Autism Student Wins Spelling Bee but Can't Advance

A 13 year old seventh grader from Gulfport, Ms won the county spelling bee but could not advance to the state competition because of a $99 registration fee that was not paid by the school. As reported in the Sun Herald in Gulfport, the young man had hopes of advancing to the state competition and then on to the ESPN National Spelling Bee if he won the state competition.

This is a classic case of bureaucracy gone haywire. The explanation from the administrators of the state spelling bee is that the school was told ahead of time in two letters in August that the fee had been established and needed to be paid for the students to be eligible.

The Superintendent of Harrison County Schools stated that 9 out of ten principals he polled did not recall seeing a letter concerning the new fee. Another student from the Biloxi School District finished second in the competition and was disqualified even though the district which is part of Harrison County paid the $99 fee before the deadline.

The explanation was that the entire county was disqualified because of the confusion.

The tragedy obviously is that the young man who overcame tremendous odds gets penalized because of bureaucracy.

The Clarion Ledger newspaper in Jackson which is responsible for the administration of the statewide contest decides in committee that everyone in Harrison County should be disqualified.

This is a poorly considered solution to a problem which could easily be solved by requiring the schools to pay the fee immediately and let the students advance. The decision to penalize any student because of a fee which should be paid by administrators is beyond comprehension. The fee had no bearing on the competition. This is the first year for the fee and allowances should be made. The state of Mississippi is often maligned for its low ranking in many national statistics. Here you have young people who have worked very hard to compete and succeed against significant odds and we don't need administrators not using common sense in dealing with young students. The irony to me is this is the director of Newspapers in Education at The Clarion-Ledger trying to defend this decision. These are the very people who campaign with businesses to donate time and money to support schools and education. The newspaper needs to get off of its high horse. And penalize the district if necessary, but not the students.

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