The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Members of the Cedar Hill Preparatory School debate team were honored by the Township Council May 24 for their success in two debate tournaments.
The teams participated in the Garden State Middle School Championship Tournament on March 19, in which they won awards for garnering the most wins and for Best Speaker, won by Kaushik Vemparala.
The teams also participated in the east Coast Regional Finals of the Middle School Debate League on April 16, in which the school finished fifth among 29 teams, tops in wins by a New Jersey school and had one student, Zoe Rivera, ranked 21st in the region.
The students, all of whom are in grades 5 to 8, who were honored included:
- Team 1 – Kaushik Vemparala, Nikhith Nookala & Shivam Singh
- Team 2 – Arjun Agrawal, Vishnu Gade & Vyomini Vakil,
- Team 3 – Shwetha Rajagopalan, Esha Trivedi & Fisayo Odukoya
- Team 4 – Abhiram Kakani, Yuvna Musuku & Heer Patel
- Team 5 – Megha Thomas, Aarthi Venkata & Chahat Mittal
- Team 6 – Nivritti Mantha, Gurmehar Kaur & Abhinav Kumar
- Team 7 – Cilaty Elias, Zoe Rivera & Shreya Krishnan
- Team 8 – Siya Angras, Aleena Kelkar & Karishma Gupta
The commendation was presented by Township Councilman Rajiv Prasad, who told the students the council wants “to honor you and encourage you to go on and do great things.”
School founder Nandini Menon thanked the council for the commendations, and noted that debate takes much preparation.
Once topics are chosen, she said, the students “have to do the research and create arguments that others can’t refute.”
The students, she said, “need to be rewarded for all the effort and enthusiasm they show.”
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