HHS Captures Honors in
Le Grand Concours
Huntington High School students turned in another impressive performance on this year's National French Exam, formally known as "Le Grand Concours."
Foreign language teacher Deidre Mayer has annually encouraged her students to challenge themselves by taking the national test since she joined Huntington's faculty in 2000. This year, 36 students answered her call. Over the years the teacher, referred to as Madame Mayer by her students, has seen several of her protégés win top honors in both the national French and Latin exams over the years.
"Le Grand Concours is an incredibly challenging exam," Ms. Mayer said. Academically talented students from all 50 states sat for the test. When the results came in, 27 of the three dozen Huntington students who took this year's exam or 75 percent of Ms. Mayer's students had scored in the top 25 percent of all test-takers in Suffolk County.
A number of Huntington students scored in the Top Ten in Suffolk. At Level 2, Caitlin Knowles earned second place while Justin Edgar McNerney and Leah Butz finished fourth and eighth, respectively. Jessica Daniel placed sixth at Level 5, the most challenging exam of all.
Emily Shutman (Level 2), Collin Francis (Level 3), Marc Feldman (Level 4) and Erica Flor (Level 5) earned eleventh place at their respective level. "Collin Francis is an exceptional language student," Mrs. Mayer said. "He is trilingual and it is his very first year of formally studying French."
Huntington's "Top 25 percent" in Suffolk scoring students also included:
• Level Two (French 9): Jesus Bruno, Aaron Feltman, Caroline Petrozzo, Jason Stickell and Marlem Tellez.
• Level Three (French 10): Jean Abecassis, Declan Byrne and Amy Schmelter.
• Level Four (French 11): Joellen Ceide, Kathryn Ingle and Olivia Lopez.
• Level Five (French 12): Conor Byrne, Monica Casabona, Equislaure Gabriel, Antonia Kedell, Samantha Lai, Pauline McGlone, Kevin Slomowitz and Scout Ziegler.
Mrs. Mayer said she is "thrilled" with this year's results. "It has been a challenging year and I'd like to say 'felicitations' to my students to whom I'm grateful for their dedication to the study of Francais!"