Education Committee News

It has been exciting to witness the youth program to begin taking off this year. In addition to the two high school chapters at Cherry Creek, President Zach Lane and at Summit, President Alison Burns, we want to say WELCOME ABOARD to two other local high schools: Denver School of Arts, President Hannah Picasso-Tobin; George Washington, President Keaty Gross. In all we have over 50 active participants with scores more of "interested" civil libertarians.

During the last week of October, chapters organized activities to coordinate with the National Week of Student Action to bring awareness to and understanding of what the USA Patriot Act is all about. In addition to organizing educational activities such as bringing in speakers, high school leaders are working in concert with their DU School Law mentors, focusing its energies on putting together the Colorado Youth for Civil Liberties Celebration (CYCLC) for early spring. A number of DU students have stepped up to both mentor our high school leaders and to reach out to Boulder and Ft. Collins area high schools.

We have two recognition programs in progress, the Civil Rights in Action Award, and the Teen Rights Competition. Information on both of these opportunities to recognize and honor our young civil libertarians is on the website. We are also working to develop classroom activities for high school teachers to use as resources when instructing about our constitutional rights. If you would like to join in our efforts, please contact Jerry Fabyanic at jfabyanic@aol.com or via phone, 303-569-0260.

Congratulations to Keaty Gross, senior at George Washington HS, for being chosen as the ACLU of Colorado's nominee for the 2004 Youth Activist Scholarship. Keaty was one of the 3 student plaintiffs in our lawsuit challenging the requirement that students and teachers in public schools recite the Pledge of Allegiance; founder and President of ACLU student chapter at her high school; active in gay/straight alliance at her school and with Planned Parenthood, among many other activities. She will be considered along with entrants from across the nation for one of ten $4,000 scholarships. The ten finalists will be named on March 15, 2004.

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