Good morning and. Welcome to the 2025 Galena Park ISD 8th annual French spelling bee.

The Galena Park Independent School District held its 8th annual French spelling bee in 2025, with students from multiple campuses competing through several elimination rounds and North Shore Senior High senior Isaiah Flores crowned district champion. The event included practice rounds, live streaming, photo opportunities and an awards ceremony.

The district’s ESL program director, who opened the event, said a practice round preceded the official competition so students could confirm sound and logistics and “to let everybody kinda come up, make sure they can hear us, kinda get the nerves off and all of that.” The director also thanked the board of trustees and Superintendent Dr. John Moore for supporting student events and thanked families and the communications department for live streaming and taking photos.

Miss Menacho, identified in the program as a Spanish teacher at Galena Park High School who is fluent in French, presented the competition rules to contestants. She explained procedural limits on repeats, definitions and objections, saying in part: “The judges will render the final decision. Participants are not allowed to exchange the judge decision. The time allowed for objection is before the next contestant receive his or her word. No appeal will be entertained after that the word has been given to another speller.” The judges and pronouncer retained final control of the competition except in cases of a “serious error,” Menacho said, when the pronouncer and judges together would make a final decision.

Event staff noted that the district has only two French teachers who serve multiple roles for the bee: they sponsor participants, provide tutorials and act as pronouncers and judges. The program also reminded contestants how to spell accented letters aloud and described elimination procedures once only two contestants remained: if one contestant misspelled a word, the other had the opportunity to spell that same word and a second word to win, consistent with the announced rules.

Rounds proceeded through several word lists with the district calling contestants from feeder campuses and reading definitions and translations on request. Announcers called students from North Shore campuses and Galena Park High School to the stage to receive certificates; volunteers and staff organized photographs and refreshments after the awards. District placements announced during the ceremony named Jesus Martinez as third place, Ociel Perez as second place and Isaiah Flores as the 2024–25 district champion for the 8th annual French spelling bee.

Photographs were taken with contestants wearing their assigned numbers, and staff directed participants to return numbers to event staff (identified as Miss Evora) when exiting to receive lunch and refreshments. Organizers urged families to remain for the short awards presentation and to use a backdrop provided for personal photos.

The event was framed as both a competition and a language-promotion activity: the program director noted that French is an official language in 29 countries and spoken in about 50 territories, and encouraged students to pursue bilingual or multilingual study. No formal board actions or votes were recorded in the event transcript.

Certificates and stage recognition followed the contest; staff called many student names as they received certificates and posed for photos. The ceremony concluded with staff announcing refreshments and instructing attendees about the exit sequence.