From November 23 to 25, 2025, Lafayette’s Student Y Club attended the Kentucky Youth Assembly (KYA). Student Y is a student-led club focused on involving students in their community and government through Model Government and Model United Nations conferences, civic engagement events, and community service.
KYA is a model state government conference attended by Y Clubs from across the state. Students can present model bills for their peers to vote on, participate in a model Supreme Court, serve on the media corps to take pictures and document the conference, and work as a Presiding Officer (PO) to help run the conference or run for the position next year.
Lafayette had one bill, one Supreme Court team, two Media Corps members, and one candidate for the position of PO. These students prepared for these roles before the conference by writing speeches, conducting research, and more. “We spent a lot of time in the meetings and then also just outside of the meetings researching and considering multiple different perspectives of what people thought about our bill,” said Freshman Bill Sponsor Caitlyn Douglas.
This model bill required district school boards to have at least two student representatives as non-voting members. These bills are not real legislation; instead, they model the bill structure and process and can even influence the State House of Representatives and Senate. The Kentucky Legislature receives all the successful bills, so the Kentucky Legislature is aware of what Kentucky’s teens care about.
After a vote, this bill was defeated in the Senate. “One of the requirements for someone to be a student representative was that they needed to have a 3.0 GPA or higher, and that is why our bill was defeated… I don’t think that is a necessarily right or correct reason for a bill to be defeated,” said Douglas.
Freshman Eli Lopez ran for the position of Presiding Officer for next year. KYA is split into Bluegrass for 9-10th graders and Commonwealth for 11-12th graders to make smaller groups and separate less experienced students from more experienced ones. Both Bluegrass and Commonwealth have presiding officers, so Lopez was able to be elected President of the Bluegrass Senate, Speaker of the Bluegrass House, or Lieutenant Governor.
Lopez was elected Speaker of the Bluegrass House by Freshman and Sophomore students attending KYA.“It was kind of surreal,” said Lopez. Next year, Lopez will preside over the Bluegrass House during debate.
Each year, awards are presented at the end of the conference to honor students and schools who did outstanding work at KYA. Schools can receive “delegation awards” such as Outstanding Delegation and Best New Delegation. Individual students can also receive awards like Outstanding Speaker.
Lafayette achieved Premier Delegation status, meaning all students from that school voted in the PO elections, met deadlines, and followed the rules of the conference. Sophomore Gwen Dalibor was awarded an Outstanding Speaker award, and Senior Tony Robinson was awarded Outstanding Advocate in the Supreme Court program.
At every conference, each school selects one of its students to be named Outstanding Delegate, recognizing that the student went above and beyond and stood out among their fellow delegates. Lafayette’s Outstanding Delegate was Freshman Caitlyn Douglas. “It was really exciting, I definitely wasn’t expecting it,” said Douglas.
But the Y Club’s work doesn’t stop here. The club will begin preparing for the Kentucky United Nations Assembly (KUNA). KUNA is very similar to KYA; however, each delegation represents a different country, and students debate on resolutions in the style used in the United Nations. Lafayette will represent Nigeria and is already preparing for the conference in March during their Monday after-school meetings.
“Overall, it was a really fun experience,” said Lopez. While Lafayette’s bill was defeated and no delegation awards were won, Eli Lopez was elected Speaker of the House, and our Student Y had a fun and successful KYA.
