Charter School Students Shine as Pages at the State Capitol
To help members of the General Assembly better understand Georgia’s charter schools, GCSA encouraged charter school students to apply for the Georgia House & Senate Page program. Eight charter school students from across Georgia have already participated in the program. Student Pages serve House and Senate members by running messages to them inside the legislative chambers and get an up-close look at Democracy in action.
Ivy Preparatory Academy 8th grader Autumn Harkness, served as a Page for Senator Jason Carter and was lucky to have her photo taken with Governor Nathan Deal.
Autumn Harkness, who was a Page for Senator Jason Carter, told GCSA, “I was a little nervous once we got to the capitol building. Around maybe 9:10 a.m we had a little information session about how the day would work. Honestly, that made me feel even more nervous. I had just met two girls so I had someone to talk to. One of them happened to have paged before, so that helped get rid of most of my fears. By the time I delivered my second page I was relaxed and excited to be able to have such a wonderful opportunity, and to top it off I got to meet Nathan Deal, the Governor of Georgia.”
Representative Paul Battles, with Georgia Cyber Academy student Mary-Kate Billings, and Speaker of the House, David Ralston.
Mary Kate Billings said about her experience, “I paged in the House of Representatives and for my representative: Paul Battles. I learned that in the House Chamber, the representative’s seats are broken up into 4 sections: A, B, C and D. My job was to deliver notes and messages to the representatives in the Chamber. The messages had codes on them so I could find where that representative was seated. When I was finished, I met the Speaker of the House (David Ralston) and Representative Paul Battles and had my picture taken with them. It was a very fun experience and I plan on on Paging again.”
Click on these links for information about applying to the Georgia House & Senate Page Programs.
