Sixteen and on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 – Unlike most 16-year-olds, John Atsalis does not spend his days at school socializing and making plans for the weekend. He does not spend his evenings at high school football games or track practice.
Instead, Atsalis, of Exeter, is spending the first half of his junior year as close to politics as he can get–on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington.
“The biggest thing about the routine is that there is no routine,” Atsalis said in an interview on Capitol Hill last week. “Every day is different.”
Along with 64 other high school juniors from across the country, Atsalis, a student at Exeter High School, is participating in the House Page Program, in which he attends classes in the morning and works on Capitol Hill in the afternoon.
“We’re on the floor, so we see what goes on, and then the next day we read it in the newspaper,” Atsalis said. “We really are there.”
The program, which has its counterpart in the Senate, began more than 200 years ago and provides high school juniors with the opportunity to see congressional proceedings up close while performing important tasks such as delivering correspondence, legislative materials and small packages within Capitol Hill and assisting representatives.
During their time in Washington, House pages live in a dormitory only two and a half blocks from the Capitol and receive a monthly gross salary of $1,515.92, though they must pay $400 for their food and housing.
“I think it’s a wonderful experience,” said Atsalis’ mother, Leone, a commercial pilot. “He gets the insider’s point of view.”
His uncle serves in the Massachusetts legislature, but Atsalis’ mother said her son’s interest in politics began much earlier. When he was eight, she said, he knew the names of all of the Presidents of the United States.
“I think it’s who he is,” his mother said. “He was just that kind of kid.”
Atsalis said he learned of the page program from a co-worker of his father’s, Konstantinos, who also is a pilot.
After reviewing the House and Senate program applications during the winter of his freshman year, Atsalis said, he knew it was something he wanted to pursue.
Admitting she was nervous her son would not get into the program, Atsalis’ mother said she was also worried about letting her son go so far away from home at such a young age.
Though the program offers two three-week summer sessions, which do not require students to attend classes and would have allowed Atsalis to run cross-country races this fall, indoor track this winter and not leave his friends for such an extended period of time, he said he wanted to attend class at the Page School to obtain the full experience.
“The school aspect, while it leads to really long nights and really early mornings, is really fun,” Atsalis said, adding that he is excited about being outside of New England for a winter.
Before getting accepted into the program, Atsalis had to obtain recommendations from teachers and friends, write an essay and obtain sponsorship from a member of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation.
After applying to both the Senate Page Program through Sen. Judd Gregg and the House Page Program with the assistance of Rep. Jeb Bradley, Atsalis learned this summer that he had been accepted into the House program.
“Pages play an important role in the day-to-day operations of the U.S. House of Representatives and provide an invaluable service to Members of Congress,” Rep. Jeb Bradley told the Union Leader. “John is a bright young man, and I know he will experience many new ideas and challenges as a House page.”
Though Atsalis later learned that he was a strong candidate for the Senate program, he said he is glad to be in the House program.
“Nothing against the Senate, but more things happen here,” he said. “It’s much more nuts and bolts.”
As competitive and prestigious as admission into the program is, it is a lot of hard work too, Atsalis said.
“On a good day,” Atsalis said he wakes at 5 a.m. and begins classes at the House Page School in the attic of the Library of Congress at 6:45 a.m.
“It all depends on how late you went to bed the night before,” he added.
During classes, which range from 12 to 50 minutes depending on the House schedule that day, Atsalis studies British literature, chemistry, intermediate Spanish, pre-calculus with trigonometry and government and politics.
In addition, Atsalis will receive credit for a course called Washington Seminar, which provides students with prominent speakers and offers field trips throughout the Washington area, as well as credit for his time working in the House.
“You get used to the fact that you’re not going to get an A,” Atsalis said, adding that the program involves a lot of pop quizzes and mandatory study hall if a student fails to maintain an 80 percent average or drops below the grade he or she has “contracted” for with the instructor.
Atsalis said he has had to attend study hall once, in science, for receiving a grade below that for which he has contracted.
“It’s a pretty small program, with maybe 15 kids in each class,” Atsalis said. “This is really like a private school, and we describe ourselves as public-private.”
Aside from his classes and time on the floor, Atsalis said he enjoys meeting people from different parts of the country.
“We have more people from the South, which is interesting because I get to meet new people, especially when we have sports rivalries going on,” he said.
There are only two other House pages from New England, one from Connecticut and one from Massachusetts.
“We have a lot of different cultures,” he said. “But at the same time, that’s what America is, a bunch of different cultures.”
Atsalis, who has many interests such as politics, aviation and engineering, said he would like to be a politician one day though he is open to other options.
He is scheduled to return home in January, but Atsalis said he would enjoy staying in Washington for the whole year if reappointed.
“It’s such a nice life here,” he said. “When you go home, it’s going to be difficult to realize you don’t have to get up as early, that you don’t have to go through metal detectors all the time.”
