Royal High student wins chance to fight for self-authored bill
Foster teen inspired after judge denies request for early enlistment in military
By Carissa Marsh Special to the Acorn

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers HONORED- Royal High School student Shawn Sage, 17, embraces Marine Corps Sgt. Guillermo Medrano on Friday after the foster teen received an award from California Assemblymember Cameron Smyth (R-Santa Clarita) for winning the "There Ought to Be A Law" contest's top award in Smyth's district. An assembly in Shawn's honor was held inside the Royal gymnasium.

Last Friday, hundreds of Royal High School students gathered at an oncampus rally to congratulate their peer, Shawn Sage.

The Simi Valley foster teen has done something few 17-year-olds can match: He's proposed a new California law.

Shawn is the winner of state Assemblymember Cameron Smyth's "Write a Bill Challenge," a contest in which local students in social studies and government classes are asked to write proposals for new state laws they think are needed.

According to Jarrod DeGonia, district director for Smyth, five area schools participated and about 300 proposals were submitted. Shawn's was deemed the best.

"The submission we received from Shawn not only was the most interesting and compelling, but we felt that it really had a lot of viability to pass and make it into a law," said Smyth (R-Santa Clarita), who represents the 38th Assembly District. L.A., Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Glendale.

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers STUDENT SPONSORS LEGISLATION- Royal High School student Shawn Sage chokes up while thanking Marine Corps Sgt. Guillermo Medrano for his support and his efforts to help Sage sign up for the Marines. Although he qualified to join, the foster teen was denied permission to join by a Los Angeles children's court judge because she disapproved of the war.

If passed, the law Shawn proposed- now officially titled AB 2238- would allow foster teens early enlistment into the military at the age of 17 with the consent of a foster parent or a social worker. Currently under California law, foster teens must have the express permission of a children's court judge in order to early enlist.

The point of the bill, Smyth said, is to give the authority to make decisions for foster kids to the people who know them the best, rather then leaving it in the hands of the state.

Ironically, when Shawn was called to RHS principal Dan Houghton's office to be informed that his bill had won, he immediately thought he was in trouble. But Sage was in for a surprise.

"When he told me that my bill had won, it just brought the biggest smile on my face," he said.

Shawn's government teacher, Carin Sommer, was just as pleased to hear the news.

"I was so happy for him," Sommer said. "It couldn't have happened to a nicer, more deserving kid."

When Sommer decided to use Smyth's "There Ought to Be A Law" contest as an inclass assignment, she gave her students no more than 20 minutes to pen their suggested legislation.

"I'm probably one of the only ones who took it seriously," Shawn said. "Other kids were saying, 'Lower the drinking age, raise the speed limit.' I just thought it was the perfect time to write about something that needs to be changed."

He immediately drew on his personal experiences as a foster teen.

When Shawn was just 2 years old, he and his older brother Steven were abandoned by their biological parents.

The two were initially placed with grandparents in Florida, but about four years later, in 1997, the boys were moved to California and put into the foster care system.

The brothers have been living with their current foster family, the Endicotts (who care for two other foster teens besides Shawn and Steven), for about nine months.

Shawn had lived with another Simi foster family for five years previously, but after one too many fights he was forced to switch homes.

He chalked it up to teen angst.

"I was sort of transitioning into the defiant stage of my life," he said.

Despite the changes, one thing remained constant for Shawn: his love of the military.

In pursuit of his passion, he decided to early enlist.

Like similar programs for the other armed services, the United States Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program allows high school seniors to enlist in the service up to a year prior to starting boot camp.

But his dreams were cut short last fall when Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Marilyn Mackel denied his request to join the Marine Corps program.

Mackel has been described as being anti-war and reportedly told Shawn and his recruiter that she did not approve of the Iraq war, did not trust recruiters and did not support the military.

Shawn said he wasn't completely surprised that Mackel said no because she'd previously denied another foster teen from "DEPing" into the Navy.

However, though the media has painted a negative image of Mackel, Shawn insisted she isn't a bad person.

"I understand why she said no; I know she doesn't support the war," Shawn said. "I'm just angry because she used her own personal bias to say no."

Smyth- who acknowledged that before reading Shawn's bill he was unaware of the issue- called Mackel's decision "a tragedy."

"She allowed herself to be very subjective in her decisionmaking," Smyth said. "She's cost a young man, who by all accounts has defied the odds, his dream and the opportunity to save some extra money for college."

Though Shawn lost out on a $10,000 signing bonus that comes with early enlistment, he said he "could care less."

"I was hoping to get the experience from the delayed entry program. Yeah, it's $10,000 out of my pocket, but I'm doing it because I want to," Shawn said. "Whatever (Mackel) said, I knew I was going to eventually go into the Marines no matter what."

This attitude is indicative of the type of dedicated, goaloriented teen Shawn is, according to Houghton.

"He's overcome a lot in his life and that's given him the resolve to move forward and be successful in whatever he decides to do," the principal said.

It's no surprise then that Shawn continues to show up for the voluntary USMC physical training each Wednesday at the Simi recruiting station. Once he turns 18 in June, Shawn plans to enter the Marines and make it a career.

"I'm going to go to college inside the Marine Corps and whatever trades I learn there I am going to take out when I retire," he said. "But I'm looking to go for a long time."

Shawn will travel to Sacramento in a few weeks to testify before the state Assembly at his bill's first hearing on April 1.

"I'm excited," he said. "I'm sort of nervous because I don't know how this whole thing will turn out, but I can't wait to go."