2024 HSLP: Day 4

High School Leaders Program Class of 2024
Day 4: Tuesday, July 16th
Reported by Lily Vorhees, Bishop Ireton High School, and Max D'Aniello, Miller School

Today we jumped into the meat of our program full speed which made for a busy but very interesting and educational day! We depend on our views on many subjects that we would not get to go to in depth in school. 

After breakfast we went straight to our classroom and jumped into our busy morning hearing from three guest speakers. The first speaker who we met is named Rob Corradi. Mr. Corradi is a lobbyist for Amazon Web Services. He was full of energy and gave us an interactive presentation about how lobbying and city planning are intertwined. We learned that being a lobbyist isn't just about convincing others to do what you want, but it's about development and change on a much larger scale. Next we heard from Liz White who is the Executive Director for UpVote Virginia. UpVote Virginia's goal is to educate Virginian's about a system of voting called Ranked Choice Voting. This system of voting is much more inclusive for all parties and accounts for all new candidates who are running for a position. UpVote hopes to encourage more counties across not just America but the country to implement this election strategy in their counties. Our last speaker was Mohsin Syed. Mr. Syed is the Chief of Staff for the Secretary of the US. Department of Transportation. He gave us a detailed view of how he got to where he is today. He told us to stay passionate about politics and leadership as they are both important skills that will be beneficial for the rest of our lives.

After Lunch we had our class with Mrs. Heubeck, where we focused on the history of America's development and the sacrifices that were and are still being made to preserve the idea of a “perfect nation." We focused specifically on the atrocities that occurred in America as Indigenous people were forced out of their homes and forced to assimilate to European culture. Just as terrible was the African Slave Trade which forced families apart and killed millions. We watched a variety of videos on these subjects as well which taught us the importance of preserving the real and less attractive side of US history.

We ended our class with an overview of our main project as well as getting our project group assignments. After dinner we ended our night by finishing assignments and playing a fun game of Virginia jeopardy.