MHS Students Excel in Language Competitions

Eighteen MHS students excelled at this year’s National Spanish Exam. The students earned a total of one gold medal, two silver, one bronze and 14 awards of excellence.

The gold medal winner is Aidan Kaplan. Daniel Cano and Matias Hahn won silver, Jacob Stepansky won bronze and the following students received awards of excellence: Jesse Turits, Megan Ayala, Elizabeth Katz, Eli Maskin, Rachel Rapaport, Jessica Farber, Joseph Bermas-Dawes, Eve Feldberg, Claudia McKenzie, Emma Axelrod, Vivian Belosky, Tarek Masri, Shayon Mottahed and Henry Solotaroff-Webber. The winning students are in Spanish, 4HH, 5AP, 6AP and in the Spanish Cinema class. Students are taught by Silvia Jankowki, Monica Lavosky and Elizabeth Reyes.

The National Spanish exam is an online, standardized test administered voluntarily by more than 3,000 teachers throughout the United States to measure the proficiency and achievement of students who are studying Spanish. The achievement section of the test measures student performance through both reading and listening comprehension.

The purpose of the National Spanish Exam, administered by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, is to recognize achievement in the study of the Spanish language, to promote proficiency in interpretive communication, to assess the national standards as they pertain to learning Spanish and to stimulate further interest in the teaching and learning of the language. This year, 143, 641 students participated from throughout the United States.

Latin Students Excel

On March 20, three teams of Latin students from the high school participated in Certamen, a regional bowl-like contest which encompasses Latin grammar, literature, history, mythology, and culture at Princeton University. The students competed against 10 other New Jersey schools. There were Level I, Level II and Upper Level teams (Latin III and above) and Montclair students took second place in Level I and Upper Level. Winners were, in Level I: Same Grossman, Lucas Deupree, Taylor Wilson, Anna Marie Garlin, Hannah Giordano, Christine Dargan and Stephaun Marshall. Upper Level winners were: Michael Mortimer, Molly Grund, Zach Stoddard, Hannah Liu, Brigid Mulroe and Chelsea Newman. “This accomplishment is very impressive considering the competition is fierce, not only because of the wealth of knowledge a student must possess but also because the student must answer the question before another team and is given only 30 seconds to answer,” said teacher JoAnne Manse. “I am very proud of our students.”

In addition, Latin students of Montclair High School took many awards on the National Latin Exam. This rigorous, competitive exam is taken in all 50 states as well as 13 foreign countries including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. Ninety students took the exam, 48 took awards; nine students took Gold Medals—Summa Cum Laude; 11 students took Silver Medals—Maxima Cum Laude; 11 students earned a Magna Cum Laude; 16 students earned a Cum Laude and one student got a perfect score. Level I winners were: Tess Shatz, Lucas Deupree, Sam Grossman; Level II winners were: Elizabeth Hays, Teddy Cahill; and Level III winners were: Isabella Levy (perfect score), Jake Stepansky, Ariana Wescott and Emma-Tei Kyono. “This is an outstanding achievement,” said Manse, “I wish to congratulate them on this amazing accomplishment.”