June 10, 2016

A Passion for Justice

Shivpriya “Priya” Sridhar has never been to prison. And since 8th grade, she has been working to make sure other teens don’t end up there either.

Priya, who just graduated from William G. Enloe Magnet High School, was born in Malaysia and lived in India until she was three. She spent most of her childhood in Kansas.  At 14, she moved with her family to North Carolina and completed 8th grade at Carnage Magnet Middle School. This was also the year that Priya stumbled into a volunteer opportunity that ignited a passion that would drive the next four years of her life. 

Order in the Court

One Saturday in 2012, Priya tagged along with a friend to a day-long training for participants in the Capital Area Teen Court. The program provides a second chance for 9- to 17-year-olds who are facing a first-time misdemeanor charge. Defendants stand before a jury of their peers. Other teen volunteers act as the defense attorney, prosecuting attorney, bailiff, court clerk. A licensed attorney or presiding judge (the only adult Teen Court participant) hands down the final sentence, which could include jury duty, community service, participation in a skills group, monetary restitution and/or written or verbal apologies or essays.

“This was unlike anything I had ever done,” she said.  “At the beginning of high school, I was academics-oriented and not outgoing.  Teen Court pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me discover what I was passionate about.”

A Cause that Hits Home

Teen Court policies prohibit students from working on cases for students they already know. Yet Priya saw many similarities between students she defended in Teen Court on Tuesday nights and things happening at Enloe. In 2013 for example, seven Enloe students were arrested for their roles in a senior prank that involved throwing balloons filled with potentially harmful substances. The arrests made news headlines.

“People started labeling our school as a prison pipeline. Yet I was seeing in court that teenagers’ motives for making bad decisions are much more complex than you think. Many teens struggle with anxiety. They are compulsive. Or they are being bullied, and this is a reaction,” she said.

One problem, she said, is that North Carolina is one of just two states that still prosecutes 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. It is also difficult for many students to get the opportunity for a second chance. Teen Court, which is only held a few evenings a month, serves a small number of first-time offenders or youth who are referred to the program by their school.

But Priya didn’t just see similarities among the defendants and other Enloe students. She saw herself, too.

“Some students I met through Teen Court shared my passion for math, my interest in journalism and my initial struggle with public speaking,” she said. “Sometimes they were a lot like me but they made a poor choice that will change the rest of their lives.”

Digging Deeper

Priya’s interests were not limited to Teen Court. She also excelled academically and was inducted into the National Honor Society. She worked on Enloe’s literary magazine. She joined the Health Occupations Students of America and completed an internship at the National Institutes of Health. She served as a delegate and committee chair in North Carolina’s Youth Legislative Assembly program and recently celebrated the successful passage of her bill to place information about added sugar values on all packaged food items.

Yet the majority of her extra-curricular efforts remained focused on helping others. During the summer of her sophomore year, she interned at Haven House, an organization that provides services to at-risk youth and families in Wake County. As a part of the experience, Priya answered phone calls from students and parents in crisis. She directed homeless youth and families to resources and support programs. She helped to establish and served as president of Haven House’s first-ever Youth Advisory Board, which supported the nonprofit’s school supply drive and other charitable efforts.

“The majority of Priya’s extracurricular activities revolved around organizations and clubs with a rehabilitative or redeeming mission,” said Alicia Kirkpatrick, Enloe’s school counselor. “Through these experiences, she has learned that people are the same, but sometimes they are just caught in different worlds. She is moved by this and it motivates her to continue to make a difference.”

The Life-Changing Opportunity

In the spring of 2015, Priya was selected as one of only 12 students from across the nation to participate in the Bezos Scholars Program. As a part of the program, Priya and Kevin Shuford, her 9th grade civics teacher, traveled to Aspen, Colorado to participate in leadership training. As a part of the program, the pair also attended the annual Aspen Ideas Festival. The final component of this experience was that Priya received a $1,000 grant from the Bezos Family Foundation to hold a similar ideas festival in her own community.

The best part? This ideas festival would be focused on a topic of Priya’s choice.

Her vision was clear. She wanted to hold an event that would raise awareness of the school-to-prison pipeline in North Carolina and other issues affecting inmates. Priya selected a few Enloe students to join her project team and, under Shuford’s guidance, they starting planning “Beyond the Bars.”

'Sir, this is a prison. We just don’t do that here.'

 One of the first hurdles was finding the location for the event.

“We wanted to hold it at a prison, so Mr. Shuford and I called some prisons but we didn’t have any luck,” Priya said. “I think one of my favorite responses he got was, ‘Ummm sir, this is a prison. We just don’t do that here.’”

Fortunately, the State Bar Association was eager to offer space for the the ideas festival. A date was set. Sponsors were secured. Speakers were contacted. Connections were made so that inmates’ artwork could be displayed at the event. State and local officials were invited. Information about the event was pushed out to local media and through social media.

“I had never done anything like this before. It was a long and hard process to connect with people from all arenas and put together an event of this magnitude,” Priya said. “We sent so many emails and there was so much paperwork, particularly with getting the artwork, but it was all worth it.”

Despite the initial challenges, the state’s first-ever “Beyond the Bars” idea festival was held on April 16, 2016. More than 70 people from across the community attended the event, which featured an inmate art gallery, monologues from those affected by the school-to-prison pipeline and three panel discussions. The impressive list of speakers included district court judges, university professors and state government and advocacy group leaders.

Her Legacy

“Beyond the Bars” was a roaring success. So much so that the team hopes to apply for another Bezos Foundation grant to make it an annual event.

“Priya marshalled a small group of equally brilliant and compassionate students who contacted and coordinated with local advocates, law enforcement, members of the N.C. General Assembly, and judges to create a day of conversation around a topic that has very real consequences for many of our students at Enloe,” said Shuford. “Although Priya is leaving us for college, we plan to continue the program she started for years to come. That is a lasting and meaningful legacy that says more about Priya than anything I ever could. I am immensely proud of her and the team she created.”