Visalia Unified School District students and staff welcomed Sarvadnya Kadam back to campus after he placed second at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Oak Grove Elementary celebrated Kadam, 14, with an assembly on Monday morning.
The big picture: VUSD Superintendent Kirk Shrum, Oak Grove Principal Travis Hambleton, teachers and Kadam’s teachers all spoke at the assembly and congratulated him for his achievement.
- Hambleton presented Kadam with two medals from the Scripps National Spelling Bee organization. They were a silver medal for his achievement as a National Semi-Finalist and a gold medal for placing as a National Finalist among the top nine spellers in the country.
Driving the news: Kadam’s first experience in a spelling bee came when his father took him to visit the Tulare County Spelling Bee in third grade.
- The following year, Kadam placed in second in his school’s spelling bee and finished fifth at the county level the year after that.
- Kadam qualified for the Scripps National Spelling Bee from sixth through eighth grade and placed 23rd and 60th in his first and second year in the competition, respectively.
What they’re saying: “You have to realize that the job’s not done yet,” Kadam said. “No matter how successful you are, you have to still keep your feet on the ground. But I think harder than that is when you’re completely devastated and picking yourself back up again. It sounds cliché, but it’s certainly one of the more difficult things you can do. And for me, I realized that I had to treat negativity as a motivating factor.”
- Shrum said Kadam’s success is a power example of what is possible when a student’s passion is met with strong support from teachers, families and the community.
- “We also know that when students are connected to at least one school activity, they are much more likely to succeed,” Shrum said.
