Some San Luis Obispo High School students have taken part in an after-school program called Parliamentary Procedure, also known as Parli Pro. What Parli Pro does is go to competitions in local cities and debate on topics that involve agricultural pursuits. And Parli Pro has a mock meeting and constantly practices for these debates after school.

  “Parli Pro is a great opportunity to meet other Future Farmers of America [FFA] kids from around the state and experience the traveling competition life,” said freshman Haley Lorenz.

  A basic understanding of Parli Pro is that several teams of six receive a topic to debate amongst themselves in an orderly fashion, without stuttering or pausing and having a clean and clear debate towards their topic. The teams get scored on their speech presentation, a quiz they take before their rounds, and the questions for the teams afterward. Whichever of the teams scores the most points wins.

  “Parli Pro is really fun because I get to expand my debating skills, which I didn’t know I had. But I am very excited to expand in my knowledge for debates, and agricultural topics in general,” said freshman Lauren Anderson.

  SLOHS’s Parli Pro team went to Modesto Junior College in early February and had a total of 16 other teams show up. Out of all the teams, our SLOHS Parli Pro team came out of the top, which was a big win against O’neals Minarets High School.

  “We got to learn about the parliamentary laws, and I get to hit stuff with a gavel. And Parli Pro is just a really fun thing to do after school. Being president, I like to get to know everyone on my team as well as people on other teams which is a really fun aspect,” said freshman Natalia Grondin.

  Parli Pro, although not commonly recognized, is a great way to engage with the FFA, and get to know other schools while developing speech and communications skills.