COVINGTON, Ga. - Nineteen Newton County School System high school students have been named semi-finalists for the 2019 Governor’s Honors Program.
The GHP, open to all sophomores and juniors, is a free residential summer program for gifted or highly talented students who are passionate about the subject. Students interested in attending must participate in a series of interviews and should be able to speak eloquently and in great detail about the subject they choose. They are students who desire to work with their subject outside of school and go above and beyond. Students may be nominated in Communicative Arts, all the Foreign Languages, Math, Science, Social Studies, Dance, Music, Theater, Visual Arts, Engineering, and Agriscience.
According to Dr. Nikkita Warfield, NCSS director of secondary education, each school has a school level GHP coordinator.
“The coordinator informs teachers about the program and asks teachers to nominate students who are highly talented and qualified to meet the criteria of the program,” Warfield said. “After the teachers provide the coordinators with student names, the coordinator meets with students to provide them with an overview of GHP and how the nomination process works. Additionally, the school-level GHP coordinator checks to ensure students meet the criteria. If the student meets the criteria, the coordinator informs the teacher and has the teacher complete the GHP nomination form. The teacher completes his or her portion as well as assists the student with filling in his/he nomination information (essays). After this process, each school has a school-level interview to select winners to compete in the district.
“The next layer of this rigorous process is the district level interviews. All identified students from each school compete in the district level interviews. If selected as district winners, the students’ names are submitted to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. The students are next contacted by GOSA to complete a state application in efforts to be selected for state interviews. If selected, students become a semi-finalist and will compete in state interviews next month at Berry College. Students selected as finalists from state interviews will have the opportunity to participate in the GHP summer program.”
NCSS students who have successfully passed the school and district-level interviews and had their applications approved by GOSA to be named a semifinalist in the program are as follows:
- Aeryn Barrentine, Alcovy, 10, Music
- Harley Cargile, Alcovy, 11, Music
- Danila Dokuchayev, Alcovy, 11, Visual Arts
- Jaron Fletcher, Alcovy, 11, Visual Arts
- Simon Jenkins, Alcovy, 11, Social Studies
- Joseph Bickel, Eastside, 11, Music
- Braxton Buff, Eastside, 11, World Languages
- Warth Haymore, Eastside, 10, World Languages
- Duncan Jourdan, Eastside, 11, Music
- Joyce Li, Eastside, 10, World Languages
- Ken Nguyen, Eastside/NCCA STEM, 10, Engineering
- Frances Prieto, Eastside/NCCA STEM, 10, Communicative Arts
- Sarah Schlueter, Eastside, 11, Science
- Cameron Burke, Newton, 10, Visual Arts
- Russell Danilchuk, Newton/NCCA STEM, 10, Engineering
- Durline Dorisca, Newton/ALANHS, 11, Social Studies
- Reyanna Edwards, Newton/ALANHS, 11, Music
- Kemora Seide, Newton/NCCA STEM, 11, Agricultural Research, Biotechnology, and Science
- Richard St. Louis, Newton, 11, Music
“Congratulations to our students who have been named semi-finalists in the 2019 Governor’s Honors Program,” Warfield said. “These students have successfully completed two rigorous interviews and had their applications approved by the state to move forward to the next round of competition. It is nice to see so many students so passionate about a subject area that they wish to participate in a program to learn more in-depth information about the topic. I commend them and wish each of them well in the next phase of the Governor’s Honors Program.”
