29 art students received recognition February 8^th after winning Gold, Silver and Honorable mention awards in the Scholastic Art contest. The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to identify students with exceptional artistic and literary talent and present their remarkable work to the world.

The highest honor is the Gold Key award, here are the students that placed with the Gold Key; Avery Patton, Natassia Simon,Victoria Castillo, and Cameron Guzman-Keller. The second highest honor is the Silver Key award, here are the students that placed with the Silver Key; Susana Acosta, Jesse Barrow, Antonella Gargurevich, Avery Patton, Tara Mccann, Brandon Brown, Jessica Mata, Ali Goodwin, Dustin Hutcheson, and Hannah Mccarthy. Honorable Mentions were also given to the following students; Jessie Barrow, Edward Bustos (placing with two photos), Danielle Cordova, Ariana Echevarria, Sarah Walters, Erika Balleza, Hailey Dexter, Harold Ortiz, Adriana Varela, Kennedy Cook, and Robert Jordan.

Through the Scholastic Awards, teens in grades 7^th through 12^th from public, private, and even home schools applied in 29 categories of art and writing. They are then entered for a chance to earn scholarships and have their works exhibited and published. Beyond the Awards, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers produces a number of programs to support creative students and their educators, such as Art.Write.Now.Tour, the National Student Poets Program, the Scholastic Awards Summer Series, the Alliance Summer Arts Program, the Golden Educators Residency, and much more.

This year over 300,000 original works were submitted across America and 29 of them belong to our students awarded with Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mentions. Since its’ founding, the Awards have established an amazing track record for identifying the early promise of our nation’s most accomplished and prolific creative leaders. Alumni include artists Andy Warhol and Philip Pearlstein and Writers like Truman Capote, Joyce Carol Oates.

Outside the arts, Awards alumni employ their creativity to become successful in any number of ways- leaders in fields including journalism, medicine, finance, government and public service, law, science, design, and more. With 29 of our students winning Keys or Honorable Mentions, our school is proud to accept these awards who our students worked very hard in and accomplished something great.