Mount Vernon STEAM Academy students prepare for high school mock trial tournament

The case being considered: A former school superintendent is accusing a student of creating AI deep fake videos intended to damage his reputation as he runs for political office. The attorneys gather to consider the merits of the case and the evidence supporting both the prosecution and defense.

The setting: a classroom of more than a dozen high school students involved in the mock trial after-school club at the Mount Vernon STEAM Academy. They’re debating the hypothetical civil case as they prepare for the 2025 New York State High School Mock Trial tournament, where they will try the case in front of an actual judge.

The tournament is sponsored by the New York State Bar Association and the Westchester County Bar Association. The Mount Vernon mock trial team is getting ready to compete against teams from other Westchester County schools in March at the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains. Eventual winners will travel to Albany for the state finals in May.

During preparations for the tournament, students must master both the prosecution and the defense cases, since they won’t know what side they will be on until the tournament begins.

Principal Christopher Pearce said this is the first time that the STEAM Academy has fielded a mock trial team. Along with his excitement at seeing his students compete in the tournament, he points to the benefits that he sees students gaining from the mock trial experience.

“The need to be disciplined, ” Pearce said. “They have to collaborate, communicate, and develop their critical thinking skills, which is what you need in the real world.”

Several of the students involved in the club said they have an interest in pursuing law as a career and consider the mock trial program to be ideal in helping them get early courtroom experience.

Eleventh grade student Zachary Cotto, who wants to become an attorney, said that the mock trial program “helps with skills that I’ll need later in life” including public speaking, how to operate in a courtroom and how to examine a defendant during trial.

Senior Zior Williams also plans to pursue law and views the mock trial program as an opportunity to see what it feels like to operate in an actual courtroom. She also believes that the experience of learning how to speak in front of a judge will be beneficial in other ways, including being able to “communicate in a respectful and calm manner” with people in senior positions.

Social studies teacher Steve Kollias, who runs the club, said that along with “learning the ins and the outs of being in a courtroom and arguing a case,” an added benefit of the mock trial experience is that “it looks phenomenal on their transcripts when they apply to college.”

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This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon STEAM Academy preps for high school mock trial tournament