Spring Branch ISD Featured News

• Thirteen students earn National Hispanic Recognition Program honors 

Thirty-three Spring Branch ISD seniors have been named as National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists or as National Hispanic Recognition Program award recipients.

Based on annual College Board rankings, these students stand among the best in their class at the region, state and national level.

Many of these student honorees and their families will be recognized on Monday, Oct. 21, during the regular monthly meeting of the SBISD Board of Trustees.

Twenty students from Memorial and Stratford high schools were named National Merit Semifinalists earlier this fall.

Memorial High School has 15 students being honored with this national award. They include Parker Beck, Blakeley Buckingham, Tehani Cabour, Noah Czelusta, John Grimes, Rishab Jagetia, Jennifer Kim, Grace Lee, Luke Lorentzatos, Joseph Park, Andrew Qin, Tess Rudic, Megan Tran, James Westenhaver and Melonie Yue.

Stratford High has five National Merit Semifinalists. They include Bea Jeon, Adam Leif, Sydni Moon, Caleb Oliphant and Catherine Wu.

Students are made eligible for this national scholarship program as juniors when they take the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

National Merit Semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of the high school graduating class in Texas and rank as the nation’s highest scoring test takers. These students now have an opportunity to qualify for National Merit Finalist awards, to be announced in the spring of 2020. In addition, they may qualify for significant scholarship opportunities.

At this time, 13 additional SBISD high school students have been named finalists in the annual National Hispanic Recognition Program.

Known as the National Hispanic Scholar award, this recognition has been issued by the College Board to seven Memorial High students. These award recipients include Ana Daza Walter, Alexandra Freytes, Sophia Grekin, Madeleine Luther, Nicholas Mendoza, Alexander Monson and Laura Olvera.

Five National Hispanic Scholars were named from Stratford High School. They include Nicholas Calzada, Franco Grimoldi Calo, Matias Grimoldi Calo, Daniela Perez and Cole Rincon.

One Spring Woods High senior has also earned this recognition. He is Nicholas Flores.

To earn this honor, students must be at least one-quarter Hispanic/Latino through family descent, attain a high performance level on the PSAT, and have a GPA of 3.0 or higher by the end of their junior year. Up to 5,000 seniors nationally earn this award each year.

In separate but related College Board honors, 41 district students were named National Merit Scholarship Program Commended Student Scholars.

At Memorial High, 27 students earned this special recognition this year. They are Ruka Adachi, Heather An, Isabel An, Luke Chapman, Jackie Cheng, Walter Denny, Olivia Du, Robert Espey, Scott Fonseka, Spencer Frederickson, Alexandra Freytes, Alexandria Hohman, Rahil Jagetia and Ryan Kiani.

Other Commended Students at Memorial High are Daniel Lim, Claire Maxwell, Ethan Nguyen, Caroline Osborn, Nicholas Pao, Emily Read, Annie Ren, Anuj Samal, Gavin Schmidtke, Ashley Smelley, Annette Yang, Lauren Yang and Andrew Ziegenhorn.

Stratford High has named 10 National Merit Commended Scholars. They include Brooks Ballard, Kinsey Jeansonne, Kieran Morford, Charles Paul, Daniela Perez, Hope Sage, Nathan Shugart, McKenna Tanner, Dan Tatulescu and Emily Truong.

Westchester Academy for International Studies has four National Merit Commended Scholars this year. They are Isabella Brunet, Jonathan Doan, Niloofar Madanizadeh and Audrey Smith.   

High school students who score in the top 3 to 4 percent of all PSAT test results qualify for recognition as Commended Scholars. They join a select group nationally. 

For details on these and related student recognitions and scholarship programs, please visit the College Board website.