Friday morning, the We the People team was announced to advance to nationals.

“I’ve been coaching We the People for ten years, and this is our first invitational to nationals,” adviser Joseph Juliano said. “It feels really rewarding to know that all my work in building the program has paid off, and I’m super excited for the group of students this year because they really deserve it with all the hard work they have put in all year.”

Juliano credits the team’s success this year in part to his assistant coach, Social Studies teacher Trey Takahashi. 

“It’s kind of wild to be stepping into the sphere at the same time the students made their way to nationals,” Takahashi said. “I can only imagine how much work Mr. Juliano had coaching the team on his own, and I really think that us splitting up the tasks this year was a big part of the success we’ve achieved because we both had the opportunity to work with and focus on the students.”

Students were waiting in anticipation for the results the past few days.

“We were 90% confident that we would go, but there was that small chance that we wouldn’t,” senior Monica Sarkisian said. “When we found out this morning, it just felt so surreal.”

With all the hard work put in, senior Allee Lin feels the national advancement was well deserved.

“We have the We the People class period, we stay after school at least once a week for almost two hours, and all the additional studying we have at home,” Lin said. “It’s a lot of personal time involved in this class that we have all invested, so it feels nice to feel seen and that all our hard work wasn’t wasted.”