2025 HSLP: Day 10

High School Leaders Program Class of 2025
Day 10: Monday, July 21st
Reported By: Bryce Hallberg (Princess Anne High School, Virginia Beach VA) and Evangline Price (Washington-Liberty High School, Arlington VA)

After a scrumptious meal of pancakes and eggs at the O-Hill dining hall, we made our way down

to Shannon Hall, where we had class with Mrs. Heubeck at nine. In class we learned about Massive

Resistance, when Virginia closed their public schools because they refused to desegregate in 1958 and

1959. Following our insightful lesson, we watched a documentary about Massive Resistance and its

effects on African American and low-income white students across the commonwealth. This documentary

interviewed Virginians who were a part of the first group of African American students to integrate into

previously white schools. The retelling of their experiences taught us firsthand the racism endured by

African Americans at the time.

After our documentary, we played a role-playing game where we were assigned to a new persona

in the 1800’s. We were business owners, lawyers, plantation owners, northern doctors or in debt to the

Confederacy. The game made us collaborate with our peers to find out if we were Federalists or

Democratic-Republicans. We had to fill out a survey with our group where we would read and circle

where we believed our characters’ ideals best fit. After a very exciting game, we found ourselves walking

to O-Hill to feast on some delicious food that consisted of different types of cuisine from across the

world.

Following lunch, we sat down back in Shannon Hall where we had three different speakers. The

first speaker was Tim Parrish who taught us about international relations and the life of a lobbyist. He

gave us his three pearls of wisdom: Everyday matters, dream big dreams (go for the gold), and you’re

always in a competition with yourself. He was very inspirational and taught us to be a better version of

ourselves everyday. Our second speaker was Liz White from UpVote Virginia. Ms. White taught us about

Ranked Choice Voting, a voting system where voters can rank candidates by preference on their ballots.

She compared cities that implement this strategy and taught us the positives of RCV and how it can

promote friendly campaigning. At 3:30, a UVA student came in and gave us a presentation on how we can

improve our resumes. He gave us tips on formatting as well as how to make the content concise and

effective. Ultimately in the classroom we hosted Salaam Bhatti, a lawyer and expert on poverty. He told

us how he led an effort in Virginia that successfully expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance

Program (SNAP) to over 25,000 families. Mr. Bhatti has announced his candidacy to run for U.S.

Congress for Virginia’s first district, and our class enjoyed asking him questions about his dreams for the

future and how he plans to improve our commonwealth.

Succeeding our speakers, we made it back to the O-Hill dining hall for dinner at 5:30. Thai red

curry with rice, pizza, and hamburgers were some of the foods served and eaten by Sorensen students.

Finally we made it back to our dorms at 6:30 to shower and get our work done. Almost every student

spent their evening meeting with their policy project groups to continue researching and writing. Some

students enjoyed a dance party break in between working hard. At last, at 10:00 it was time for these

hard-working students to hit the hay!