by Amy Batista, Special Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD —The Upper Freehold Regional Parent Teacher Association in partnership with the Stone Bridge Middle School and Newell Elementary School hosted its fourth annual Scripps National Spelling Bee on Jan. 10.
PTA Equity Chair Suzanne Buchanan, who has organized the event for the past two years, said the event represents a wonderful partnership.
”The school handles the eligibility tests, offers voluntary time during the school day to help students practice, and the administration and teachers play a huge role during the bee,” Ms. Buchanan said.
She also noted that the PTA organizes decorations, medals for the participants and refreshments for a celebration after the event.
For the third year in a row, eighth grader Julian Tsang, 14, of Cream Ridge, won the annual Stone Bridge Middle School Spelling Bee, by outspelling 25 other students in grades four to eight in a competition lasting an hour and a half over the course of 15 rounds.
The top six spellers from each grade competed to win a chance to participate in the Monmouth County Bee at the 30th Annual Asbury Park Press/Home News Tribune Spelldown located at the Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University on March 17.
”The school announces the opportunity to participate in eligibility tests and the top five or six spellers from each grade are chosen to participate,” Ms. Buchanan said.
The winning word was “ascot.”
”Julian initially spelled it correctly, but when asked if that was his final answer, he responded ‘no’,” said Ping Tsang, Julian’s father, last week. “Many in the audience thought he was going to misspell it, but he repeated the correct spelling and confirmed it was his final answer.”
It is the nation’s largest and longest-running educational promotion, administered on a not-for-profit basis by the E.W. Scripps Company and local spelling bee sponsors in the U.S., American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense Schools in Europe, the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea, according to the website www.spellingbee.com.
Bee Week 2014 will take place May 25–May 31, according to the website www.spellingbee.com.
Newly appointed Interim Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Mark Guterl, who previously served as principal of Stone Bridge Elementary, and PTA President Vanessa DePompo served as judges for the evening.
”Every child has his or her own style and such confidence,” Ms. Buchanan said. “It’s great to see how comfortable they are on stage and how encouraging they were to each other.”
Mr. Tsang found the competition “exciting” especially seeing the younger students compete against the older ones.
”It was great to see the fourth and fifth graders performing so well into the late rounds,” Mr. Tsang said. “It’s very exciting to see such young kids competing so well against the older kids.”
