He spelled “tendresse” right. And “tibia.” Nevertheless, Winston Zuo’s run at the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Md. came to an end this week.
Winston, a seventh-grader from Fairmont Private Schools‘ Historic Anaheim Campus, advanced to the national competition after winning the Orange County Spelling Bee in February. And though he sailed through the second and third rounds in Maryland, he wasn’t among the 50 students selected for the finals, according to this story from the Orange County Register.
As the newspaper explains, finalists were chosen based on their combined scores through three rounds, with the first round consisting of a written test.
Still, Winston remains a champion here at the OCDE Newsroom, which has a tendresse for the written word. (Did we use that right?)
Here are some other stories that caught our attention this week:
- During budget deliberations, the California Assembly is considering a number of new initiatives to address the state’s teacher shortage.
- Shalimar Learning Center, which started in two local apartments in 1994 in response to the dearth of affordable child care in Orange County, has grown into a large nonprofit serving more than 150,000 kids in California.
- The Capistrano Unified School District school board has made a provisional appointment to fill its open seat, selecting Judy Bullockus to serve through November 2018.
- Two Tustin schools received much-needed makeovers at the hands of 200 volunteers and 17 companies.
- As part of “Kindness Week” in May, students from Marine View Middle School in the Ocean View School District decorated more than 350 T-shirts and donated them to the Huntington Beach Youth Shelter.
- The Link Crew program at Brea Olinda High School has created opportunities for juniors and seniors to become leaders while offering guidance and support to incoming freshmen.
- Transitional kindergarten programs are having a positive impact on California’s English learners, boosting their math, language and literacy skills, according to new research.
- A handful of schools in Irvine have installed microphones and speakers to amplify teachers and students.
- OCDE’s Otto A. Fischer School offers familiar classroom settings, educational technologies and transferable units for incarcerated youth.