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The Tennessee State High School Mock Trial championship team, a team of Home schoolers from Chattanooga, Tennessee, representing Family Christian Academy, won the National High School Mock Trial Championship in St. Paul, Minnesota on Saturday. The team is the first group of home schoolers to qualify for the prestigious National High School Mock Trial Championships.

After 4 rounds, teams were scored on won/lost record, total number of points from each ballot, and total number of ballots received. Each round had 3 ballots available. Of the 12 ballots available in the first 4 rounds, the home school team received 11 of 12 ballots, and went undefeated. They received the highest number of points and the highest number of ballots of all the teams competing.

In the final round the Tennessee home schoolers were the plaintiff against a Pennsylvania team representing the defense. The final round had 5 scoring judges. Of the 5 ballots the home schoolers won 4. The 5th ballot was lost by only 1 point.

The home school team consists of Beth Coleman, Amber Gruber, John Poston, Daniel Wilkinson, Harvy Jones, and siblings Anna, Joshua, and Matthew Downer.

Attorney Jeff Atherton coached the team with the law firm of Milligan, Barry, Hensley, and Evans in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mr. Atherton is a home schooling father of three and the vice president of the local home school association. He has coached the Chattanooga home school mock trial teams for the past 11 years. Fellow attorney and homeschool graduate, Mr. Matthew Hargraves, an associate with the same firm, assisted Mr. Atherton. Mr. Hargraves was a member of the first home school team coached by Mr. Atherton.

Another home school alumnus of the Atherton mock trial teams is former Home School Legal Defense intern Nathaniel Goggans, who is entering his final year of law school.

The trials were based on a hypothetical lawsuit stemming from the famous shipwreck of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1975.

Teams from 42 states, Guam, and the Mariana Islands competed.

Family Christian Academy's Red team claimed the title at this year's annual Tennessee State High School Mock Trial Competition in Nashville, defeating classmates from the school's Blue team Saturday afternoon in the finals.

The two Chattanooga teams emerged from competition involving 18 teams that began Friday afternoon at the Metro Davidson County Courthouse. The Hon. Patsy Cottrell presided over the finals.

The event, now in its 22nd year, involves more than 1,000 high school students and is sponsored by the TBA’s Young Lawyer Division.

Qualifying teams for the 2002 finals included: St. Mary’s School, Westminster Academy and White Station High School, all of Memphis; Haywood High School, Brownsville; Columbia Central High School, Columbia; Franklin High School, Franklin; Harpeth Hall’s Green and Silver teams, Nashville; Gallatin High School, Gallatin; Family Christian Academy’s Red and Blue teams, Chattanooga; Cookeville High School, Cookeville; Maryville High School, Maryville; West High School, Knoxville; South Greene County High School, Greeneville; West Greene High School, Mosheim; Cherokee High School, Rogersville; and Clinton High School, Clinton, which had won the state title five of the past six, including the last three in a row.

Family Christian Academy Red will now go on to compete in the National High School Mock Trial Championship in St. Paul, Minn., May 9-11.
 

The national champion team members from Chattanooga are shown here with a second group of competitor from the school after the two teams won first and second place at the Tennessee High School Mock Trial competition. Coaches are Matthew Hargraves (left) and Jeff Atherton (right). Members of the national title team are (from left) Beth Coleman, Daniel Wilkinson, Joshua Downer, Anna Downer, John Poston, Amber Gruber and Matthew Downer. Members of the runner-up FCA team were (from right) Jon Gibbons, Jesse Blankenship, Mandy Blankenship, Harvey Jones, Laurel Stinson and Joshua Stinson.

Chattanooga team wins National High School Mock Trial title The Tennessee State High School Mock Trial championship team won the National High School Mock Trial Championship in St. Paul, Minn., on Saturday evening.  The team, a group of homeschoolers from Chattanooga representing Family Christian Academy, competed in four rounds of competition prior to the championship round. The competition rounds were against teams representing the following states: Rhode Island and Alabama on Friday, Michigan and Indiana on Saturday morning and afternoon. After four rounds, the teams were scored on won/lost record, total number of points from each ballot, and total number of ballots received. Each round had three ballots available. Of the 12 ballots available in the first four rounds, the Tennessee team received 11 of 12 ballots, and went undefeated. They received the highest number of points and the highest number of ballots of all the teams competing. In the final round the Tennessee team members were the plaintiff against a Pennsylvania team representing the defense. The final round had five scoring judges. Of the five ballots the Tennessee team won four. The fifth ballot was lost by only one point. The team consists of Beth Coleman, Amber Gruber, John Poston, Daniel Wilkinson, Harvy Jones, and siblings Anna, Joshua, and Matthew Downer. The team was coached by Jeff Atherton, an attorney with the law firm of Milligan, Barry, Hensley, and Evans in Chattanooga. Atherton is a homeschooling father of three and the vice president of the local homeschool association. He has coached the Chattanooga homeschool mock trial teams for the past 11 years.  Atherton was assisted by fellow attorney Matthew Hargraves, an associate with the same firm. Hargraves was a member of the first homeschool team coached by Atherton.  The trials were based on a hypothetical lawsuit stemming from the famous shipwreck of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1975. Teams from 42 states, Guam, and the Mariana Islands competed.

Jeff Atherton, an attorney with  the law firm of Milligan, Barry,  Hensley, and Evans in  Chattanooga, is coach of the  national champion FCA mock trial team.

Home-schooled students regularly win national spelling and geography bees. Now a team of home-schoolers known as Family Christian Academy has won the National High School Mock Trial championship. Friday's Wall St. Journal editorial celebrates the victory, noting that it's outmoded to call home schoolers drones.

. . . an issue of the alumni magazine of the Ivy League's Brown
University quotes a dean describing home-schoolers as the "epitome" of Brown students. "They are self-directed, they take risks, and they don't back off."

My daughter competed on her high school's mock trial team for three years. In her senior year, they won the county and placed fifth in the state. So I can vouch for the rigors of Mock Trial, which requires students to understand the law, argue persuasively and think on their feet. No drones need apply. -- 5/18

When Andrea Yates drowns her five children in a bathtub, overnight a chorus of pundits, shrinks and childcare experts emerges avowing that home-schooling has obviously driven her to it.  But when a team of home-schooled Tennessee teens wins a national competition that rewards thinking on your feet, nary a peep is heard, except from their hometown paper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

In recent years, home-schoolers have been disproportionately represented in spelling and geography bees.  But their victory this month in the National High School Mock Trial Championship, held in St. Paul, Minn., is more intriguing still, because this contest-designed to foster appreciation for the U.S. system of law - cannot be written off as an exercise in mere memorization.  As the competition's Web page states, it is based on "critical thinking, reading, speaking, and advocacy."

When you're involved with home-schooling, the first question you always hear is [about] 'socialization,' " says Jeff Atherton, the Chattanooga attorney who coached the team to victory.  "So for me the most encouraging thing was sitting at the awards banquet, when we still did not know the winner, and watching kinds from all over the country come up to our team and say they were rooting for us.  I believe this was a tribute to the courtesy our kids displayed both in and out of the competition."

Mr. Atherton, who heads the local home-school association, says that though home-schoolers still have their battles, "the walls are coming down."  Maybe that's because the growth of home-schooling is making it harder to caricature its students.  Even by the Education Department's conservative reckoning there are at lease 850,000 American children being home-schooled - larger than vouchers and charter schools combined.

For years home-schooling families have endured much prejudice; recall the now infamous J.C. Penney T-shirt bearing a picture of a trailer over the words "home skooled."  But his year an issue of the alumni magazine of the Ivy League's Brown University quotes a dean describing home-schoolers as the "epitome" of Brown students.  "They are self-directed, they take risks, and they don't back off."  Today we even have home-schooled Rhodes Scholars.

The culture is beginning to catch on.  Back in May 1995, in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, a Time magazine article titled "Outcasts Digging in for the Apocalypse" lumped home-schoolers in with John Birchers, and other "well known elements of Far Right thought."  But just last August, Time ran a cover story highlighting home-schooling's achievements, such as SAT scores that are 80 points higher than the national average.  As Time puts it: "The new home schoolers aren't hermits.  They are diverse parents who are getting results - and putting the heat on public schools."

Just ask the little lawyers from Chattanooga.

The 1st Place State Champion Team, FCA Red, advances to the National Mock Trial Championship in St. Paul Minnesota May 9–12, 2002

FIRSTS:

First Homeschool Teams to Finish in the Top 4

First Homeschool Teams to Win the State Championship

First Time Two Teams from the Same City to Place 1st & 2nd

First Time Two Teams from the Same School to Place 1st & 2nd

• Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Speaker, last month, a group of home school students from Tennessee won the National Mock Trial Championship. The team represented Family Christian Academy, a network of home schoolers based in Tennessee.

•  This Saturday, Family Christian Academy will hold a commencement ceremony for over 100 graduates. These graduates are part of a growing movement in Tennessee and across the nation. In our country, over 850,000 children are being educated at home.

•  Home schooled students come from all walks of life, and more often than not, they are excelling in academics. In May, the Wall Street Journal noted, ``In recent years, home-schoolers have been disproportionately represented in spelling and geography bees. But their victory this month in the National High School Mock Trial Championship, held in St. Paul, Minn., is more intriguing still, because this contest--designed to foster appreciation for the U.S. system of law cannot be written off as an exercise in mere memorization. As the competition's Web page states, it is based on `critical thinking, reading, speaking, and advocacy.' '

• I believe one of our highest priorities is to make sure every child has the opportunity to receive: a quality education, one that will allow each to pursue his or her dreams. The genius of America is that we provide a free public education to everyone while also giving people the freedom to pursue other forms of educational excellence, whether it be in private, parochial, charter or home schools.

•  Home schooling has proven itself to be a very good option for educating our children and youth. I congratulate the graduates of Family Christian Academy, and I pay tribute to their parents and the many others who have provided them with strong educational foundations that give them the tools they need to pursue their dreams.