This is the time of year when school districts hold competitions to identify the best spellers in grade schools.<\/p>\n
Scottsdale Unified goes one better than most: It not only holds the annual spelling bee that could launch a student into national competition, but also holds a Spanish spelling bee as well.<\/p>\n
In the traditional bee, Camden Hernandez, a seventh grader at Desert Canyon Middle School, outlasted a field of 23 competitors to claim the 2026 SUSD Spelling Bee Championship.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll now go on to a regional bee Feb. 9, hoping to eventually nail the state title and a ticket to the century-old Scripps National Spelling Bee in May.<\/p>\n
In the Spanish Spelling Bee, top spelling honors were won after an 11-round head-to-head match by Adrian Cortes Ramon, a seventh grader from Tonalea.<\/p>\n
I was excited, and I was scared,\u201d Adrian said. \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019m not going to win.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
While the district credited Adrian\u2019s \u00a0preparation and perseverance, the youngster credited his teacher, Ivan Chango.<\/p>\n
The SUSD Spanish Spelling Bee uses an official word list from the National Spanish Spelling Bee study guide, which serves as the foundation for student preparation and the competition itself.<\/p>\n
The event is coordinated through a collaborative effort led by SUSD\u2019s world language coordinator, along with the district\u2019s translation team and bilingual community specialists.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiddle school Spanish teachers across the district support the event by hosting mini spelling bees within their classes,\u201d the district said, adding that Tonalea and Mohave middle schools were well represented, \u00a0including students from the district\u2019s Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Spanish Spelling Bee continues to grow each year, reflecting SUSD\u2019s commitment to world language education and providing students with meaningful opportunities to showcase their language skills,\u201d the district said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the English spelling bee began with the word \u201clanguage\u201d and steadily narrowed to a final three before Camden correctly spelled \u00a0\u201cminestra.\u201d<\/p>\n
He will compete in the regional bee with \u00a0\u00a0five other SUSD students.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was feeling nervous, stressed out,\u201d Camden said. \u201cI thought I would maybe make the top five or ten, but I didn\u2019t think I studied all of the words.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he spent countless hours reviewing word lists, writing them down, spelling them aloud, and working through the materials provided by bee organizers.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIt really helped a lot. It helped me visualize the words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camden credited his love of reading and strong language skills for his success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI read a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cMy ELA teachers say I have good writing techniques and good grammar.\u201d His favorite book is \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m pretty excited,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I can win district, that boosted my confidence a lot. And regionals, I think I might be able to do it. It\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other five SUSD students in the regional bee are fifth grader Sullivan Mixon, Navajo Elementary School; seventh grader Oliver LeCocq, Mohave Middle School; seventh grader Jak Boudi, Ingleside Middle School; fifth grader Diya Rozenfeld, Kiva Elementary; and fifth grader Aydon Morales, Redfield Elementary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the time of year when school districts hold competitions to identify the best spellers in grade…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":573465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[249122,5229,5643,1587,249121,249120,249124,249119,244869,249123,1589,7600,15658,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-573464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-adrian-cortes-ramon","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-camden-hernandez","tag-diya-rozenfeld","tag-ingleside-middle-school","tag-little-red-schoolhouse","tag-navajo-elementary-school","tag-oliver-lecocq","tag-phoenix","tag-scottsdale","tag-spelling-bee","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116030845898844064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}