Saniya Abdul-Ali ’31 wins gold on national exam

Gold medals aren’t just for the Olympic Games, or sports for that matter.

Wilbraham & Monson Academy’s Saniya Abdul-Ali ’31 earned gold medal status for her performance on this year’s National Spanish Exam.

Saniya, a student in Señora Andrea Santos’s Spanish Language and Culture 1 class, scored in the top 95 percent of all students who took the national exam. The assessment included two sections, Content and Performance, with Saniya recording a perfect score on the Contest portion (vocabulary and grammar).

“I would like to congratulate Saniya for always being so attentive and engaged in class,” Señora Santos praised. “It has been incredibly rewarding to witness her growth since she began studying with me in sixth grade. Spanish comes very naturally to her across all areas, such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. She always communicates with me in Spanish and makes a genuine effort to sustain meaningful conversations.

"Saniya demonstrates exceptional strength in both reading comprehension and listening tasks, and her achievement on the National Spanish Exam is a well-deserved recognition of her talent, dedication and hard work.”

In total, 11 students from Mrs. Santos’s class won awards. They included - Silver (top 85 percent): Denali Boyd ’31, Lily Hoar ’31 and Emerson Letendre ’31; Bronze (top 75 percent): Deanna Gerasimchuk ’31 and Emily Salema ’31; and Honorable Mention (top 50 percent): Austin Briggs ’31, Colleen Chesky ’31, Caroline Harvey ’30, Julien Olanoff ’31 and Maribel Rodriguez ’30. 

“I am very pleased with the results,” Mrs Santos said. “The students worked incredibly hard. These awards are determined based on national percentile rankings, meaning students are compared to others across the country at the same level. It is truly rewarding to see their efforts recognized with such distinctions. I would like to congratulate all of them for their dedication and commitment.”

Also, three students in Señora Anahi Villar’s Spanish 2 class earned Honorable Mention status: Maggie Comeau ’30, Ricky Dunlap ’30 and A.J. Vartabedian ’30.