Support over 11 million students’ passions with your signature!

 

Petition to the Scripps National Spelling Bee:

We, lifelong fans of the Bee, kindly request your attention to an important matter that affects millions of high school students across the nation. We believe that it is time to expand the eligibility criteria for the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition to include high school students. Here are some reasons why expanding the competition to include high school students would benefit many groups in society, from the spellers themselves to the overall educational landscape and nationwide economy.

(Reasoning provided is an abbreviated version of a 15-slide presentation posted to YouTube in video form on June 6, 2024)

-Scripps National Spelling Bee competitors spend hours every day preparing for the competition. Ending the competition at 8th grade significantly limits these students’ displays of passion that they could have with opportunities to compete in high school. This change would also lead to increased overall academic passion in high school

-Expanding the Scripps National Spelling Bee program to include high schools would likely result in an increased focus on vocabulary and language across the country, and students would provide greater efforts due to the competition opportunity of the Spelling Bee. The trend of procrastination would also decrease in education due to this opportunity.

-Expanding the Scripps National Spelling Bee to include students in grades 9-12 presents a significant opportunity to improve these students’ cognitive abilities and critical thinking skills at a critical developmental time in their lives. The expansion would also allow students to develop effective perseverance, discipline, and time management skills at a critical time in their lives as they begin driving on the highways and enter the future workforce.

-Opening the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition to high school students allows for equal opportunities for every student. Many students discover their passion for vocabulary at a later age and would never get the chance to compete without an eligibility expansion.

-Expanding the Scripps National Spelling Bee to include high school students would allow for high school students to experience increased self-esteem and a sense of accomplishment that would be transformative to their future experiences and mindset. Also, media broadcasts presenting the competition would have more of a speller’s lifetime to explore in their stories allowing for additional buzz in the community.

-Allowing high school students to compete in the Spelling Bee would allow them to build lasting friendships, create a community with fellow competitors, and become role models to inspire younger competitors to reach their goals.

-Expanding the Scripps National Spelling Bee eligibility criteria would likely be easy to do for the organizers: only 3 rules would need to be even slightly reworded from those of the 2023 Contest Rules.

-Expanding the Scripps National Spelling Bee program directly results in increased funding for the program due to additional enrollment fees from a larger quantity of enrolled schools. Expanding the program to include high schools results in 20000-25000 new potential institutions to begin the enrollment process for the first time. This could lead to millions of dollars of additional funding for the nonprofit organization that could be used for additional sponsorships, improved word lists, and an overall greater competition experience for all 11 million participants involved. Local businesses across the country also benefit from the potential expansion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Goal: Expand the Spelling Bee program to include high school students

Please sign and share this petition to allow us to celebrate linguistic excellence at all levels of education and allow for millions of passionate high school students to excel in this prestigious academic competition!