Charleroi Academic League Awards Day celebrated

By TAYLOR BROWN

tbrown@yourmvi.com

After a tough year in and out of the classroom, area students from several districts were recognized Monday for their hard work and academic perseverance during the 31st annual Charleroi Academic League Awards Day Ceremony.

The league is open to students in grades nine through 12 from the Charleroi Area, Avella Area, Bentworth, Beth-Center, California Area, Frazier, Monessen and Washington school districts.

Vanessa DiCianna, teacher/librarian and gifted teacher at Charleroi, coordinates the event each year, with help from other district coaches.

While the pandemic threw them for a loop this fall when competitions and matches were set to begin, organizers were able to pull it off with the help of technology.

“It was an interesting year for us. There were a lot of questions at first,” DiCianna said. “Could we do this? How would we pull it off? But in the end, we made it work.”

She said work usually begins in September, as districts begin to prepare for matches and students start racking up scores.

The competitions include categories such as math, science, music, the arts and literature.

Each match has 40 questions and there are seven matches each year — about one per month depending on district schedules. Students do not have to participate in every competition.

This year, matches didn’t begin until December and the first five were conducted virtually.

“It was actually interesting because some of our students were in school, some were at home and others were doing a hybrid model of learning,” DiCianna said. “So sometimes students would be competing from home while their opponents were in a classroom with each other.”

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