The City Club of Cleveland sponsors the Hope and Stanley Adelstein Essay Contest every year, with the seniors of Lakewood High School taking a clean sweep in the 2026 competition. Alessio Matera, Adrien Tullio, and Amelia (Mel) Diemert took the top three spots in the 11th and 12th grade category.
While LHS faculty from the Social Studies and English departments have a long history of students placing in the competition and accompanying students to select City Club of Cleveland forums, this year marks the school’s first clean sweep.
Lakewood High School teacher Ron Lewis is beyond proud of his students. He shared how the City Club Free Speech Contest is not the only relationship between Lakewood High School and the City Club.
The timing of the contest was also a stroke of luck for the Lakewood students. “We had just finished a unit talking about freedom of speech, and what we were talking about in class was what they asked for in the prompt,” Lewis said.
These students not only got help from Lewis and circumstance, but from other teachers as well. “I think we do a great job helping our students be good writers with our English department and good citizens with our Social Studies department,” Lewis said. “So I think those two things mix perfectly.”
First-place winner Alessio Matera received a prize of $1,000. He was invited to read his essay at the City Club forum on May 1.
Matera said of his approach to the assignment, “I tried to focus on writing it as though it was a speech, rather than an essay.”
Matera’s winning entry addressed the intersection of social media and the government. “The rise of social media has impacted our democracy. The algorithm has been compromised, and hateful ideology is being created,” Matera said. “Congress is not necessarily regulating the way it needs to, and we need to elect representatives who will enact policy regulations.”
Adrien Tullio, the second-place finisher, interpreted the prompt in a slightly different way. Tullio approached the prompt by discussing what individuals in modern-day society could do to address the problems of social media.
“I wrote about how teachers could use social media in their classrooms, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist,” said Tullio. “Children need to be shown what they can and can’t be doing, rather than being left unmoderated. And along those lines, social media apps should be held more accountable; if they say they are for children, it should be an actual safe place for children.”
All student writers had to use sources to help them with their writing. Mel Diemert, who took third place, found using sources particularly helpful. “I took a lot of time to look at all the resources that were available to me to come up with my position,” Diemert said. “I felt I needed to be very educated first, so I knew what I was talking about when it came to writing.
These students excel in the classroom, and they all deserve this opportunity and recognition. They credited their teacher as much as he credited them.
As Lewis mentioned, the class had just wrapped up a lesson on free speech and the First Amendment. Tullio said, “The timing of the unit and what we were discussing was just perfect.”
Matera mentioned the influence of Lewis and his colleagues. “I felt like we got great foundational knowledge on the topic with Mr. Lewis. My previous experience with the Rotary Contest and Ms. Garritano helped as well,” Matera said.
Diemert’s research also intersected with her prior knowledge. “Mr. Lewis did a great job, helping us understand the government, the amendments, and our rights,” Diemert said. “This made writing the essay so much easier, allowing me to do significantly less research, and just his encouraging us to write the essay by making it an assignment was so helpful.”
Lewis is proud of these three students and the rest of those that he teaches. “All my students put in so much time and effort for this piece of writing, and it’s just such a great prize to receive in the end,” Lewis said.
Congratulations to Lakewood High School and the three seniors for their clean sweep.
