For most high school students, maintaining straight-As, serving as class president, accumulating nearly 400 hours of volunteer work, creating and growing a club with nearly one hundred members and keeping up with a job might seem impossible — but not for Estella Scoma.
Scoma, a senior at Destin High School, “is truly one of the most exceptional students and young leaders,” Destin High’s principal, Jill McNamara, said she’s worked with.
As senior class president, this is Scoma’s third consecutive year serving as president for her class. In fact, she was the school’s first-ever sophomore class president.
“It’s been really interesting because I haven’t had much to go off of,” Scoma said. “As sophomore class president especially, all the other officers and I, we kind of had to figure out things as we were going along.”
This role wasn’t the first time Scoma started something new at Destin High School. During her freshman year she founded the school’s volunteer club, and she still serves as its president.
“Since then, we’ve grown exponentially,” Scoma said. “We have hosted over 100 events for the volunteer club, and it’s very large within my school. … At first I thought it’d just be me and the people that I closely know, but whenever there started being people [in the club] that I didn’t recognize and I had to introduce myself to, I started getting surprised because it meant a lot to me that it was something that people I didn’t even know had heard about.”
Between her work with the volunteer club and her own time outside of school, Scoma has over 350 hours of volunteer work. McNamara said she isn’t doing it for recognition, though.
“She leads by example. She finds things that students are going to be interested in and passionate about. I mean, she herself has over 300 community service hours. The state requires 100 for the Bright Futures [Scholarship Program], and so most students just strive for that, whereas she doesn’t even think about that. She’s just constantly doing things that she thinks are going to better the community.”
Throughout Scoma’s commitment to bettering her school and community, she’s maintained a 4.0-plus weighted grade point average, placing her 10th in her class academically.
“Her academic performance has been recognized through multiple subject awards, including Highest Grade in English, Highest Grade in Pre-Calculus, the AP U.S. Historian Award, and Marketing Mastery recognition,” McNamara wrote in her letter of recommendation for Scoma. “… Estella approaches her education with discipline, curiosity, and a clear desire to challenge herself.”
Beyond her involvement and achievements at school, Scoma serves as chair of the Destin City Youth Council.
“The Youth Council is a committee that is aiding the larger council, and so we’ve been able to head a lot of issues that we care about,” Scoma said. “Some of them have been youth employment safety, like educating other kids in our area about labor laws and how to get into the workplace and be responsible. Another thing that we’re focusing on right now is parking passes for teens because in Destin, the people who live here, if you’re a resident, you can have two parking passes per household. But if you have mom and dad and they want those parking passes, you’re kind of out of luck. So we’re trying to figure out how to secure that for the teenagers who want to enjoy the same amenities that our tourists have.”
Scoma is currently a state finalist for the United States Senate Youth Program, hosted by the U.S. Senate.
“Every year they select two students from every state to go to the Capitol for a week and meet their senators at this week-long coursework and experience, and it’s also a scholarship. Last year I made it to the finalist round, which is the top 10 in the state, and then I was chosen as the first alternate for Florida. … I also was chosen as a state finalist this year, which I interviewed for, but I haven’t got the results yet.”
After high school, Scoma plans to pursue a career in public policy, fueled by the volunteer work and community involvement she’s already accomplished.
“Once I graduate, I do want to get a master’s degree as well in public policy, but along the way, I’m kind of shooting to work in legislation. Hopefully one day I can work in the United States Senate, but I know that that’s a big goal, and so there’s a lot of different ways to get there. But I think that wherever I find myself after my master’s degree, I’ll build myself up hopefully through grassroots movements and activism and local politics and eventually step onto the national scale.”
