AMESBURY — The Amesbury Public Schools community is celebrating this week after receiving word that Amesbury Middle School was named a winner in a popular statewide challenge.
Last month, eighth-graders submitted an entry to the “We Declare! Challenge.” The challenge, held by iCivics, a civic education nonprofit, asked students throughout the state to submit a video of themselves reading an interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for a chance to win scholarships, classroom funding and more.
So, 55 students led by Amesbury Middle School civics teacher Tia Costello did just that. The teacher and students filmed a creative video over the course of two days in May at the Josiah Bartlett statue and the Doughboy statue, one of the 145 videos submitted to the challenge.
Last week, Costello got the news that the video had made it to the semi-finals, and said despite the large volume of entries, she maintained cautious optimism that the middle school would be named a winner.
On Monday, she received an email confirming her hopes, and was informed that Amesbury Middle School had been awarded the Henry Knox Award for Creative Citizenship. With the award comes a $2,500 scholarship for each student in the video once they graduate high school, $1,500 for the school, $250 for Costello and $250 for classroom materials or a celebration.
The kids will also be congratulated by state Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez, during their graduation ceremony today, yet another special opportunity provided as a result of their video.
Originally, the challenge was planning on only awarding the $2,500 scholarships to one class, however, after seeing all the impressive videos, the Amesbury Middle School along with two other schools, one in Brighton and one in Brockton, all received scholarships for each student in their respective videos, something Costello said is thrilling.
“When I found out that we were one of the three winners and that the kids were going to get a $2,500 scholarship for each of the 55, I was so excited,” she said.
Amesbury Public Schools Superintendent Elizabeth McAndrews said she was glad to see the school receive this recognition and was proud of everyone involved in the making of the video.
“It’s absolutely incredible, and it’s a huge tribute to both our students and our staff. We are often not highlighted for the positive things that happen in our district, and this is just a fabulous opportunity to showcase one of many things that is awesome about what our teachers do and how our kids respond to that,” she said.
As of Wednesday morning, Costello said she had yet to tell the students about their success and intended to do so later that day, but anticipated that they would be thrilled to hear they had been recognized.
“I think that they are going to be exceptionally proud of themselves, and what makes it super sweet is that they get that scholarship, and it’s just incredible,” she said.
Mainly, Costello said she was glad that Amesbury eighth-graders were able to participate in the challenge, as it gave the kids a chance to band together and do something both fun and educational.
“Not everybody wants to get up on a stage and be part of a school play, not everybody does sports, and we don’t really have middle school teams. So, this is a way for them to be like ‘Yeah, we want to be a part of something special to remember our eighth-grade year and to recognize the 250th and everything that we’ve done in civics for the year’. And, they embraced it and really did an incredible job,” she said.