CMS Winners: Charles Effman and Samantha Gefen. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

Three Westport students have earned recognition in the annual Connecticut Student Writers contest, sponsored by the University of Connecticut Department of English.

This contest, which is open to all students K-12 in the state, features categories of poetry, fiction, essay and drama.

The Westport winners are Charles Effman, Coleytown Middle School (CMS) seventh grade, (published) for his poem “Trees,” Samantha Gefen, CMS seventh grade grade (honorable mention) for her poem “Evidence Eater,” and Staples Hight School senior Julian Garrison (honorable mention) for his poem “You, Etched in Silver.”

The students will be honored at a ceremony on Wednesday, May 13 at 7 p.m. at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts at the UCONN campus in Storrs.

Ethan Shenhar, a junior at Staples High School who excels in the study of German, has been awarded an all-expense paid summer study trip to Germany, the Westport Schools announced today.

Ethan Shenhar: one of 44 winners.  Contributed photo

He was selected as a national winner after scoring in the 95th percentile on a national German exam for high school students sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG), an announcement said. Almost 21,000 students participated in the program.

After qualifying with a high score on the exam, Ethan submitted responses to several short essay questions in German and in English and was then interviewed by a committee comprised of college professors of German, school officials said.

He is one of 44 outstanding German students selected from across the United States to receive the award.

She is also the Earthplace Summer Camp director and was the driving force in establishing the new After School Enrichment Program for kindergarten to fifth graders, McDowell said.

Borys earned a Master’s degree in education from Fordham University where she also spent her undergraduate year and recently completed her director’s credentials in early childhood education.

“Laurie did an incredible job building this school into the excellent program we have today,” she said. “I am honored to take the reins from her and further the legacy of a curriculum built on exploration and discovery that she has created.”

Staples has never had an all-girls team before. While Moody’s records are incomplete, this may be a first for any finalist team in the 10-year history of the contest, according to an announcement from the Westport schools.

What’s most remarkable is that at Staples, girls’ excitement about math is unremarkable. Females make up over half of the math staff at the high school, the announcement said. Girls routinely sign up for the most difficult courses.

John Wetzel, townwide math department chair for grades 6-12, downplays the significance of the team’s makeup.

“It’s great it’s all girls. But we’d feel the same pride if the team were made up of all boys, or a mix,” he said. “This serves as another example of how we are excelling in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).”

The Staples team will square off against six others on Monday, April 27, in the final phase of judging at Moody’s Corporation headquarters in Manhattan.

They will present their findings to a panel of professional applied mathematician judges to determine the final rank order.

The top qualifying teams (In alphabetical order): Elk River High School, Elk River, Minn.; Maggie Walker Governors School, Richmond, Va.; NC School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, North N.C. (2 teams); South County High School, Lorton, Va., and Staples High School, Westport, Conn.