The National Merit Scholarship students shake the hands of Souderton School Board members. (Courtesy of the Souderton Area School District).
During the board’s discussion of the consent agenda, some members criticized the lack of publicly available minutes from the previous month’s meetings
The Souderton Area School Board Thursday, December 18 recognized 11 students who have been named semifinalists and commended students in the National Merit Scholarship program.
The semi-finalists are seniors Pranati Jammalamadaka and Noah Utain, while the commended students are Sean Bagley, Niharika Inampudi, Praneel Jammalamadaka, Sawyer Jones, Matthew Kennedy, Gabriel Longenecker, Riya Mehta, Navya Vysyaraju and Kelvin Zhang. The designations are based on the students’ PSAT scores, with the semi-finalists scoring in the top 1% of U.S. high school seniors and the commended students scoring in the top 3%.
“The finalists are among the top 16,000 scorers in the country,” said high school principal Sam Varano. “It looks really great on their college application and can help them get significant scholarship money.”
“You simply are some of the best and brightest in the entire nation,” said board president Ken Keith to the students. “I don’t have the words to express how awesome that is, short of thank you for working hard, for pushing yourselves, probably sacrificing some things along the way, but I just can’t say thank you enough.”
Meeting minutes
During the board’s discussion of the consent agenda, some members criticized the lack of publicly available minutes from the previous month’s meetings. In response, Superintendent Dr. Frank Gallagher noted that the minutes are in “draft form” until board approval.
“They don’t become publicly available until the board approves them,” said Gallagher.
The members then requested that the draft minutes be publicized before board approval at future meetings.
“The official record of the meeting is not the recording; it’s the minutes,” said board member Andrew Souchet. “That’s why it’s important procedurally to get this right.”
The board also played a video highlighting the inaugural season of the new High School Coed Unified Strength & Conditioning sport, in which students with and without disabilities compete together in strength and agility. The district’s team went undefeated, beating six other regional schools throughout the season.
The next Souderton Area School Board meeting is on January 22 at 7 p.m. For more information, visit soudertonsd.org
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