NextGen Roundtable: Student Civil Discourse Lab

For the 2025-26 school year, the program will be held in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area on the following dates: 

• August 26-29, 2025 
• January 20-23, 2026 
• April 7-10, 2026 

This customizable high school program can be offered as part of a community-building orientation, for a specific course, or for a particular grade level. When possible, we will partner schools together to increase the range of perspectives and backgrounds present for deliberation. Contact programsupport@closeup.org if you are interested in customizing a program or to learn more about middle school opportunities. 

The tuition is approximately $1,500 per student and includes educational materials, hotel accommodations (two students per room), meals, evening activities, and daytime and nighttime supervision and security. Final program cost will be determined upon finalizing dates (and the optional transportation package). 

Students stay at a hotel in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. There are two students per room and each student has their own bed. Students room with other students from their school. School coordinators assign roommates. 

No. Close Up provides night monitors in each hallway who check the students into their rooms each night and are available should they need anything overnight. 

Close Up is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, civic education organization that informs, inspires, and empowers young people to become active citizens. Since 1971, we have partnered with school districts nationwide to serve more than one million students and educators through experiential learning programs in our nation’s capital and in local communities, professional development, and curriculum design and consulting. Our goal is to connect what students learn in class to the real world around them and help them articulate their own views, listen to those of others, and engage with people of different backgrounds with tolerance and understanding. To learn more, visit www.CloseUp.org.  

The National Association of Independent Schools is a nonprofit membership association dedicated to unlocking the extraordinary potential in students, independent schools, and their communities. We provide services to more than 2,000 schools and associations of schools in the United States and internationally. To learn more, visit NAIS.org.   

The Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University is devoted to research about democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling®. The method of Deliberative Polling has been used in over 50 countries around the world through over 150 projects, at varying levels of government and society. To learn more, visit https://deliberation.stanford.edu/.