{"id":16640,"date":"2024-03-21T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/?page_id=16640"},"modified":"2024-03-21T02:01:00","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T07:01:00","slug":"senator-harriss","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/senator-harriss\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator Harriss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Harriss Welcomes Metro East High School Students to the Illinois State Capitol during her Spring Youth Advisory Council<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Springfield, IL<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 State Senator Erica Harriss (56th<\/sup>-Glen Carbon) welcomed 45 students from 11 different high schools to the State Capitol in Springfield Monday as a part of her Spring Youth Advisory Council (YAC).
\u201cThis is a great opportunity to connect high school students with state government and is a highlight of my service as a state legislator,\u201d said Senator Harriss. \u201cI am thrilled to see so many high school students make the trip to Springfield for them to experience how things work and see the legislative process come to life.\u201d

Senator Harriss\u2019 YAC is a two-part series. High school students came together in the 56th<\/sup>\u00a0District in the fall at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville to draft bill ideas to debate during the Spring council.

\u201cIt has been super fun and a good experience and it\u2019s definitely something I feel like colleges and higher up schools would find unique,\u201d said Alton High School Student, Makenzie Jones. \u201cI think it is important for youth to be involved in government because you don\u2019t see it as much. If we have a correct age demographic talking about how they want to be represented, then we will have a better government that better fits the entire population.\u201d

During the Spring YAC, students are assigned into different legislative roles such as citizen proponent\/opponent, lobbyist proponent\/opponent, democratic senator, republican senator, and press\/media to debate their proposed legislation in a mock committee hearing.

\u201cI think any opportunity to be involved in government or leadership is very important. I think from today, it really does show how the government works and the leadership opportunities,\u201d said Collinsville High School Student, Margot Schusky. \u201cIt is such a cool opportunity and getting to speak with Senator Harriss.\u201d

Senator Harriss welcomed State Representative Amy Elik and former State Representative Tim Butler,\u00a0who now serves as the President of the Illinois Railroad Association,\u00a0to speak with students at the Capitol.

\u201cI haven\u2019t been inside the Capitol building before, but I have learned so much about it just being here and listening to people talk,\u201d said Edwardsville High School Student, Mihlali Kapatamoyo. \u201cIf you live in your state, you need to know what is going on. Even if you are not an adult, you should still be involved in your government.\u201d
High schools that participated in this year\u2019s YAC were:\u00a0Alton High School<\/a>,\u00a0Civic Memorial High School<\/a>,\u00a0Collinsville High School<\/a>,\u00a0East Alton – Wood River CHSD 14<\/a>,\u00a0Edwardsville High School<\/a>,\u00a0Granite City School District #9<\/a>,\u00a0Madison Community School District 12<\/a>,\u00a0Marquette Catholic High School<\/a>,\u00a0Maryville Christian School<\/a>,\u00a0Metro-East Lutheran High School<\/a>,\u00a0O’Fallon Township High School District 203<\/a>,\u00a0Roxana Senior High School<\/a>.

Refreshments and lunch for the Youth Advisory Councils were provided by Meridian Health Plan of Illinois.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16640","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16641,"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16640\/revisions\/16641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/granitecitygossip.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}