The Junior Statesmen of America (JSA) are the youth of today who strive to be the leaders of tomorrow.
Every Monday during lunch in D-22, the statesmen meet to discuss a broad range of political topics and debate different kinds of issues and bills that are being discussed in American government today.
Club meeting with San Carlos political figure Cameron Johnson
The room is always lively with discourse as students prepare for different conventions held throughout the year. Last year, the club attended the winter congress and spring state. During the winter congress, statesmen worked on different bills and tried to have them passed in a real congressional setting.
“Traveling to Sacramento and being able to actually work on bills is something I never would’ve thought I’d be able to do in high school. It’s amazing to have this opportunity thanks to JSA,” said senior member Zach Govani.
An interesting aspect about this club, unlike other academic clubs such as debate, model United Nations, or mock trial, is that everything is ran by high school students. The original organization was founded by a high school student, and there isn’t much involvement from adults other than each school being chaperoned to events by a teacher supervisor.
Carlmont’s individual JSA is ran by a constitution where the president is voted into office and can also be impeached by club members with a 2/3rd’s vote and approval from the vice president. This year, Alan Yan, the original founder of Carlmont’s chapter, has been voted up to a senator position in the organization and has appointed Max Ware to take over his presidential position.
“I’m pretty excited for Max to be our president. I think it’s a good move on Alan’s part now that he’s taken on a bigger role in junior statesmen,” said senior club member Mitchell Wright.
