Over 60 Ridgewood High Students Honored For Spanish Proficiency

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — Over 60 Ridgewood High students studying Spanish garnered national recognition for their performance on the 2020 National Spanish Examinations.

Of the students, four received gold medals, along with nine silver and eleven bronze medals. An additional 41 students who received an honorable mention.

"Attaining a medal or honorable mention for any student on the National Spanish Examinations is very prestigious, because the exams are the largest of their kind in the United States." said Kevin Cessna-Buscemi, Director of the National Spanish Examinations.

According to him, over 140,000 students from across the country registered in 2020.

The National Spanish Examinations (NSE) are a motivational contest to recognize student achievement and proficiency in the study of Spanish.

In addition to the contest, these examinations are online, standardized assessment tools for Grades 6-12 that measure content standards (vocabulary and grammar) and performance standards (reading and listening comprehension).

At the national level, students receive medal placement (gold, silver, bronze, honorable mention) based on their scores, and are eligible to apply for several types of scholarships (Global Citizen Scholarship, Junior Study Abroad Program, Senior Scholarship).

"Ridgewood High School has maintained a long-standing tradition of administering the National Spanish Examination across all levels of study, and, without exception, students annually perform extremely well,” said Mark Ferreri, Supervisor of Social Studies, World Languages and Business. “This is a testament both to the studious nature of our student body, and the dedication of our Spanish-teaching staff."

Here are the winning students:

GOLD

• Julianne Flusche
• Isabella Iorii
• Hunter Maskin
• Hoon Hee Rhew

SILVER

• Krisha Anant
• Eric Baw
• Hyunsuh Han
• Nicole Kye
• Choong Jae Lee
• Riley Murphy
• Hari Rajesh
• Alexandra Savage
• Daniel Son

BRONZE

• Gwendolyn Flushce
• John (Will) Gassaway
• Alexis Grana
• Kaycee Hunt Eugene Park
• Maurizio Prieto
• Sanjna Rahagopalan
• Ethan Sterling
• Leyna Summers
• Susannah Taylor

HONORABLE MENTIONS

• Christy Chang
• Esha Chinchankar
• Samriddhi Chowdhury
• Nicky Crane
• Fiona Cullen
• Carley Cumba
• Lara Dabestani
• Ella Dusci
• Desiree Fink
• Aidan Flynn
• Jayden Fraiman
• Eva Galbraith
• Julia Geraghty
• Charles Healy
• Annalise Hofman
• Emma Joung
• Kyu Hong Kim
• Matthew Kotchkin
• Ena Kovak
• Matthew Lepis
• Emma Liguori
• Isabella Martin
• Quinn McCutcheon
• David Mo
• Kaishu Murai
• Katarina Nikolic
• Jaime Papin Ostrovsky
• Marcus Phillips
• Cassandra Ponomarciuc
• Victoria Schecter
• Kyle Shevlin
• Andrew Swanson
• Joe Theisen
• Cat Tepper
• Lawrence Tiangco
• Taira Torres
• Carina Trama
• Michaela Tsapatsaris
• Zoe Warne
• Janice Yoon