Pictured left to right: Nolan Fahey, Grace Owens-Kurtz, Christopher Pifer, Christian Koch, Lucy Li, and Vittorio Orlandi.
Twenty members of SPA’s Class of 2014 have been recognized as outstanding scholars by the National Merit competition. The twenty include six Finalists and 14 Commended students. The recognized students make up 22% of the Class of 2014. This year’s SPA’s Finalists are Nolan Fahey, Christian Koch, Lucy Li, Vittorio Orlandi, Grace Owens-Kurtz, and Christopher Pifer. This year’s Commended students are Connor Allen, Nicholas Cohen, Sonya Das, Kristen Datta, Harrisen Egly, Kaia Findlay, Charlotte Hughes, Sydney Kuller, Sela Patterson, Meera Singh, Danielle Socha, Charles Southwick, Alexander Stiffman, and Alicia Zhang.
Scott Streble
Nationally, less than 1 percent of high school seniors are awarded Finalist recognition. National Merit Semifinalists are determined by Preliminary SAT (PSAT) scores; according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, about 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the National Merit competition by taking the PSATs. Semifinalists are those students who scored the highest on the exam in each state.
SPA debate makes history by sweeping all three team spots at National qualifying tournament The SPA debate team made history in December 2013 by sweeping all three qualifying spots for Minnesota in the National qualifying tournament for Public Forum Debate. This is the first time the SPA team has claimed all three Minnesota spots in the tournament, which decides which teams will compete at Nationals; for the last two years, two of the three qualifying teams were from SPA. The team of Jordan Hughes ’15 and Shaan Bijwadia ’15, who were undefeated in winning the tournament, took first place; Mason Mohring ’14 and Tommy Toghramadjian ’15 took second; and John Wilhelm ’14 and Bilal Askari ’14 took third. All three teams will now compete at the National Speech and Debate Association national tournament in Overland Park, Kansas June 15-20, 2014. Debate coach Tom Fones also credits seniors Connor Allen and Yusra Murad, who won 3 out of 5 of their debates at the tournament and placed seventh, as an important reason why the other students qualified, due to their research and practice. Twelve teams qualified to compete in the tournament. The final round came down to three debates between SPA and Eastview; SPA won all three debates against an Eastview team that is “extraordinarily talented and deep,” according to Fones, who couldn’t be prouder of his entire team. “This kind of success is made possible by the strong support that the school community gives to the debate program,” Fones says.
Scott Streble
Ami Berger
22% of Class of 2014 recognized by National Merit, including six Finalists
Grandparent Day a huge success on both campuses This year’s Lower School and grade 6 Grandparent and Special Person Days were enjoyed by more than 300 grandparents, aunts, uncles, and special friends. Held on November 25 for grade 6 and November 26 for grades K-5, the events included student performances, remarks by the principals and Head of School Bryn Roberts, and a chance for guests to visit classrooms and tour the buildings. Winter/Spring 2014 | SPA
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