The Lee’s Summit R-7 School District students are achieving goals and learning new languages as early as first grade.

164 students in 1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th grade for completing the requirements in English and another language for the Seal of Biliteracy Pathway Award. 26 students are second year recipients of this award and seven students are third year recipients. The Pathway Awards recognize elementary and middle school students who have sought out second language acquisition opportunities in their communities or who have worked to maintain the native language spoken in the home.  These students were required to demonstrate this second language acquisition or learning to meet district and state standards.   

The students, who represent 17 elementary and all four middle schools, achieved these awards learning the following 18 languages:  Arabic, ASL, Dutch, French, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Urdu and Vietnamese.   

The following 18 ETMS students earned their Seal of Biliteracy Pathway Award:

• French:  Janiyah Burns, Elizobette Cobler, Emrik Durham**, Avery Graham, Mika Heinz*, Bianca Martin, Kaelyn Mills, Jillian Spieth
• German: Teagan Cronin, Zack Gillette, Alex Holcomb, Amelia Hughes, Laina Landgren, Jett Zimmermann
• Hindi:  Aashi Singh*
• Spanish:  Jadon Davis, Cecilia McCauley, Weston Reed