Schools: National Merit Scholars Announced

Brynna S. Paulukaitis of Parkview High School is one of nine seniors from Gwinnett County Public Schools  named National Merit scholarship winners.

Paulukaitus, who is interested in Physics/Medicine as a career choice, will receive a $2,500 scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which gave out more than 2,000 of the scholarships nationwide to seniors with the strongest combinations of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in college.

Other Gwinnett winners: Akshaya Suresh, Brookwood; James T. Eccles and Andres Gonzalez, Collins Hill; Nihar M. Madhaven, Duluth; Joshua Chang and Seong J. Park, Gwinnett School of Math, Science and Technology; Walker Z. Argendeli, Norcross; and Deepan A Mehta, Peachtree Ridge.

Top Teach: Jeff Peterson, a physical education teacher at Mountain Park Elementary School, received the Marilyn Brackett Excellence in Teaching Physical Education Award. He was selected from among Gwinnett County PE teachers for outstanding leadership, teaching, dedication and community impact.

Das Ist Gut: Jose Sagrero of Parkview High School was one of two Gwinnett students who achieved top scores on the National German Exam. Sagrero had the highest score in Georgia in the Level 4 exam, scoring 98 percent, which was among the top 20 nationwide (5,094).

Word Perfect: Sweetwater Middle School, which feeds into Berkmar High School in Lilburn, ranks first in the nation in the WordMasters Challenge, a national competition that encourages growth in vocabulary and verbal reasoning. Team members had a perfect score (200) for two meets in a row, competing against more than 220,000 students across the U.S.