At a time when national proficiency in civics has fallen to historic lows, a group of John Adams Middle School students were among more than 200 Los Angeles-area students Thursday presenting civic action projects on some of the most pressing issues of the day — from immigration policy to juvenile vaping to eating disorders.
The students are participating in a Civic Action Project Expo hosted by Teach Democracy, a downtown Los Angeles-based nonprofit
The timing is pointed. According to a University of California, Riverside report, only 18% of young people in California attend a school district where civic learning is considered a priority. An American Bar Association report puts student proficiency in civics at between 20% and 25% nationally.
Teach Democracy — formerly the Constitutional Rights Foundation, established in 1963 — runs the Civic Action Project program in partnership with more than 6,000 teachers and 200,000 students nationwide. The program asks students to identify an issue affecting their community, research related public policies, and develop presentations aimed at influencing local policymakers.
It has produced measurable results. Students in a previous cohort successfully lobbied for a traffic light to be installed near a busy school crosswalk after presenting their findings through the program.
Theexpo brought together students from schools across the county. Teach Democracy CEO Stephanie Doute and Senior Program Director Gregorio Medina were also there.
For Jorge Cierra, the Spanish immersion social studies teacher who brought the program to John Adams roughly five years ago, the expo represents the payoff of months of classroom work.
“Civics is important — it provides them an awareness of their role in society,” Cierra said. “It gives them positionality. It gives them a position in this community, and it just really makes them a citizen — not in the legal term, but more of a member of a community or a society.”
What began as a project limited to Cierra’s immersion students has grown significantly. This year, all 250 eighth graders at John Adams will present civic action projects at an on-site school symposium next week. Cierra selected four groups to represent the school at Thursday’s larger, multi-school event — chosen based on how far along their projects were, not the subject matter.
“I want to see my kids present, both in English and in Spanish,” Cierra said ahead of the event. “I’d like them to show off all their work. They’ve been working on this for many, many weeks.”
The student groups began their research in January and February, ramping up through March and continuing after spring break. Lessons covered research methods, survey design, policy analysis, and interview techniques.
The four John Adams projects reflect a range of issues that have touched students personally or caught their attention in the news.
Felix Carpenter, Leif Reyna, Oliver Frost and Angel Cortes Ortiz chose juvenile vaping, proposing that schools install vape detectors in bathrooms and examining the psychology behind why teenagers start using e-cigarettes. Frost said the issue was something he and his classmates noticed at school.
“I felt like it was a good issue that we could try and help and solve,” Frost said. The group built a 25-slide presentation, dividing sections among group members, each responsible for roughly five slides.
Dulce Atehortia-Osorio took on eating disorders and body dysmorphia, motivated by personal connections to the issue.
“We know a lot of people that struggle with it,” said Atehortia-Osorio. “We want to bring awareness to it.”
The students said they hoped the event would help them grow as public speakers and give them a chance to hear feedback on their work. The group began the digital portion of their presentation two weeks before the expo, putting together the poster board in just the final days.
A third group focused on what they called “Celebrate America” — a project examining how Americans view their country and how constitutional amendments like freedom of speech shape differing political opinions as the country approaches its 250th anniversary.
“People have different opinions of America, and the amendments can affect other people’s beliefs,” said Diego Martinez, who is working on the project with Allison Mechrano-Rivera. “Freedom of speech allows both positivity and negative views on who’s in office.”
The students produced their presentations in both English and Spanish — a deliberate choice reflecting the demographics of their community.
“A lot of parents don’t speak English, and we wanted them to also feel connected to our presentation,” said Mechrano-Rivera.
The fourth project, led by student Juliet Diaz and partner Frida Sernas, focused on educating elementary school students about immigration — a topic Diaz said she felt was rarely discussed in classrooms despite dominating news coverage in recent months.
“I’ve never heard of people talking about immigration in classrooms — it’s very rare,” Diaz said. In researching the project, she looked into both Santa Monica Unified School District policy and city of Santa Monica policy on federal officer access to campuses, finding that federal officers can access school grounds without advance notice under current rules — a detail she said she found significant.
Sernas said her motivation to participate came from the broader impact the project could have.
“I feel like a lot of younger kids don’t really know what’s going on right now, and this would really kind of help them understand this topic a little better,” Sernas said. “Knowing that I could help other people learn more — that’s what’s really motivating me.”
Both students produced a bilingual digital presentation and a traditional trifold poster board as part of their project.
Cierra said the multi-school environment offers something a classroom cannot replicate.
“They’re going to be exposed to schools that are not necessarily neighboring schools, but schools from all over LA County,” he said. “They’ll see a variety of projects — some that they probably would not have thought of, or topics they probably would not have worked on.”
editor@smdp.com