Thirteen ACS students from the 2nd to the 8th grades competed in a Northern New Jersey Christian School Spelling Contest on October 14 and Madelyn Petrinec received a red ribbon for taking second place among 4th graders in the contest. The spelling contest was held at the Abundant Life Worship Center in Nutley, New Jersey and ACS was among eight schools who competed in the event.

“Maddie is a super star speller and we are proud of her,” said Spelling Club Advisor Jessica Martin. “This was the first time our school competed in this contest and it had a different format from our school’s annual spelling bee.”  Unlike the format of the ACS bee held each winter, the students did not know what words would be included in the contest and were not able to study ahead for them. “Our students did very well considering this different format, and we had several students who narrowly missed joining Maddie in the finals.” The bee format had students only competing at their specific grade levels and the top three spellers advanced to the finals for their grade.

The students selected to represent ACS in the contest were winners or runners-up in last year’s class-level spelling bees. The students who competed were:  Oritseyemi Pessu and Barrett Woods (2nd grade); Caitlyn Doucett and Charlotte Newman (3rd grade); Madelyn Petrinec and Luke Sabulao (4th grade); Mia Gaffney and Gaebriel Hahn-Chaney (5th grade); Nino Miranda and Matthew Coates (6th grade); Tommy Potenski and Nathanael Thompson (7th grade); and Gabriella Goodwin (8th grade).

The seven other schools who sent students to compete in the bee were: Abundant Life Academy, American Christian School, Eastern Christian School, Hawthorne Christian Academy, Sussex Christian School, The Arrow Academy, and Timothy Christian School.