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Fishers Junior High captures national civics title: ‘It’s pretty surreal’

FISHERS, Ind (WISH) – Fishers proved its home to some of the brightest, civically-educated minds in the country after one of its junior high classes won a national championship.

Three years ago, Fishers Junior High School started a competition class. It taught students about civics, and competed against other schools at a regional, and state level.

Prior to this year, the class never made it past the state competition. This changed this school year, as it went to Washington D.C.

The group spent the past several days in the capital, and beat out teams from across the country and took home the title.

“When they said that we were the first place team, it didn’t seem real,” Fishers Junior High School student, Blake Backes said.

“Sitting here 365 days later with a trophy just surrounded by these desks with these people who have come so far with, it’s pretty surreal,” Fishers Junior High School student, Grace Delong said.

The competition breaks the class into six groups. Each group gets its own topic. The students answer questions ahead of the competition, and at the site, take questions from judges.

“When they said that we were the first place team, it didn’t seem real,” Backes said.

Banners welcomed students back to class Wednesday. The signs, medals and trophies are nice, but the class’ teacher hopes they get more out the experience.

“I want them to become involved in school,” Fishers Junior High School teacher, Michael Fassold said. “I want them to become involved in local government. We are suffering as a nation from a severe lack of civic knowledge.”

It’s a  message students say will stick. But they’re also pretty proud to know they’re tops when it comes to this subject.

“It feels pretty great just to know that out of everybody in the world, we are the most civically-educated 8th graders,” Backes said.

Fishers Junior High School isn’t the first Indiana school to win the national competition. Brown County won it twice before. This means, of the five years of competition, the majority of the winners have come from central Indiana.

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