Local School Runs the Board with Regional and National Teams, Individual awards...

After many months of training, warm-up competitions and local contests, athletic dominance was achieved by our local school in several categories of regional and national competition. Following successes at the early Spring Regional Invitational meets, both the boys and the girls tied for 1st among 275 other school teams at nationals. The competition was intense, but several of our athletes maxed their scoring with perfection on the courts, in the Gold divisions. This regional powerhouse ended another very strong year of superior Olympiad performance, in all categories...

...of 4th-8th grade academics, of course. (Which sport were you expecting?)

This year's awards ceremony at the Nysmith School for the Gifted, in Herndon, was a virtual cavalcade of honors any area high school or college would be hard-pressed to match. It was amazingly refreshing to witness cheering students, a packed audience of family and friends, very proud teachers and absolutely beaming children accept the very top honors and awards from regional and national competitions (like Odyssey of the Mind, Mathcounts and the Thomas Jefferson Math Open, Wordmasters, Science Fairs) along with individual honors bestowed on exceptional students in all grades, all subjects.

Where most local papers, discussion boards, media and parents are consumed with school sports team successes, this very close community is consumed with athletics of the mind, and nationally competitive results in spelling and geography bees, mathematics, science, music and art, logic and critical thinking are absolute proof that this school does right by its students. We desperately need more acknowledgement in this area of the country, like the example Nysmith sets, that academic excellence is truly the objective of the educational system, and is how the US will generate its future scientists, inventors, philosophers, business creators and other world leaders.

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