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| Students talk with Representative Butler before hand-delivering their draft legislation to him during their visit. |
By Bri Perkins
On February 14, 2017, the junior class traveled to the
statehouse in Columbus, Ohio to visit legislators and to hand deliver the first
draft of their bill directly to Representative Butler. This is because the
government class has been writing a bill to slow down or stop the spread of the
heroin. The students in government are working with the students in economics
to make sure the bill is fiscally responsible. Legislators will be giving feedback
to the bill that the government classes wrote together. Not only are the
government and economics students working hard on this project, so are the
anatomy and physiology students. They are learning about how heroin and opioid
addiction impact the nervous system. The juniors have been working hard to
solve this problem.
The first few steps of this process, in reference to the
government class, was to research the steps of the bill and various legislative
information. Then, students put themselves into groups to write their own
bills. The first drafts of the bills were on the topic of heroin and opioid addiction
however, they varied from each other. For example, one bill was about
rehabilitation inside and outside of jail, while others focused on catching
heroin and opioids at mailing services using machines.
The next steps were for students to put together different
aspects of each bill that worked and create one bill to propose to legislators.
This process took many days as students worked together to create a bill that
everyone was satisfied with. Then, students traveled to the capital to propose
their bill to legislators. Before the meet with legislators, such as
Representative Butler, Terence Wilcoxson, said, “I am interested in seeing the
way legislators work and behave.” Terence is just one of many who got to
experience, meet, and receive feedback from legislators on February 14th.
During the meeting, students got the chance to meet two
representatives and give them the draft of their bill to receive feedback.
Students were also given a tour of the State House, including the
Representative and Senate sides. They were also able to see where their own
senators and representatives, such as Senator Lehner and Representative Butler,
represent them. “It was a nice experience. The visit made me realize that being
a representative at an early age was an option for me,” Carissa Ritzler, a
junior, said. Not only did students learn about things that they can do now or
soon, they also learned how they can improve their bill to hopefully get it
passed.
