Coach Gary Huggett: "They learn to think on their feet. They learn how to analyze, how to logically progress."
Coach Gary Huggett, foreground, meets with some of the 17 students in the Mock Trial team at Pioneer Valley Peforming Arts Charter Public School in South Hadley. The team won the Massachusetts Mock Trial Championship recently. SOUTH HADLEY – As soon as the news hit the public address system at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School on April 1, everyone began screaming and dancing.
Moments earlier, the school’s mock trial team had won the statewide 2011 Mock Trial Championship in Boston, defeating Boston Latin.
Now the team is trying to raise money to send eight of its members to the National Mock Trial Championship in Phoenix on May 4-8.
Administered by the Massachusetts Bar Association, the state Mock Trial program is in its 26th year. Participating teams are assigned a hypothetical case in November and then train for all the roles – attorney, witness, defendant.
“They learn to think on their feet,” said Gary Huggett, team coach at Performing Arts. “They learn how to analyze, how to logically progress. It teaches them the court system and how to argue in a coherent fashion.”
The 17 members of the Performing Arts team sharpened their skills in class twice a week and also after school.
While some may think actors, dancers, poets and other creative youths are ill-suited for courtroom battle, the state champs beg to differ. “We have confidence,” said junior Sam Farnsworth, of Belchertown.
“It’s really like acting,” said eighth-grader Kayleen Welch, of Westfield. “You have to pretend to be a character.”
“You have to think creatively to fill in the blanks,” said Rafael Fields, a junior from Northampton. “You have to captivate your audience, yet at the same time appear nonchalant.”
After preliminary rounds, schools were narrowed down to 16 regional teams that then competed in Boston.
Days after they won, the victory is still sweet for the Performing Arts School. “You can’t walk down the hall without getting a round of applause,” said Welch.
It will cost more than $5,000 to send eight members of the team and their two coaches to Phoenix. The Massachusetts Bar Association will contribute $2,500.
In these pinched times, the school can’t foot the rest of the bill, so donations are welcome.
Also, a portion of proceeds from a Friends of PVPA raffle to benefit the school will go toward the Mock Trial trip. Raffle tickets are $100, but the prize is majorly awesome.
Four field box tickets for a historic May 20 Red Sox vs. Chicago Cubs game will be raffled off. The Cubs have not played at Fenway Park since 1918. The school will print 300 raffle tickets. They’ll go on sale April 11.
Members of the winning Mock Trial team also include team captain Hannah Sokoloff-Rubin, Gabriella Magnani, Jake Engram and Noah Loving, all of Amherst; Ian Fox, Alana Young and Kayla Smith, of Belchertown; John Tyler and Nathaniel Matthews, of Hadley; Gabe Benevento-Levin, of Pelham, Graham Weston, of Hatfield, Rosemary Tropeano, of Westfield, Grace Chamberlin of Chesterfield and Hannah McNeight, of Williamsburg.
Sokoloff-Rubin, Fields, Fox, Farnsworth, Matthews, Tyler, Weston and Young have been selected for the Phoenix trip.