For the first time in more than five years, 35 classroom-level best spellers at two district elementary schools competed in the school-level Scripps National Spelling Bee competition during the month of February.

Organized by the RISE gifted program and paid for by the school system’s elementary education division, East Robertson Elementary and Cheatham Park Elementary schools’ 4^th- and 5^th- grade students took a rigorous “blind” spelling test, using the Microsoft TEAM platform. Every classroom had at least one declared winner. The blind test consisted of 25 competition-level Scripps spelling words that the competitors were not given prior to the test.

Valentine’s Day Week was full of love for most students, but for these students the week was full of words such as “tilapia,” “doppelganger,” and feisty.”  On Monday, Feb. 13, twenty students from Cheatham Park competed in the school-level spelling bee in the school library. The winning word, correctly spelled by school spelling champion A’Dreah Smith, was “dislodge.” Danna Ramos Mendoza was declared 1^st runner-up. East Robertson Elementary’s schoolwide spelling bee followed on Wednesday, February 15, in the school’s auditorium, with Jake Powell being declared the winner and Mackenley Jones coming in second after Jake correctly spelled “ardent.”

Both school-level winners then went on to a screening round of spelling for the regional spelling bee, sponsored by the Tennessee Titans NFL football team and held the first Saturday in March at the Titan’s Nissan Stadium. Neither student scored enough points to move on to the regional competition that has only 50 school winners, but they nonetheless came away wanting more spelling competitions in the future:

“This was fun!” A’Dreah admitted after finishing her screening test. “I want to do this again next year.”

Plans for next year are already underway, according to the RISE teacher who headed the spelling bee committees at both schools.

Classroom-level winners at Cheatham Park Elementary School included: Citaly Coronado, Bridget Avendano, Scarlett Summers, Jayden Darden, Anja Montal, Nijah Hardeman, Amiya Hill, Rolando Perez, Kohen Stanscheit, Jaleigha Ogburn, Ally Grayson, A’Dreah Smith, Malcolm Hylton, Camila Bibianon, Soz Omer, KeShawn Holman, A’leeyah Chanel Vance, Xicuriya Henry, Danna Ramos Mendoza, and Angelly Domingo To’.

Classroom-level winners at East Robertson Elementary School were Giselle Sloan, Jase Warren, Elijah Bender, Axyl Reynolds, Katie Kemp, Everleigh Pennington, Grayson Cobb, Ashley Ancelmo, Elijah Hall, Carlie Cawthon, Rebecca June Jones, Easton Urbach, Mackenley Jones, Jake Powell, and Nina Painter.