PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Dr. Barry R. Groves, Mountain View Los Altos High School District
(650)940-4669 [email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2015
MVHS Language Exam Award Winners
LAHS Celebración Académica
MVLA Students Score Again in French, Japanese, Latin and Spanish National Contests
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – Mountain View Los Altos High School District (MVLA) students attained national
recognition for excellent performance on the 2015 National Language Examinations. The National Contest is
administered each year in grades 6 through 12, and is sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of
French (AATF), the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) and the American
Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ).
In March and April of 2015, students of French, Japanese, Latin and Spanish participated in their yearly
National Contest. All participating students competed in listening, reading and structures (grammar). This is
the first year where all classes of Japanese, French and Spanish at Mountain View High School (MVHS) and 787
students at Los Altos High School (LAHS) participated. Throughout the month of May, students who achieved
the highest scores received certificates of recognition with gold, silver and bronze medals and honorable
mentions. Over 200 students at MVHS and 350 at LAHS received highest scores.
Top scorers at LAHS were as follows: Samuel Veytser for Latin 1, Richard Barnes for Latin 2, Donna Trott for
Latin 3 and Spencer Dembner for AP Latin. French top scorers were Yann Sartori, Henri Stephan and Sharon
Perez. Students who scored in the 99th percentile were Henry Ma for Spanish 3H, Avi Varghese, Allison Wang
and Joanne Yuan for Spanish 2H, Eric Tang for Spanish 2 and Bianca Champenois, Kathy Deng and Ezer Zuñiga
for Spanish AP Language.
In Spanish, students did extremely well. There were 21 gold levels, 56 silver levels and 65 bronze levels at
MVHS. The highest scoring Spartans by level were Timothy Chao for level 1, Laura Carceroni and Hallie Olson
for level 2, Varun Rohatgi for level 3, Ethan Goolish (who received the highest score in level 3 last year) for
level 4 and Morgan McLain-Smith for level 5. At LAHS, there were 39 gold levels, 92 silver levels and 69 bronze
levels. “Attaining a medal of honorable mention for any student on the National Spanish Examinations is very
prestigious,” said Kevin Cessna-Buscemi, National Director of the Exams, “because the exams are the largest of
their kind in the United States with over 157,000 students participating in 2015.
MVHS students in French, Sydney Casey-Demirtjis obtained a silver medal for level 1. Audrey Mueller
achieved the highest score in level 2 and received a gold medal along with two of her peers. Francesco Gnerre
and Axel Michaud received the same score in level 3 and were awarded a gold medal. Level 4 and level 5
French students received many awards with a total of eight gold medals and six silver medals. In those two
levels, almost 50 percent of the students received medals. At LAHS, the test was administered to all levels of
French, with 48 “Lauréat National” and 53 “Mention Honorable” awards including three students who placed
in the top 95th percentile.
In Latin at LAHS, 105 students took the National Latin Exam with 49 earning an above average score qualifying
them to win an award. There were 16 gold medals (summa cum laude), 28 silver medals (maxima cum laude)
and 12 bronze medals (magna cum laude), with 14 honorable mentions.
In Japanese at MVHS, Yvonne Lin received the gold prize in level 1 with eight other students receiving silver
and bronze prizes. Japanese level 2 had four gold prize winners with Jacob Avelino receiving the highest score.
Owen Yama received the highest score for gold for level 3 and Eriko Sasaki for level 4. Level 4 students did
extremely well too with 50% of the students receiving gold and silver. Japanese students received a total of 30
gold/silver/bronze levels.
“Data analysis is always guiding teachers’ practice in the classroom. Seeing so many high scores from our
students is a magnificent accomplishment. All MVHS teachers are proud of our students,” said Clotilde Grès,
World Language Department Coordinator at MVHS and President of the AATF, Northern California chapter.
Robyn Hughes, the LAHS World Language Department Coordinator added, “We are all so proud of all of our
students for how well they performed. We look forward to seeing how well they score in future years.”
Congratulations to all students of Mountain View High School who were successful in the 2015 World
Language National Contests.
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