The latest Wellesley school news:

Hardy groundbreaking

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held for the new Hardy Elementary School at the site on April 6 at 9am. The paparazzi will score shots of town officials with shiny shovels and hard hats over on Weston Road.

Site prep, soil work, and a Rte. 9 driveway are all underway.

Tenacre students earn writing awards

Four fifth graders at Tenacre Country Day School in Wellesley were honored for their essays in the 2023 Will McDonough Writing Contest, which was inspired by the famed Boston Globe sportswriter. Tenacre students who earned awards:

Alexis Schuldt (Wellesley), First Place
Dylan Zou (Wellesley), Second Place
Preston Bull (Wellesley), Honorable Mention

Samantha Miranda (Brockton), Honorable Mention

More than 1,000 students in grades 4-12 from across New England participated in the contest. The winners were chosen by Boston Globe sports editors.

First-place winners, along with their families, writers and editors from the Boston Globe, and members of the McDonough family will be invited to participate in an award ceremony on April 5 at TD Garden, followed by the Boston Celtics vs. Toronto Raptors game.

Winners will also receive a Kindle and have their essays featured in the Will McDonough Exhibit in The Sports Museum at TD Garden.

Every member of the 5th grade class at Tenacre submitted a 400-word essay to the contest as part of a class assignment.

Wellesley High grad wins public service cybersecurity scholarship

Congrats to Alton Miles, a 2021 Wellesley High School graduate who is now a sophomore at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, as he recently won a CyberCorps Scholarship funded by the National Science Foundation. The scholarship obligates recipients to work for the government in cybersecurity for summer internships and post-graduation.

Miles’ mother, Laura Beusch, says her son “enjoys a new challenge and government cybersecurity involves staying a step ahead of cyber criminals, some sponsored by other countries. As others try to find new ways to compromise our national security, he wants to be part of a team working to protect it. He finds this work both interesting and important.”

Star Academy celebrates math students, future problem solvers

Star Academy, a private school with locations in Watertown and Wellesley, is celebrating the success of its 6th grade math team, which just won the New England Mathematics League, beating out 40 other teams. The Star Academy students all attend school on the Wellesley campus.

The in-person competition involved a test taken on March 2. Each student competed individually on 35 math problems of increasing difficulty, and the top 5 scores were combined into the team score.

Star Academy Director Margarita Druker attributes the student’s success to their hard work and dedication, as well as the school’s math program, which exposes kids to “advanced and unusual math topics at a young age.”

Separately, Star Academy students shined at the Massachusetts Future Solving Program State Bowl, held at Clark University in Worcester. The competition, for students in grades 4-12, saw top performers qualify for the International Bowl at UMass Amherst in June.

The academic program challenges students to research topics related to business/economics, science/technology, and social/political themes. This year’s topics were: digital realities; e-waste; the robotic workforce; the throwaway society; and currency. Students research the topics and devise 6-step processes to deliver solutions.

Star Academy students in grades 5-8 swept the divisions in which they competed, according to the school.

More: Other recent school news

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