Chattanooga Home School Team Wins American Mock Trial Competition

NSHSS is happy to count a number of home schooled students among its members and to highlight their accomplishments. Recently, a team of homeschool mock trial students from Chattanooga, Tennessee, led by NSHSS member Kyle Johnson as Team Captain, won the American Mock Trial Invitational in May 2007 at the New Jersey Law Center on the campus of Rutgers University. In the final round, Family Christian Academy defeated a team from Washington, State, winning its third national title since 2002. Mock Trial provides students the opportunity to learn about the judicial system and to develop skills of public speaking, team work, and thinking on their feet.

Kyle said that "Our team has worked hard and set a goal of competing nationally. The AMTI was a spectacular opportunity for us to do just that and we had fierce competition from across the country." The team competed together for 31 trials over two years; they were undefeated at the AMTI competition, which requires skill, experience, and many long hours of practice in order to analyze, write, and memorize information to a solid case.

The National AMTI case involved high school students at an after prom party where underage drinking took place, with a student being killed in a bay allegedly by a student who had been drinking and driving a boat . The team had to present both Defense and Prosecution, and won first place in Prosecution.

Kyle, from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, is also an Eagle Scout and was a member of the 2007 class of Youth Leadership Chattanooga and was President of the Eta Sigma Alpha National Home School Honor Society.