Spelling Bee Mayhem..
By katsmeow1213
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
United States
December 12, 2012 1:26pm CST
My daughter was one of 15 people able to participate in the school's spelling bee today.. she beat out everyone else in the 5th and 6th grade to make it into this spelling bee.
The top 2 winners of today's spelling me got to go out to a regional spelling bee.
Well.. I never expected my daughter to win..
But when she got up in round 2 and they gave her the word "slight" and I heard her spell it right, but they told her she was incorrect.. I wondered what was up.
I waited for the next child to have the same word, that's how it worked. If a child got it wrong they'd keep going until someone got it right. They didn't with "slight". The next child got a different word.
So I looked it up on my phone and saw that she'd been right.. but they said she was wrong??
At the end of the spelling bee I found my daughter, who was crying. She said she knew she spelled it right and everyone else told her she had also. Even a few people in the audience came up and said she'd spelled it right.
So I asked to speak to the judges, but they'd gone back to their classes and couldn't be called away.
The announcer gave me her papers where she had what the judges had written down. Each of the judges heard my daughter wrong.. and each heard it in a different way. One wrote "stlight", another wrote "slitht" and another wrote "sight". Does it even make sense that she would have spelled it that wrong? Obviously they heard her wrong, and they didn't even all hear her the same way!
Well at first they were telling me I'd have to make an appointment to see the principal when he came back, which wouldn't be until tomorrow.
Finally the assistant superintendent spoke to me. She didn't try to say "Well, that's how they heard her" like everyone else was saying. She didn't try to tell me I was wrong and they were right. All she did was ask "How can we fix this?".
I don't know how to fix it. I know they can't re-hold the spelling bee. It's not fair to my daughter that she didn't go on to the next round even though she was right, but it also wouldn't be fair to re-hold the spelling bee and have it turn out differently.. that would not be fair to the child who did win.
The assistant superintendent said she would make an announcement tomorrow that my daughter had spelled the word right..
That's probably about all they can do.
So as we were leaving the school I said to my daughter "Well.. this will be a memory". She'll always remember her 5th grade spelling bee where she spelled the word right but the judges all heard her wrong. Poor kid!
3 people like this
13 responses
@jillhill (37354)
• United States
12 Dec 12
That totally stinks! She should have won and they should have ammended it right away. At least she is being big about it! She could have cried and carried on...but the school should do something more to honor her....it is things that happen like this that break a child's spirit!
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
12 Dec 12
She did cry.. but she cried quietly instead of throwing a fit. She's a good kid. I asked her what she'd like to fix the problem and she couldn't think of anything either. Just something she's really going to have to swallow.. and it does suck.
@ZoeJoy (1392)
• United States
12 Dec 12
It's sad but life isn't always fair. And you can't always win with the school board or the school principal. She, like so many, has had to learn a difficult lesson at such a young age. Perhaps your daughter didn't say the word clearly enough, that is the only explanation that I can think of as to why each judge heard differently. The best you can teach your daughter is not to get resentful but to hold her head high, to be fair to others and to continue to do right.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
12 Dec 12
Obviously she wasn't heard right.. I heard her fine, but each of the judges heard her differently.
Doesn't matter now, there's really nothing we can do at this point. She is still upset but she will get over it and be fine.
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
12 Dec 12
Oh that sucks.
My daughter was in her 5th grade spelling bee also, but it was a team thing, and she was the alternate, and her teammates were not so good. The few words that she actually got to spell were correct.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
12 Dec 12
Well at least my daughter wasn't humiliated by spelling an easy word wrong. Very first kid got the word "dire" but spelled it "dier". 3rd kid up in the first round got her word wrong too.. but I don't remember what it was. Then they had to mess with a bunch of them by giving them the word "best-case" and they eliminated 3 kids before someone finally put in the hyphen.
2 people like this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
12 Dec 12
Oh geez, I hate it when they get tricky like that. Dearra got 2nd in her second grade spelling bee because she forgot to capitalize something.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
12 Dec 12
Yeah, the whole spelling bee thing just seems so unfair all around. I'm sure those other kids feel like it was unfair to get such ridiculous words.
@frankiecesca (2489)
•
14 Dec 12
Oh no! It is really such a shame and like you say, there is nothing that an really be done now apart from them apologising and telling everyone that actually, she did spell it right!
It will definitely be a memory though and one that you guys will all tell for years to come and for the next generation! :)
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
15 Dec 12
Turns out they didn't do what they said. Instead of making an announcement, the assistant superintendent just came into my daughter's class and told the class they should be proud of her for how far she did go, and that the spelling bee system isn't perfect and there may have been a mistake. Ugh! I'm so mad at the whole situation. My daughter very well may have won the whole thing if those judges weren't deaf!!
@cynthiann (18602)
• Jamaica
12 Dec 12
They should be the ones fixing it, not you. What on earth can you do about it? Pleae complain to the highest level possible. Write letters or email the press etc. Do it for you daughter as this is an injustice and should be put right. She should not be treated this way
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
12 Dec 12
The assistant superintendent wanted to fix it for me, but what can she do? As I said, they can't re-do the spelling bee.. that wouldn't be fair either. Why be unfair to other children just because the judges were unfair to my daughter? I'm not like that. I feel bad for my daughter, but the child who won deserves to go on to the regionals and I'm not going to mess that up on him just because my daughter's chances weren't fair.
1 person likes this
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
14 Dec 12
I wonder if because of the fact that there was an error if they wouldn't be able to petition to the regional spelling bee people so that they would be able to have an extra person from her school in the spelling bee because of a judge's error.
The fact of the matter is that we are all human and that does mean that we are prone to mistakes from time to time. However, a child should not be punished for the errors of another human being.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
15 Dec 12
The problem is they're acting like they can't prove it.. and sadly they can't. It's basically our word vs. theirs. I could probably gather some of the audience, but since it wasn't their daughter they may not have been paying enough attention. They should video tape it in the future so that if this problem arises they can review the tapes.
@wolfie34 (26771)
• United Kingdom
13 Dec 12
Obviously the judges weren't paying full attention then, if they did mishear her, couldn't they asked her to spell it again? Forgive me but I am not familiar with Spelling Bee rules, but if I was a judge and wasn't sure what I had heard I would ask them to repeat it to make sure. I am not surprised your daughter was upset, I am glad you followed it through, some parents wouldn't have bothered. At least you got the best outcome you could have got in the circumstances. I hope in the announcement they APOLOGIZE to your daughter! Yes I am sure she will always remember the incident.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
15 Dec 12
They didn't even really apologize to her, they just kept saying she should be proud to have made it that far.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
12 Dec 12
My first thought was that she'd somehow gotten it wrong. I thought it was right, but then I thought maybe I heard wrong or something.. so I waited. At the end I asked her how she'd gotten it wrong, and she said she didn't. Then they showed me the papers where the judges wrote down what they heard and it was ridiculous. There's no way they heard her spell that word the way they think she did.
1 person likes this
@shaggin (72183)
• United States
13 Dec 12
What they should have been doing was video taping it so they could play it back and say oh yes she was right and apologize for the mistake. Does your daughter have an accent or lisps or anything that would make all the judges have a harder time understanding what she said? I think the way you and the superintendant handled this was good it just stinks that this happened to her :(
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
13 Dec 12
No she speaks fine.. must have just been a little quiet.
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
13 Dec 12
Bless her heart, how unfair. Sounds like they need to get some new judges that pay attention to what's going on.
@Cutie18f (9546)
• Philippines
13 Dec 12
Incidentally, I will be spearheading an inter-school spelling bee. The mechanics are a bit different because the audience will get to read and see the words because the participants will be using white boards.
@41CombedaleRoad (5952)
• Greece
13 Dec 12
That is such a sad story and a hard one for your daughter to experience. One thing good that she will appreciate however is that her mum stuck by her and did everything she could to get justice for her daughter.
Three deaf judges is more than a coincidence. I hope that next year they will be as tough on the judges as they have been this year on your daughter. Give yourself and your daughter a special treat and don't let it spoil your Christmas.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
13 Dec 12
Thanks for your response. No it will not ruin my Christmas.. it is upsetting though.. poor girl.
