‘Street Law’ Gives Students Lessons In Legal Rights
Defense attorney Dan Kolbet had just finished being a shark lawyer, ripping holes in the prosecution’s case, and needed some moral support.
“You did great,” said Barbara Kolbet, giving her son a hug after watching him perform. “Just don’t be a lawyer.”
Kolbet, a North Central High School junior, and his peers in the school’s “Street Law” class play-acted, improvised and talked their way through a day in court last week. Class members played judges, lawyers, defendants and witnesses under the watchful eyes of a jury of Garry Middle School students.
The level of debate was at times impressive. In the second of two trials in North Central’s auditorium, prosecutor Wade Robinson, a 17-year-old sophomore, pressed a case against fictional defendant Chelan Lake, a teenager accused of assisting in the suicide of her boyfriend by giving him a fatal overdose of aspirin.
“There is no doubt Chelan Lake loved her boyfriend, but that is not the issue,” Robinson told a witness. “Were her fingerprints on the bottle of aspirin?”
During the trial, Kolbet objected several times. “Calls for narrative,” Kolbet said when Robinson asked a leading question. Judge Pat O’Halloran sustained.
The jury, led by foreman Andrea Knudsen, a Garry seventh-grader, ruled that Lake was guilty of assisting in her boyfriend’s suicide. The jury dropped the charge from murder to a lesser one of manslaughter.
Teacher Emily Pike developed the “Street Law” class four years ago because students continually asked what their legal rights were. Students in the class learn about civil and criminal law, the state landlord-tenant law and writing wills.
The trials cap a semester of studying. Pike gets case outlines - including testimony of witnesses - from the YMCA, which holds an annual mock trial for students.
The key players - particularly the attorneys - spend several months learning the details of the case. Kolbet practiced every night for a month, his mother said. Prosecutor Jessica Adame visited a Spokane attorney to get tips on preparation and courtroom presentation.
But at times the kids were kids. The prosecution’s key witness, a sophomore who had a goatee, ponytail and the sides of his head shaved, forgot his lines, throwing a loop in the prosecution’s case.
“This is not a scripted thing,” said Pike. “Lawyers have to ask the right questions.”
Mead students taking stock
Another for the future rulers of the world file:
In 10 weeks, a pair of Mead High School make-believe stock brokers earned a $50,000 profit off a $100,000 beginning fund in a regional young entrepreneurs competition.
Juniors Ty Henson and Shane Johnson learned last week that their savvy bets - in Monopoly money, of course - were good enough for second place out of 134 teams in Eastern Washington schools with DECA programs.
Henson said they read the Wall Street Journal daily before making bets, mostly on high-tech stocks like America On Line.
Henson plans to begin investing his own money, although he said he will be more conservative than he was during the competition. Spoken like a successful stock broker.
Bemiss principal tops
Bemiss Elementary principal Dale McDonald has been named principal of the year in the Spokane area by an association of his peers.
McDonald was honored for finding creative ways to get parents involved with schools. Under McDonald’s direction, the school is also studying ways to improve federal assistance programs.
First nibbles, now bytes
An informal partnership with Holy Family Hospital has allowed Lidgerwood Elementary bits of fun, including a romp through the hospital on Halloween.
Now it has turned into bytes. The hospital gave the school $14,000 to buy five new Macintosh 580 computers with CD-ROM drives.
The hospital - under the direction of CEO Ron Schurra has given to the school before, for a summer student enrichment program. When principal Cris Welch went looking for money to add to the school’s 11 computers, she didn’t expect that much generosity.
“They seem to have appeared like an angel over us,” said Welch.
, DataTimes