Two teams from Kirkland’s l (ICS) have become the first in Lake Washington School District history to reach the state level of mock trial competition.
ICS was one of just two public schools to place in the top eight teams last week during competition at the King County Courthouse sponsored by the YMCA.
"We were really excited when both teams made it," said ICS instructor Ted Over, an attorney himself. "There was joy and incredulity. It's wonderful."
Over said mock trial competition has been described as a combination of debate and drama, and it can be intense. "It's premier learning when students take their own time to struggle so hard at something without the reward of a grade," he said. "It's their own thing."
The ICS teams are coached by King County District Court Judge David Steiner and six attorneys who are all parents of students who used to attend ICS or who still do. They are: Phil Shucklin, Mary Levenson, Patty Eakes, Peter Ku and Royce Roberts. Kim Allen, an attorney and Redmond City Council member, also coaches the students.
One team competed as the leadership activity associated with a Business Law course offered at ICS by LWSD’s Career and Technical Education division. The Business Law team took eighth place. ICS’s mock trial club sponsored the second team, which placed in fourth.
By finishing among the top eight, both ICS teams earned berths in the state competition in Olympia March 23-25.
Here are the team rosters:
Fourth Place team: Abby Burlingame, Adam Davis, Dominique Devlin, Clare de Young, Meghan Dingman, Jack Eggleston, Koa Inn, Jessica Jin, Anastasiya Kirichuck, Dalia Murra, Sai Paul, Rachel Roberts, Zach Shucklin, Nihal Thapa, Ioana Ungureanasu and Cole Wilder.
Eighth place team: Olivia Abouelheiga, Alexandra Bartos-O'Neill, Nisha Behrman, Danuta Egle, Matthew Fisher, Lindsey Foster, Sonia Jaidka, Dorothy Jiang, Thomas Karagounis, Kurt Lamon, Andrei Morozov, Aishwarya Nirmal, Mia Richards, Max Schrempp, Inga Shurnayte, Aiden Trigg-Hauger and Stephanie Wang.
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Some information for this story came from a Lake Washington School District press release.
