Spotlight on San Marino High School’s Civic Action Projects
With a focus on some of the better ones since 2013
San Marino High School is a relatively small yet high-achieving California 9th-12th grade public school located twelve miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, seven miles southeast of the Pasadena Rose Bowl, and a short walk from the Huntington Library, Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
The school has long been recognized for providing high-quality civic education.
Since 2013, the school has not rested on its civic-learning-award laurels. In fact, it’s only since 2013 that the school’s US Government teachers, (both AP and College Prep) have called upon their students to engage in various civic action projects.
Civic action projects come in many sizes but a high-quality (gold standard) civic action project, as I and many others define the term, consists of high school students, working alone or in groups of up to six for at least a semester, doing what members of an interest group (advocacy group) typically do . . . and that’s to work civilly and respectfully to:
- Get a lawmaker to either make a law or modify some existing law.
- Get the public to understand the need for the passage of a new law or the modifying of some existing law.
- Educate the public about any one of the important political topics typically taught in either an APGov or College Prep US Gov course.
In other words, a high-quality civic action project is a golden opportunity for high school students, and especially those enrolled in a senior year US Government course (AP or College Prep) to use various forms of advocacy to influence public opinion and/or policy.
“It’s your chance to get into politics,” I tell the students, “and thus do something that somehow, all of a sudden, has become cool to do, according to the New York Times.”
That said, here’s a description of several super cool SMHS high-quality civic action projects.
Joe’s Civic Action Project (2013)
For this civic action project, Joe A (and two of his US Gov classmates, Ricky M and Sean Y) sought to get the San Marino City Council to fund and/or otherwise support the creation of a “parklet” to be constructed “just east of
the Rotary clock, on a little urban island that otherwise offers little to
lure community members.”
Below is a photo of what that area looked like before Joe, Sean, and Ricky started working on the project.
For their project, the boys envisioned something looking vastly different from the above and, to give all a better idea of what they envisioned, off to their computers they went. In no time, they came back with the below.
After the three had worked intensely to produce these two computer-generated drawings, Joe formally pitched the proposed parklet to the City Council.
And how did the Council respond? In the words of a local newspaper article:
The City Council gave a figurative pat on the back to three civic-minded San Marino High government students last Friday, committing up to $10,000 of city money to a small park that the boys want to see built at the northeast
corner of San Marino Avenue and Huntington Drive.
“The students’ proposed parklet should bring a sense of center to our city, which we don’t have now,” said the mayor.
Ralphy’s Civic Action Project (2013)
For this civic action project, Ralphy C (and three of his US Gov classmates, Anais R., Edrick W., and Allen Z) set out to encourage the SMHS principal to prevent and/or otherwise stop any daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
The students had come to the conclusion, after having learned in class about something called “the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause,” that a school-sponsored daily recitation of a pledge which included the phrase “under God,” was the school’s way of trying “establish a religion” and thus a violation of the first amendment (which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another.)
However, as the students learned more about the issue, they changed their minds, ultimately concluding that “a careful reading of the Pledge of Allegiance reveals that we are not pledging allegiance to God — -we are, instead, pledging allegiance to a republic — and hence the daily Pledge should not be deemed a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.”
One of the more noteworthy civic actions that the students took while working on this project was a Zoom video conference meeting with Michael Newdow — an American attorney best known for having his name attached to the US Supreme Court case of Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2002).
Another one of the more noteworthy civic actions that the students took while working on this project was to arrange for a face-to-face meeting with the honorable Dorothy Wright Nelson, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Nelson. As a 9th Circuit Judge, Nelson had played a key role in Newdow’s 2007, pre US Supreme Court case.
Zareh & Jordan’s Civic Action Project (2014)
Both Zareh and Jordan are of Armenian descent and for their civic action project, they worked closely with four other San Marino High School seniors (Andre Z, Will D, Liam M, and Trenton K.) in an attempt to get the California State legislature to pass Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian’s AB1915.
AB1915 sought to require teachers 7–12 to include instruction in human rights issues, with particular attention to the Armenian Genocide, in which up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Turkey’s Ottoman government beginning in 1915, according to the Armenian National Institute.
At the time of the students’ lobbying effort, the teaching of the genocide was recommended, not required, though the teaching of the Holocaust was required.
One of the more noteworthy civic actions that the students took while working on this project was a trip to Sacramento, where they personally meet with and tried to encourage a handful of prominent state lawmakers to vote in favor of Nazarian’s AB1915.
Below are just some of the lawmakers the students met with:
- State Senator Carol Liu (chair of the Senate Education Committee)
- State Assemblyman Ed Chau (whose district includes San Marino)
- State Assemblyman Rob Banta
- State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (chair of Assembly Education
Committee)
The students also met with Assemblyman Nazarian, various leaders and representatives of the state’s Armenian community, and state Superintendent of Education Tom Torlakson.
AB1945 subsequently cleared the Assembly Education Committee. It even managed to make its way to the Governor’s desk where it was, unfortunately, vetoed.
But given that only 5% of bills ever make their way out of committee, the students nonetheless declared their lobbying effort a huge win.
No wonder the six, when not lobbying, were honored on the Assembly floor by Chau, who praised them for their civic action project.
Matt’s Civic Action Project (2016)
The ultimate goal of Matt’s CAP was to get the California state legislature to make a law that would result in the placing of speed cameras on all California Highways
A speed camera is a camera positioned at the side of a road that automatically photographs vehicles that are going faster than is allowed.
One of Matt’s more memorable civic actions was a 2:50 public service announcement entitled Highway Speed Enforcement.
The goal of Matt’s PSA was to raise awareness and change public attitudes, opinions, and even behavior as it relates to “speeding on the highway” and “the need for highway speed cameras.”
After having produced the video, Matt submitted the video for consideration to the annual CRF Civic Action PSA Contest. In turn, he received a 3rd place award, with his video also featured on the CRF 2015 PSA Contest website.
When asked why he decided to work on a civic action project focusing on the topic of speed cameras, Matt said: “It had to do with the fact one day, in the months leading up to my working on the project, my family was nearly run off the road by someone speeding past us on the highway.”
Nick and David’s Civic Action Project (2017)
For this civic action project, Nick and David sought to get the school’s admins to provide the funding needed to purchase “newer and more creative looking bike racks for several sides of the campus and not just near the entrance to the faculty lounge.”
Here’s how the bike racks looked at the time.
Nick and David envisioned the school’s bike racks looking more like the below.
One of the first civic actions the boys took was to survey the students.
Would you like to see the school purchase newer and more creative looking bike racks for several sides of the campus and not just near the entrance to the faculty lounge?
Yes — 90%
No — 7.5%
I don’t know/decline to state — 2.5%
They then produced three reasons why the school should purchase the racks.
Moving bike racks to a less crowded area will improve the safety for the students and teachers
Bike racks on both ends of the campus will be more efficient for students by preventing first period tardies
Prettier bike racks for the front of the school will improve the beatification of the campus
Nick and David then formally pitched their proposal to Dr. Eric Bergmann, the school’s Assistant Principal.
Here’s his response:
“Sorry guys. We have put a lot of thought into the location of the bike racks, and moving them to a different spot on campus just wouldn’t work. The reason why we put the bike racks where they are is because we have a camera watching them and my office is right in front of them so I can keep an eye on them as well. As for the idea of getting new and more appealing bike racks, that idea will not do the trick because we got a good deal on these bike racks and the new bike racks that you are proposing (costing between $600 and $6000) are way too expensive.”
Damien and Cassandra’s Civic Action Project 2021
For this Civic Action Project, Damien and Cassandra sought to encourage SMHS school officials to adopt some form of block scheduling for the 2023–24 school.
To get the ball rolling, Cassandra compiled a list of the 100 best high schools in America with this list including the name of each school’s principal and his/her contact information.
Damian then sent each of the 100 principals an email that read as follows:
Dear Principal _____
My name is Damien C., and I am a San Marino High School senior reaching out to you with the permission of my school’s APUSH teacher, Mr. Peter Paccone, and my school’s admins.
Next year, San Marino High School may be exploring the question of whether the school should “adopt some form of block scheduling” and, to help matters along, I am working with Mr. Paccone this summer to find out what the best schools in the country think about block scheduling, with our findings to be shared with all “Scheduling Committee” members in the fall.
With that in mind, we’re wondering . . . does your school plan to start the 2021–2022 school year utilizing some form of block scheduling?
We’re also wondering if you, either in writing or via a no-more-than 30-minute zoom call, would be willing to answer the six questions appearing below (before the end of June).
How many 9–12th-grade students do you expect to have enrolled at your school next year?
How do you respond to those who say block scheduling is suited best to English, Social Studies, and some project-based learning courses, but it is not as useful in Math, Science, World Languages, PE, and Health.
How do you respond to those who say that block scheduling doesn’t work well for special education students?
How do you respond to those who say the average maturity level of most freshmen and sophomores doesn’t support the adoption of any form of block scheduling.
Is there anything that you wish to share with us as we consider the question of whether to move from a traditional schedule to some form of block?
Does your high school’s middle school also adopt some form of block?
On behalf of all of us here at San Marino High School, we thank you very much for any response you can provide to this email.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon,
Here’s what Damien and Cassandra learned from their email outreach.
- 80% of the 100 best high schools in America currently utilize some form of block
- 80% of the 20 best high schools in California currently utilize some form of block.
The students also learned that when a school principal, heading one of the best schools in America, reports that his/her school hasn’t yet adopted some form of block, its because that school was either:
- Founded long before World War II.
- Founded in a politically conservative community between 1945 and 1965.
- Founded between 1965 and 1975 by community leaders determined to provide their students with an anti-hippie, anti-counterculture learning environment.
- Founded after 1975 for religious reasons.
One more thing the students learned — of all the best schools in America that have experimented with block, not one has reverted to a traditional bell schedule
The students then presented their research findings to school officials. In turn, the school principal invited teachers to explore the issue further during several lunch-time Zoom meetings. Then the discussion was shelved “for the time being.”
I’m so curious to see what next year brings.
Kaylee’s Civic Action Project (2022)
The ultimate goal of Kaylee’s civic action project was to get the get Congress to vote in favor of a law that would make election day a national holiday
After thoroughly searching the internet for articles and videos on the topic of the call for making election day a national holiday, Kayleewent in search of arguments that best support the call for the creation of such a holiday.
- Making Election Day a national holiday will increase voter turnout by enabling more people to vote.
- Making Election Day a national holiday would turn voting into a celebration of democracy.
- Making Election Day a national holiday is a popular idea that would align the US with other countries.
She then went in search of arguments in opposition to the call for making election day a national holiday though she couldn’t find any good ones, with one exception:
“Election Day as a national holiday would mean things like perhaps reduced schedules for public transportation, schools being closed, hourly workers perhaps being incentivized to work more with time and a half. And so while it’s very understandable that people are trying to find ways to make it more convenient for people to vote, it’s very likely that Election Day as a national holiday would actually hurt the voters who most need more options.”
— David Becker, Executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. Mr. Becker believes that increasing turnout is a nuanced problem that can’t be fixed by declaring a holiday.
After learning about the arguments in favor of and in opposition to the call for Congress to vote in favor of a law that would make presidential election day a national holiday, she decided to write a letter to US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), with her letter asking Senator Feinstein to propose a law that would make election day a national holiday.
Here’s her letter to Senator Feinstein:
February 14, 2022
The Honorable Diane Feinstein
Dear Senator Feinstein:
As a recently registered voter, I urge you to vote for Election Day to become a federal holiday. The US ranks 26th out of 32 for voter turnout among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. In the 2016 presidential election, 55.7% of the American voting-age population cast a ballot. By comparison, Belgium reported the highest OECD voter turnout: 87.2% in the most recent national election. Among registered voters in the 2016 US presidential election, being “too busy” or having a conflicting schedule was the third-highest reason cited for not voting, accounting for 14% of registered voters who did not cast a vote (about 2.7 million people).
Also, making Election Day a national holiday would turn voting into a celebration of democracy. The idea that “voting should be a celebration, not a chore” is one argument for turning Election Day into a national holiday. According to Archon Fung, Ph.D., and Jane Mansbridge, Ph.D., professors at the Harvard Kennedy School, “Citizen Day would do more than give our democracy the honor that it deserves; it would help our democracy work better. More people would vote if they had more time to cast their ballots… Furthermore, celebrating our democracy publicly would send the message that we value each other’s citizenship as much as we value honoring past presidents.” As an example, Election Day is a holiday in Puerto Rico, where noisy parades of cars decorated with flags stream through Puerto Rico’s streets, are credited with the island’s over 80% voter turnout. Thank you for your consideration, and please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss this issue further.
Sincerely,
Kaylee C.
This letter was formatted in line with what she found here and here.
When she didn’t hear anything back from Senator Feinstein, she sent a similar letter to Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-27). Congresswoman Chu represents the district in which Kaylee lives.
Within five minutes of emailing her letter to Senator Padilla, she received the following response:
Kaylee, thank you for contacting me. I always appreciate hearing from the people of California about the issues that matter to you most. My office has received your letter, and we will review it and respond as quickly as we can. In the meantime, if you would like more information about my work in the Senate, please see my website or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.
With four weeks left of school, there’s a good chance this project will move along even further. If this includes Kaylee engaging in any other significant actions, I’ll be sure to mention n the space below. The same is true if Kaylee hears back from either Feinstein, Chu, or Padilla.
Amber and Chelsea’s Civic Action Project (2022)
For this project, Amber T and Chelsea A sought to limit (or prohibit) the use of hobby drones over the San Marino city limits unless for a commercial filming purpose.
After researching the topic thoroughly, the girls asked the seniors enrolled in the school’s various APGov classes the following question:
Would you like to see the San Marino City Council make a law that limits (or prohibit) the use of hobby drones over the San Marino city limits unless for a commercial filming purpose.
Yes
No
I don’t know / decline to state
The girls then wrote the letter appearing below:
February 9, 2022
Susan Jakubowski
The Mayor of San Marino
2200 Huntington Drive
San Marino, CA 91108Dear Mayor Jakubowski,
We are two members of the graduating San Marino Class of 2022. After polling a representative sample of the senior students in the AP Government course, we concluded that the majority of students desire greater limitations on the use of private aerial drones. So, the goal of this letter is to encourage you to enact legislation regarding the restriction of hobby drones over city limits, unless for commercial filming purposes.
Simply, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are very dangerous when flown by inexperienced pilots. The average citizen can simply purchase a drone from a multitude of options featured on easily accessible retailers like Amazon and BestBuy without any restrictions. Though hobbyists are required to take the Recreation UAS Safety Test, this restriction only applies to operators of drones at 250g and above, so people can easily bypass this important certification by purchasing a lighter drone, thus leaving untrained pilots to fly without the proper knowledge of drone flying techniques.
Even though law AB 856 // 2018 prohibits the “entering the airspace of an individual in order to capture an image or recording of that individual engaging in a private, personal or familial activity without permission,” drones are still a threat to privacy. They are vulnerable to attack by hacking, meaning other individuals can force access into the private camera feeds of hobby drones. After a drone hackathon, the Federal Trade Commission has stated there are several vulnerabilities in commercial drones, including an unsecured Wi-Fi connection allowing access to the camera feed of a drone and unencrypted data connections.
We have cast a vote and put our trust in the government but we are disappointed. Please take action on the private use of hobby drones. We would all be very grateful as they are a serious danger both to our health and privacy.
Regards,
Amber Tang and Chelsea An
On Behalf of the majority of the San Marino AP Government Class
Evan’s Civic Action Project (2022)
For this civic action project, Evan sought to get San Marino City to require “all San Marino on-duty peace officers to wear fully functioning body-worn cameras.”
In this regard, he invited the SMPD Chief of Police, John Incontro, to meet with the students in Evan’s 3rd period APGov class.
While there, the Chief was asked the following questions relating to Evan’s civic action project.
- What’s the difference between a police officer and a peace officer?
- What is meant by the phrase “fully-function body-worn cameras?”
- Do you support the call that would require all San Marino on-duty peace officers to wear fully functioning body-worn cameras?
The Chief was also asked a number of other questions.
- Where were you born, where did you grow up, where did you go to college, and how it is that you became the SMPD Chief of Police?
- What’s the best/hardest part of being the SM Chief of Police?
- Any great stories to share that took place while you were with the LAPD
- If you were in charge of training police officers, would you train an SMPD officer differently than an LAPD officer?
- Do you believe that the exclusionary rule should be replaced with a tort remedy (as in restitution to victims of police misconduct) That’s what President Reagan believed.
- Do you believe that the Miranda rule has resulted in a lower rate of conviction, with a possible reduction in the rate of confessions of between four and sixteen percent?
- If 500 homeless people from DTLA were to all of a sudden arrive in San Marino to establish an encampment in/around city hall, what if anything would the police be able to do about it?
- What would you do, if you were the chief of police for DTLA and received a call from (one of the students in the class) asking you to remove the homeless encampment located on the street directly below the entrance to her DTLA fifth floor apartment?
- While in high school, do you know any blacks or Hispanics who claimed that they had been treated unfairly by any law enforcement officers?
- While working for the LAPD, did you ever witness any police officer treating blacks unfairly?
- Who’s to blame for the Rodney King beating and the rioting followed?
- Who’s to blame for the George Floyd death and rioting that took followed?
- Since George Floyd do police officer feel that their work is more likely to be put under a microscope, thus leaving them feeling more threatened than ever.
- Is there anything that you want to say about what took place at the Capital on January 6?
- What’s the best thing you can say about the SMPD?
- What would you say to any SMHS student thinking about becoming a police officer?
For more on this story, search Google for the May 19, 2022, San Marino Tribune article entitled Chief Incontro Teaches “Cop Class.”
George’s Civic Action Project (2022)
For this civic action project, George sought to encourage federal lawmakers to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would get rid of the Electoral College and thereby have the people, by popular vote, decide who shall be president.
In this regard, George searched the internet to find out to what extent the American people supported his call for action.
He then surveyed his fellow seniors, the graduating class of 2022, with both his survey and survey findings appearing below.
In a 2021 Electoral College Poll done by Pew Research Center, it shows that 55% of Americans favors to replace the current system(Electoral College) with a simple majority voting system(Popular vote) nationwide, and only 43% of Americans wants to keep the current system.
Driven by curiosity, I decided to do my own poll on the opinions of electoral college voting system among SMHS Students, and see what percentage of SMHS students favors the current voting system, and what percentage of students want it to be changed.
My poll has total of 102 responses, randomly selected among SMHS students, 61.8% of them thinks that current system should be changed so that the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide(popular votes) win the election, and 34.3% of survey participants thinks the current system should be kept, in which the candidate who wins the most votes in the Electoral College wins the election.
By comparing and contrasting the opinions of SMHS students and the opinions nationwide, I can conclude that a large majority of SMHS students favors to change the current voting system to popular votes, with a percentage of 61.8% : 55%. Compares to the national opinion.
I personally believe that electoral college should be abolished, and the candidate who receives the most total votes nationwide(popular votes) win the election due to the following reasons.
Firstly, electoral college is an outdated and convoluted system that sometimes yields results contrary to the choice of the majority of American voters. In many elections in the past, presidency candidates who loses the popular votes nationwide still wins the election, results contrary to the choice of the majority of American voters.
Secondly, the disproportionate distributions of the electoral votes in the senate that favors the small states. In the senate, each state is guaranteed to have two votes regardless of populations, therefore grants the small states more votes than they supposed to have. The votes are not proportional to the population. Last but not least, the Electoral College has racist origins — when established, it applied the three-fifths clause, which gave a long-term electoral advantage to small usually slave states in the South to dilute the political power of voters of color, and guaranteed the “rights” of slavary states.
Marlene’s Civic Action Project (2022)
For this Civic Action, Marlene sought to encourage Congress to pass legislation to protect abortion services for millions of Americans in the days following “the leaked Roe v. Wade draft opinion.”
Before writing a letter to California’s two US Senators and Congresswoman Judy Chu and asking them to get behind President Joe Biden’s calling, Marlene polled the SMHS graduating class of 2022 to see the extent to which the class’ “abortion attitudes” matched up with the nations’ “abortion attitudes.”
Below . . . the nation’s “abortion attitudes” as revealed by a 2021 ABC News / Washington Post poll.
And now . . . the “abortion attitudes” of the SMHS graduating class of 2022.
Eighty-five percent (85%) of the SMHS graduating class wants to see the court upholding the Roe v. Wade ruling, 13.5% have no opinion, and only one student wants to see Roe v Wade overturned . . . whereas in the national poll ⅔ of the polled individuals voted to uphold Roe v. Wade.
In the poll the washington post sent out they had asked whether you are in favor or against allowing abortion 6 weeks and 15 weeks into the pregnancy. There was a greater number of people in favor of 6 weeks than in favor of 15 weeks.
In my poll I changed this question to an open ended question where the polled individualls could mark along the timeline of 0 to 9 months to when abortion should still be a viable option. The overarching polled individuals answered 3 months.
I felt this was a better way of asking since it didn’t limit the responses to two possible answer choices, instead it enabled the responders to choose their own timeline, which is a better representation of their opinions.
For the last question I asked whether the polled individuals were aware of any legislation in our state that affected the Roe v. Wade decision. The majority of the responses said that they were unsure, which was similar to the data in the national poll.
Niko’s Civic Action Project (2022)
San Marino’s Lacey Park is a beautiful 30-acre park located in the center of San Marino between Virginia Road and St. Albans Road, and North of Monterey Road.
Originally Wilson Lake in 1875, the land was purchased by the city in 1925 and dedicated as a park
In the park, one can find:
- A picnic area that is often the site of musical concerts, civic events, and pancake breakfasts.
- Open green areas and many varieties of trees and shrubs.
- Two walking loops: an inner loop of approximately 3/4 mile in length, and an outer loop of approximately 1 mile in length.
- A variety of different dogs. Dogs are welcome with their owners, providing they are on a leash and that their owners see to it that the dogs mind their manners and that their excesses are cared for.
The one thing that Lacy Park does not provide is free Wi-Fi access and so, for his civic action project, Nikko M. sought to encourage city officials to “wifi-Lacy.”
In this regard, Niko wrote an editorial for the opinion section of the school’s newspaper, the Titan Shield.
Katy’s Civic Action Project (2022)
For this Civic Action Project, Katy sought to get the San Marino city council to support the call for an off-leash dog area within the city limits. The best part of this project is that Katy described, in the form of a blog post, all the “civic action” that she took. Click here to read Katy’s blog post.
Jacob’s Civic Action Project (2022)
For this Civic Action Project, Jason sought to get LA city officials to better respond to what he called the LA Metro Crisis. In this regard, he produced the LA Times Op-Ed piece that appears below.
Sidenote #1
Since 2018, College Board has required its APGov teachers to provide their students with “an opportunity to engage in an applied civics project”
The only requirements are that the project (1) “is tied to the AP U.S. Government and Politics course framework,” (2) “consists of a sustained and real-world activity,” and (3) “culminates with a presentation of findings.”
On pages 133–137 of its APGOV Course and Exam Description, College Board lists and describes several project suggestions.
Click here for a description of several other (not-found-in-the-APGOv-CED) project suggestions.
Sidenote #2
When thinking about assigning students a civic action project, AP and College Prep US Gov teachers might also want to consider placing KQED’s Youth Media Challenge before their students.
The 2022 “challenge” called on students to produce a 1–3 minute video that addressed the following question: “What do you want to change (or stay the same) about school?
In this regard, one of my students — Elaina L — produced this 2:11 video appearing below:
Elaina produced this video while enrolled in my 2022 AP US Government class. Aside from being an outstanding AP US Government student, Elaina is also the lead attorney on our school’s 2022 Mock Trial Team (which I coach).
I view KQED’s YMC as an especially good way to engage student voice and choice and foster civic engagement.
Another very good way to engage student voice and choice and foster civic engagement is with the Constitutional Rights Foundation’s Civic Action Project.
Sidenote #3
Last but not least, check this out: Students’ Call for a “Holiday Homework Ban” Leads to Change.
