Tweet

Bellwood-Antis senior Meghan Claar has been chosen to participate in the annual CHS public forum debate at North Allegheny High School.

The college in high school (CHS) course is run through the University of Pittsburgh, and by passing the class you earn college credit.  Bellwood-Antis is the only school not from the greater Pittsburgh area that is in the program.

Every year, the participating schools are given a theme to design debates throughout the school year. This year’s theme was “All Americans Have a Fair Chance to Succeed.”

At least one debate must be held in front of the student body, which was held in February in the auditorium. Students from all grade levels were able to come to the auditorium and view one of five debates centered on the theme.

The debates are filmed and sent to Pitt, where they are then judged by professors and speech students.

After grading them, the teachers and students choose one student from each school that gets to participate in a statewide debate on the common topic.

“At the schoolwide debate, Meghan’s groups debated whether or not hate crime laws made punishments fairer, and I had a feeling then that if we sent in her group’s debate video she would be chosen by the people at Pitt,” said teacher Mr. Naylor. “She was a good arguer all year. While she may come off as quiet at times, when she steps in the arena of debate she’s quite capable of handling herself.”

Already accepted and planning to go to The University of Pittsburgh, Meghan says she is very excited and surprised.

“I liked debating in class this year, but I didn’t think I would get picked for Pitt. I’m thankful for the opportunity and look forward to the trip later this month,” Meghan said.

Claar will be traveling on April 30th to contest.

All of the students in the debate class will make the trip to watch Meghan speak.

She recently went to the event planning at Pitt and received her role in the debate.