On Feb. 25, Greenhill Upper School Latin students competed in the Area C Junior Classical League competition held at Richardson High School.
JCL is a competition that allows Latin students across America to compete in various Latin events circled around art, academic and athletic abilities. It gives students the opportunity to use the skills they learn in class, outside of the classroom.
“The kids like the combination of competition and being able to use their abilities that they’ve been building all year long,” Latin teacher Jason Gajderowicz said. “In the midst of all that, it’s very fun and friendly, in which they get to see all of their friends that they know from JCL in years past, that they don’t necessarily get to see all the time.”
Latin students have been working to compete in their first JCL competition of the year. Latin teachers in the Upper School have been working towards beginning the preparation process. They are first getting all of their written resources, such as old tests and Quizlets, onto one online database where they can access everything in a more efficient manner.
“We want everybody to know where everything is. With one click, students have everything they need to know before going into the competition,” Gajderowicz said.
Greenhill Latin students won numerous events at JCL with many podium finishes as well. First place winners consisted of Ronni Phillips, Rebekah Miranda, Samantha Herrmann, Syrus Gupta, Lydia Kerridge, Claire Hood, Maya Jagsi, Rohan Swaminathan, Shreya Chhaya, Fern Hignite, Albertina Pascual Cisneros, Aria Kutty and Natalie Stachowiak, with Brynn Zawadzki, Tayce Thomas, Rahul Singhal, Justin Wu, Lena Gajderowicz, Izzy Shiloh, Kate Ponnambalam, Andrew Cai, Anjali Blewett, Pratosh Raman, Khushi Chhaya, Nylah Quresh and Yichen Shi placing either second or third.
These Latin students all qualified for the Texas JCL state competition, which will take place at Anderson High School in Austin, Texas in early April. There, they will have the opportunity to qualify for JCL Nationals at the University of Tennessee in July.
“It’s really gratifying seeing your name pop up on the screen if you win,” junior Fern Hignite said. “A lot of people don’t care about Latin and write it off as a dead language, but it is so cool that JCL creates a group of people that are unified through the same interests in Latin.”
