• Chanson, the women's choral ensemble from Fulton County's Cambridge High School, recently won the awards for Best Treble Choir and overall Grand Prize Best Choir in the Southern Invitational Choral Competition and Festival at Georgia Southern University. Only 10 choirs were invited to compete in the inaugural year of this statewide competition. Each choir performed its best repertoire for three judges, each an experienced choral teacher and director.
• Pace Academy Upper School debaters placed well in the recent University of Georgia Bulldog Debates. Freshmen Tyler Henderson and Ben Nottingham left Athens as novice co-champs and the 10th- and fifth-place speakers, respectively. Senior Reid Funston and junior Jack McMillin placed third in the varsity division; Funston was named top speaker, while McMillin was 10th.
• Logan Shanks, an eighth-grader from Bennett's Mill Middle School, won this year's eighth-grade essay contest sponsored by the Fayette County NAACP, for her essay "Inequality Still Exists." As part of the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration, two graduating seniors from each of the county's five high schools were honored for their academic achievement. Those students are Brandon James and Destiny Mahone of Fayette County High; Alexandria Pinckney and Demi Tega from McIntosh High; Tajah Damm and Elmer Gonzalez of Sandy Creek High; Miguel Gonzalez and Morgan Knowlton of Starr's Mill High; and Kevin Romero and Jordan Barnett of Whitewater High.
• Woodward Academy Director of Debate Maggie Berthiaume earned a First Diamond degree of membership in the National Speech and Debate Association's Honor Society. Under her leadership, students have earned more than 15,000 points through speech and debate presentations, competitions, and service. Berthiaume will be recognized at the 2016 National Speech and Debate Tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah, in June. She also will be included as a diamond coach in the association's Rostrum magazine.
• Andrew Fu is Alpharetta High School's STAR Student, honored by the Midtown Atlanta Rotary Club for academic excellence. Each high school STAR Student is asked to name his or her STAR Teacher, and Andrew named Anthony Murdock. STAR Students are recognized by the PAGE (Professional Association of Georgia Educators) Foundation for having the highest SAT scores in their schools and for earning a GPA in the top 10 percent of their class.
• Agni Kumar from Milton High School has been awarded a $20,000 scholarship through the H&R Block Budget Challenge, an interactive, real-life simulation personal financial education program that rewards students for mastering budgeting and personal finance decision-making. She is one of 66 winners nationwide. Now in its second year, the program works by replicating an adult's financial life, requiring students to pay virtual bills, save for retirement, and repay student loans. Students from across the nation who participate in this virtual program are also competing for $3 million in college scholarships and classroom grants.
• The American School Counselor Association recently recognized counseling programs at four Gwinnett County public schools as Recognized ASCA Model Programs. Arcado Elementary School, Twin Rivers Middle School, Couch Middle School, and Grace Snell Middle School are among a select group of more than 600 schools nationwide that have received this national recognition since the program's inception in 2004. ASCA will honor this year's honorees at its national conference in New Orleans in July.
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