March 13, 2008 – Congratulations to all of the Shaker High School students who earned remarkable results on the National Russian Essay Contest and National German Exam earlier this fall.

Nearly every Shaker High School student who competed in the 26th annual National Russian Essay Contest in November 2007 earned medals or honorable mentions.

“These are extraordinary results,” said Foreign Language Supervisor Galina Kats.

The contest, sponsored by the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), requires students to write in Russian on a specific essay topic. This year’s topic was, “Why do I study Russian?”

More than 1,330 essays were submitted nationwide, including 187 from Shaker High School. Eight Shaker students earned gold medals, 26 silver, 90 bronze and 64 honorable mentions. Each student was judged individually according to his or her level of performance.

The gold medal winners were: Casey Connolly, Amber Dominic, Anastasia Garceau, Tami Harshorn, Andrew Hodges, Shannon Kresge, Zhaokun Ma and Angela Mu. Two of the essays, awarded with gold medals at the advanced level, will be forwarded on to the Pushkin Institute in Moscow, Russia to be judged in a second round of competition.

“Both fellow Russian teacher Miss Detmer and I are very happy with the results,” said Russian teacher Anna Shkaf. “We are pleased that our students’ level of knowledge allows them to achieve so highly.”

Several students also had excellent results on the American Association of Teachers of German (AAGT) National German Exam, which was administered in January. More than 26,000 students nationwide competed in the prestigious competition, including 107 Shaker High School students.

Kevin Angstadt scored in the 95th percentile, which makes him eligible for an all-expense-paid study trip to Germany.

In addition, Carlene Daly, Katie Edwards, Jennifer Hahn, John Minnick, John O’Connor and Doris Pu scored above the 70th percentile among students in the Hudson Valley Chapter. They were awarded certificates of merit for their participation.