Westlake Students Excel in National Spanish Exam

        The 8th graders from Lee Burneson Middle School in Level I Spanish have consistently received high scores on the National Spanish Exam when being compared nationally. This year, 54 of Senora Vakos’ students were administered the exam. They earned 21 Gold medals,16 silver medals, 11 bronze medals, and several honorable mentions. This success is not an isolated incident but rather a reflection of Lee Burneson Middle School’s longstanding tradition of academic excellence in Spanish language education.

Honorable Mentions (scoring above the National average): Qadir Yahya, Adeeb Abuhamdeh, Molly Higgins, Abdullah Abubakr, Sofia Monteleone, and John Papandreas

Bronze Medalists (scoring higher than 7584% of the 17,907 who took the exam): Jacob Sayon, Emma Gillis, Lucy Craig, Owen Valore, Freda Elsebaei, Emily Kustis, Jake Windau, Cameron Purdy, London Smith, Morgan Wagner, and Luke Spreen. Pictured on the left.Silver Medalists (scoring higher than 85-94% of the 17,907 students that took the exam):Oliver Ponstingle, Ghalia Hamed, Benjamin Hood, Sonia Penumetcha, Joseph Stanton, Leah Navratil. Shaelyn Logue, Kloiza Haxhija, Aaryan Patel, Bhawna Saini, Olivia VanDetta, Roen Xhako, Dev Thakkar, Hannah Youssef, Lucas Tian, and Nathan Meyer

Gold Medalists (scoring higher than 95% of the other students taking the exam AND in the top 4-5% of the nation): Mustafa Shahin, Catherine Yang, Saga Fogelqvist, Bahia Abdallah, Brandon Turk, Brady Cantrall, and David Jewel

Gold Medalists (scoring higher than 97-98% of others and in the top 2-3% in the nation):Miles Salem, Ayanna Ahuja, Margaret Klinger, Juliet Charara, Jeffrey Williams, Janie Jensen, Abdul-Hadi Abu-Ukkaz, and Santiago Arango Herrera

Gold Medalists (scoring higher than 99% of others and in the top 1% in the nation): Adriel Korcari, Mirielle McIntyre, Miral Bensaleem, Maggie Tenorio

Gold Medalists achieving a perfect national score: Riley Killian and Colin Pajer

“Attaining a medal or honorable mention for any student on the National Spanish Examinations is very prestigious,” according to Lisa Greenman, National Director of the Exams, “because the exams are the largest of their kind in the United States.”