On November 16 and 17, the Junior State of America club (JSA) travelled to the Santa Clara Marriott for their Fall State Convention.

The schedule for the convention, which happens three times each year, includes workshops, debates, and a dance.

Junior Alexander Magganas, who has been to two conventions before, said that one of his favorite parts of the convention is the opportunity to meet some of the 1,000 high school students that attend.

“There’s something for everyone,” Magganas said.

Sophomore Claire Valva said that it was her first convention. “I thought the topics we discussed were pretty interesting,” Valva said.

It was also sophomore Claire Reichle’s first JSA convention.

“I loved being able to choose which debates to go to,” Reichle said.

At Fall State, senior Erica Monical won a best speaker gavel for her debate in agreement that that the Libertarian Party is the solution to the partisan divide.

Magganas, who participated in two debates, also won a best speaker award. In one debate, he argued in favor of abolishing corn subsidies and won a gavel. In another debate, he argued in favor of the FCC not censoring network television.

Senior Sasha Costello debated the affirmative that if there is no victim, there is no crime.

Also, junior Eric Zhang participated in the debates as a moderator.

Reichle also said that one of her favorite parts of the debates was that there was never one right answer.

This year’s convention was called “Progressing Beyond Partisanship: From Conflict to Compromise”.

“The theme was interesting, especially with the government shut down this year. It was cool to see how compromise is so hard to come about but it is often the only way to come up with a solution,” Reichle said.

Fall State included a new feature called “JSA Talks.” According to the Fall State 2013 Agenda, these talks are intended to provide delegates with an opportunity to speak about any issue that is important to them. The JSA Talks consisted of ten minutes of speaking and five minutes of questions.

The keynote speaker was Craig Cheslog, the Principal Advisor to California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson at the California Department of Education.