Students Attend Appreciation Day Ceremony for 2008 Judicial Youth Corps Program

Judicial Youth Corps Students attend the 2008 Appreciation Day ceremony at the John Adams Courthouse

     More than 100 people attended a recent Appreciation Day ceremony to celebrate the achievements of thirty-nine Boston and Worcester public high school students who completed the 18th Supreme Judicial Court Judicial Youth Corps program. The Appreciation Day program, held in the John Adams Courthouse on August 22, featured Supreme Judicial Court Justice Roderick L. Ireland, who gave the keynote address and presented the students with their certificates for completing the comprehensive fourteen-week court education and summer internship program.

     Other speakers included Massachusetts Bar Association President David W.White, Jr., Massachusetts Bar Foundation President Laurence M. Johnson, and attorneys Gerald Howland, Boston Judicial Youth Corps Teacher and James Rosseel, Worcester Judicial Youth Corps Teacher.  Douglas Arbetter, a student at Doherty High School in Worcester and Melissa Negron, a student at the John O'Bryant High School in Boston, also gave brief remarks describing their experiences with the Judicial Youth Corps.

     Established in 1991, the Judicial Youth Corps program teaches high school students about the Massachusetts court system and the importance of a rule of law. Through weekly educational classes in May and June and summer internships in courts in Worcester and throughout Boston, the students learn firsthand how the judicial branch functions in a constitutional democracy. Judges, lawyers, clerks, probation officers, court officers and other court employees volunteer their time to teach and supervise the Judicial Youth Corps students throughout the program.

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