, I have to choose this one.’”
Adithi Balaji, a junior at NCSSM, said that at first she did not have a lot of political awareness. But then she realized how “interdisciplinary” using legislation to fight for your rights can be.
“So I was involved in health care, and I was able to connect that to my policy on rural mental health care. So I feel like, no matter what you’re interested in, you can always find a piece of legislation that works for you,” Balaji said.
The students went into their meetings at the General Assembly with their elevator pitches ready. Then once they started, students said the legislators just wanted to have a conversation with them. Lawmakers wanted to know what towns the students grew up in, who their families were, and their neighborhoods. They were open to hearing about their ideas even if they did not align on everything, the high schoolers said.
“I think it’s just really cool because these people seem like these big people with all this power, and then you go in and meet with them, and they’re just regular citizens, and they’re doing their best to help people,” Chessa Woods, a senior at NCSSM, said.
Storrs said that he is developing a toolkit to help educators create a similar experience for their students.
“And in the future, I hope that every student in North Carolina will get the opportunity to become an advocate, to learn that people will listen when they speak and that their voices matter,” Storrs said.
