Wilmington Students Honored For Foreign Language Proficiency

WILMINGTON, MA — Thirteen Wilmington High School seniors received Seal of Biliteracy awards at the school's first World Language Awards Celebration last week.

The ceremony took place on May 23 at Wilmington High School and also featured awards handed out to students who received high marks on national language exams.

The Seal of Biliteracy recognizes the exceptional ability of students to be a part of a language and culture beyond English.

Part of a national movement that now includes 49 states, the Seal of Biliteracy was adopted in Massachusetts in 2017 thanks to the LOOK Bill.

Wilmington Public Schools was one of the first six districts in the state to pilot the Seal of Biliteracy, and district officials said WPS was instrumental in getting the LOOK Bill passed.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Carlos-Luis Brown, WPS curriculum team leader for world languages grades 6-12, said winning a Seal of Biliteracy award was especially significant this year because the 13 seniors were forced to deal with the pandemic early in their high school careers.

"The award is hard to earn under normal conditions," Brown said. "Everyone in this room today earning an award should be very proud of their achievements because while the world came to a standstill, no one ever lowered the bar or their expectations of what you should be able to do, and you rose to that challenge. That is no small accomplishment."

WHS seniors Lukas Charini (Spanish and German) and Nikos Koss (Spanish) earned the Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction, which is the highest award achievement possible.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy was presented to Audrey LaConte (Italian), Sebastian DeVerbigier (French), Sara Hughes (Spanish), Matthew Villalta (Spanish), Emily Banks (Spanish) and Rachel Gonzalez (Spanish).

Isabella Piazza (Italian) Alexis Edwards (Italian), Mallory Brown (Italian), Elisabeth Hayduk (French) and Dennis McConologue (Spanish) received Biliteracy Achievement Awards.

Koss, Charini and Villalta also were honored for receiving high marks on the National Spanish Exam. Koss received a Gold Award, Charini a Silver Award and Villalta a Bronze Award.

The trio was part of a group of students honored for earning high marks on the National Spanish Exam, National Italian Exam and Le Grand Concours (National French Exam).

The other national award honorees were:

National Spanish Exam

Silver

• Allison Hall
• Siddharth Karani
• Nathan Murray
• Kyra Turner

Bronze

• Annika Held
• Katherine Murphy
• Neda Stoeva
• Keira Sullivan
• Kaitlyn Shackelford
• Ellen Corradi

Achievement

• Giovanni Aliperta
• Hannah Bryson
• Thomas Burns
• Jake Cronin
• Zim DeHart
• Ava DeOliveira
• Michael Dynan
• Alexandra Erler
• Katherine Hao
• Abigail Hassell
• Christina Ho
• Bailey Huddleston
• Samar Johar
• Clyde Lambert
• Paulo Pereira de Assis
• Pravya Ramesh
• Paola Rodrigues
• Isabella Serafim
• Bonhong Sreng
• Mia Stryhalaleck

National Italian Exam

Gold

• Kyla Kelley

Silver

• Nathan Cardin
• Dean Ciampa
• Dylan Grace
• Sophia Pitzen

Bronze

• Gracy Giammarco
• Caroline Jenks

Achievement

• Maria Cummings
• Alexander D’Angelo
• Olivia Saragosa
• Antonio Smolinsky
• Arian Ureña

Le Grand Concours

Gold

• Kyra Turner