Accomplished Southington HS Trio Honored By State Rep.

SOUTHINGTON, CT — More than a week after being honored by the local school board, three members of Southington High School's Class of 2024 received some legislative honors Thursday.

State Rep. Chris Poulos, D-Southington, showed up at SHS to surprise the trio of seniors Thursday with official state citations recognizing their "academic and community achievements ahead of their graduation next month," wrote Poulos.

Honored were valedictorian Uptej Singh, salutatorian Mat Siwek, and class essayist Victoria Dabrowski.

Poulos represents the 81st District and is an educator himself, teaching Spanish and is the instructional leader for the humanities at Joel Barlow High School in Redding.

"As an educator and state representative, I am proud to honor these students for their achievements inside and outside of the classroom," said Poulos.

"Their accomplishments, along with service to the community, have earned them the utmost respect from peers, teachers, administrators, and community leaders."

Singh is class secretary, secretary of the National Honor Society, a Southington Board of Education student representative as well as a member of the pre-engineering Project Lead the Way program (PLTW), and the Team 195 robotics team.

Singh will study at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., this fall.

Siwek is also part of the PLTW program and a member of the National Honor Society.

Additionally, Siwek was recently accepted into the "Introduction to Research" program at the International Research Institute of North Carolina, where he will create a research question with faculty members and write a literature review.

Siwek is a swimmer for SHS, breaking three school records during his team participation and will attend Northeastern University in Boston this fall.

Like Singh and Siwek, Dabrowski is a member of the PLTW program and is also involved in the French National Honor Society, Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) as well as the STEPS (Southington Townwide Effort to Promote Success) Youth Council.

Dabrowski will participate in the Special Program in Medicine at the University of Connecticut in the fall, which is an eight-year program where an incoming student earns a pre-med bachelor's degree as well as a medical degree.