Nine students and two teachers from the Park returned from a six-day trip to the nation’s capital with the Close-Up Foundation on February 21, 2025. On this annual trip, participants explored the capital and engaged in meaningful discussions with people from various states.
According to the Close-Up Foundation, its mission is to provide students the opportunity to practice effective citizenship, vocalize their beliefs, and respect those of others. “Give students the opportunity to directly engage with the people and institutions that represent our democracy, and they will develop the skills and attitudes they need for a lifetime of active citizenship.”
Canton history teacher Christopher Belch has led this trip for 17 years, however P-CEP has been going on the trip for at least 25 to 30 years.
Though Belch is the main teacher who organizes the trip each year, all high school students from the district are welcome. “The students who come on the trip are not always just from my class,” said Belch. “There are students from all three schools in the Park. Starkweather students can go too if they want.”
Each day of the trip is filled with student and teacher activities.
“Every day is incredibly busy. We try to pack in as many behind-the-scenes tours as we can,” said Belch. “A typical day might be meeting with students from other schools, having a little seminar in the morning, and from there, going to various monuments, and not just sightseeing, but talking about some of the meaning behind them, some of the symbolism behind them, just what other people think about them.”
Plymouth AP Government teacher Jennifer Bennett shared about the activities teachers participated in throughout the week. “When we do the teacher program. It’s the new, inside things that we get to do. So like going to the Watergate [Hotel] in the room that [the burglary of the Democratic National Committee by people involved in Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign] happened. Or, you know, going to Lincoln’s cottage and seeing the space where the Emancipation Proclamation was written. We get to do little things that on a regular trip to D.C., I’m not likely to be able to find. So that’s exciting for me.”
Somer Qureshi, Canton senior, said that this trip allowed her to see D.C. in a new light. “This trip offered a lot more in-depth experiences and things that I would not have been able to do myself without that pre-planning that Belch did. Belch had everything lined up really early on. I think that was really helpful for us to get those special experiences.”
“I thought that the whole trip was going to be mostly about us seeing the monuments a little bit and getting a tour around D.C.,” said Qureshi. “But I was really pleasantly surprised when I got there and I saw that there was a larger message or a larger theme built into it for the students. They could become more civically responsible and engaged with their actual environments.”
The Close-Up organization divides the students into workshops with students from other schools. Each workshop discusses similar political issues in today’s world.
“The people that were in my workshop were so encouraging with our debate sessions, or just supportive when we would talk about different things or beliefs that we had,” said Qureshi. “Even if you had people from two different sides of the aisle, it was very uplifting and really engaging when we were in that whole group session.”
Salem junior Benjamin Lievense shared his experience and some takeaways from his workshop. “A couple of the debates got kind of heated, but mostly it was just really respectful. We were just talking about it and trying to understand each other’s opinions.”
“Through talking to people from different places, I learned that most of our beliefs about stuff are more alike than different. So even if we think we’re on complete opposite ends of the spectrum of political or social beliefs, then we’re probably more alike than different than we think,” Lievense said. “Many of the differences aren’t in what you believe so much, just how you say it.”
