Congratulations to the 21 Searcy High School students out of only 456 Arkansas students who have earned the Arkansas Seal of Biliteracy for demonstrating proficiency in English and one or more other languages by high school graduation.
Adopted first by California in 2011, the Seal of Biliteracy is now recognized in 42 states and Washington D.C. According to the official website, “the Seal of Biliteracy encourages students to pursue biliteracy, honors the skills our students attain, and can be evidence of skills that are attractive to future employers and college admissions offices.” Since the 2017 pilot year in Arkansas a total of 2,124 students from 62 high schools around the state have attained this certification across sixteen languages other than English (Arabic, Chinese, Filipino, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Marshallese, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese).
The Arkansas Seal of Biliteracy is awarded each spring and fall to students in grades 9 through 12 and is sponsored by the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association (AFLTA) and the Arkansas Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ARKTESOL). The Arkansas Department of Education officially endorsed the Seal in June 2018.
The SHS students are Alma Aguilar, Mariela Amaya, Emily Baker, Anna Beach, Laritza Chena, Sallie Clark, Drew Curtis, Estella Gomez, Anthony Gomez, Karlie Hite, Camdyn Joice, Regan Langlais, Alivia Mayes, Yenifer Mora, Stacy Mottu, Amon Nguyen, Alex Pena, Layden Pruitt, Morgan Ripley, Greg Supratman, and Holten Watson. These students will be recognized by the Searcy School District Board of Education at the May meeting.
