BURLINGTON, Vt., March 11 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) held a roundtable discussion at the Vermont State House on Saturday afternoon with the student finalists of his fourteenth annual State of the Union Essay contest. The contest gives Vermont high school students the opportunity to describe a major issue facing our country and propose what they would do to solve it.

Find photos of the event here. To read the essays of the finalists and winners, click here.

“The reason we do this contest each year is to have young people around the state imagine being the President of the United States,” said Sanders. “It is a chance for them to think critically about the problems that face our country but also about solutions. Some of you have written about topics you have studied in your classes, some of you have written about issues you’ve seen in your own lives – in your families and communities – but my guess is that most of the time no one has ever said to you, ‘how would you fix this problem?’, and that’s the conversation we’re going to have here today.”

This year, 454 students from 27 Vermont high schools submitted essays. A panel of seven Vermont educators served as volunteer judges, ranking the essays and selecting 12 finalists and three winners. Students wrote on a variety of critically important issues, including climate change, racial justice, access to mental health care, political polarization, gun safety, disability rights, racial justice, and more.

Sanders provided introductory remarks and then began the discussion portion of the event. As each student presented their essay and proposed solutions, Sanders posed questions to the larger group and opened up debate on each topic. Sanders encouraged the students to make connections between the various topics and to feel comfortable disagreeing with each other. While individual issues ranged from substance misuse to education funding to indigenous water rights to campaign finance, the overall theme of the discussion highlighted the many similarities between how the U.S. government decides to address these issues and who has the power to make change.

While discussing homelessness, students made connections to the high cost of housing as well as how people who are experiencing homelessness are often discriminated against. Third place winner, Leah Fitzgerald, talked about her own experience as part of the Northwest Career & Technical Center, where she has volunteered with homeless individuals as part of the human services program. She shared that while some people assume that those experiencing homelessness are on drugs or dealing with mental health issues, the research shows that this is not the case for most people. While there are those who struggle with these challenges, most did not deal with them until after losing their housing.

In discussing banned books, participants explored how some people may want to ban books to protect children from reading about difficult topics versus using an educational setting as an appropriate place to discuss complex issues. A topic of particular interest to these Vermont high school students was the issue of secondary education funding. During the discussion, students brought up the differences in funding at schools across Vermont, questioning whether it’s possible to expect the students in lower funded schools to be able to achieve the same success as students in higher funded schools.

Finalist Andres Miguez of Mount Mansfield Union High School wrote about a topic on the minds of many Vermonters: the July flooding that destroyed so many homes and businesses across our state. Andres raised the important question of how we rebuild from flooding, looking at a future that will likely see more natural disasters due to climate change.

Four of the finalists discussed issues related to health care: Maggie Short of Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax and Pat Frazier of Champlain Valley Union High School both wrote about substance use disorder and overdose prevention, Oliver Nichols of Burlington High School wrote about mobile health clinics, and Talia Gibbs of Vermont Commons School wrote about Long COVID. In considering each topic, students discussed how individuals’ access to health care is often impacted by how much money they have and where they live.

During the conversation, Sanders and the finalists considered how all of the topics raised were impacted by the topic considered by Jack French of Essex High School: Money in politics. Jack shared, “Corporate greed leads to people with the money financing elections and politicians paying more attention to them and what they want than their own constituents. If we had a way of electing people without this outside influence, we’d be able to solve a lot of the other problems we’re talking about today.”

“I love serving as a judge in Bernie’s State of the Union essay contest and reading the work of Vermont’s high school students,” said Sarah Soule, a Guidance/College Counselor from Middlebury Union High School and one of the judges of the contest. “Their interest and engagement in such an array of issues that matter is inspiring. Their voices have value and it is wonderful to see them at the table with Bernie, discussing such important topics.”

Sanders concluded the event saying, “Your generation is living through tough times and these are tough topics. But by reaching out and talking about them, you will see that you are not the only ones worried about these issues.”

Sanders entered the finalists’ essays into the Congressional Record, the official archive of the U.S. Congress. Since Sanders started the contest, over 6,100 students throughout Vermont have written essays.

To read the essays of the finalists and winners, click here.