West High School | Est. 1890
West Debate Wins State!
A'cappella Soloists
FIRST Tech Challenge
News & Announcements
School Excusals
Interested in excusing your child's absence through email? The attendance email is west.attendance@slcschools.org. Please make sure your attendance email contained all of the following or the excuse may not be processed - send the email from the parent email that the school has on file, include your child's first and last name, student grade level, student ID number if you know it, date(s) of absence, period(s) of absence.
FBLA Victorious at State Conference
Your West High Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club traveled to the Davis Convention Center on Mar 11-13 for three days of intense competition and elections. With 83 schools in attendance with 1530 students doing multiple tests and events, we are very proud to announce the following Top Ten finishers in the State and their events that are now eligible to move on to International Competition in San Antonio, Texas this summer. Also please join us in congratulating Sachin Sundar and Alicia Zhang on being selected to be State Officers this next year!
Accounting I – Quinn Shumway, William Wooldridge
Accounting II – Octavio Morales
Business Plan – Mark Guerra-Garcia, Raghav Krishna Sodisetti, and Sachin Sundar
Computer Applications – Alicia Zhang
Economics – Kit Kauffman, Octavio Morales
Global Business – Azra Becic and Mark Guerra-Garcia
Hospitality Management – Quinn Shumway and Alicia Zhang
Impromptu Speaking – Samson Osime
Intro to Business – Elinor Brunner
Intro to Business Presentation – Quinn Shumway, Raghav Krisna Sodisetti, and Sylvia Xi
Intro to Business Procedures – Elinor Brunner
Intro to Financial Math – William Wooldridge
Intro to Information Technology – Zhanghao Zhang
Intro to Parliamentary Procedures – Michael Mendenhall and Zhanghao Zhang
Intro to Public Speaking – Quinn Shumway
Insurance & Risk Management – Zhonghao Zhang
Job Interview – Samson Osime
Management Information Systems – Mark Guerra-Garcia, Sachin Sundar, and Alicia Zhang
Networking Concepts – Zhanghao Zhang
Political Science – Sachin Sundar
Securities & Investments – Sachin Sundar
Sports & Entertainment Management – Mark Guerra-Garcia, Sachin Sundar, and Sylvia Xi
Spreadsheet Applications – Sylvia Xi, Alicia Zhang
Website Design – Samson Osime
Word Processing – Sylvia Xi
West Debate wins the UHSAA 2019 5A State Championship
The public forum debaters lead the way with all four teams earning superiors, followed by the policy debate teams who ultimately shared co-champion honors after their success in elimination rounds. West also cleared to elimination rounds in Lincoln-Douglas, student congress, national extent, and oratory. This victory is West Debate’s second consecutive championship. The team now turns its focus to preparing for national competitions. Individual achievements are noted below
Public forum
Teams Marissa Goodman & Tejita Agarwal and Nick Carlin & Noa Taussky are quarterfinalists.
Teams Jane Galian & Zach Braford and Lauren Bacon & Lauren Berensen are semifinalists.
Policy debate
Teams Kiyan Banuri & Ramis Banuri, Matthew Kim & Kenny Nelson, Madeline Galian & Hanna Rice, and Dylan Hefley & Isaiah Ortiz are co-champions.
Lincoln Douglas
Lizzie Peterson is a quarterfinalist.
Student Congress
Olivia Hoffmann is a finalist and Tyler Shumway is the state champion.
National Extemp
Alicia Du won second place
Original Oratory
Arianna Meinking is a finalist.
MathCounts Competition
West High School just took 1st place at the state MathCounts competition earlier today. We even had 3 of the 10 countdown round winners from our school. Please help us congratulate the following people
West High Team Winners
Marianne Lui* (2nd place overall)
Chloe Parke (8th place overall)
Diya Oommen (10th place overall)
Brendon Young
*Marianne Lui also qualified for the national team and will be going to Orlando in May to compete with the top 200 math students in the nation.
We also had three students qualify from the AMC A exam for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination. We may get a few more students qualify later in the week.
AIME Qualifiers
Zachary Barbanell
Sanjula Pingali
Malavika Singh
A'cappella soloists advance to State UHSAA Festival!
West High took 6 soloists and 2 ensembles to UHSAA Regional Vocal Solo Ensemble Festival on 3/4 at Murray High. All vocal entries earned superior or excellent ratings! In addition, 3 WH soloists: Nano (Saulala) Feletoa accompanied by Livia Zhang (2018 state pianist for WH), Melanie Woodbury, and Stephen Grant advanced to state competitions which will take place on April 27th at Northridge High! West High Vocalists are making history! Go panthers!
National Recognition for FBLA
Join us in congratulating the following members of our FBLA club on receiving National recognition for Business Achievement Awards. The FBLA Business Achievement Awards (BAA) is an intensive leadership development program that recognizes FBLA members for achievements in a variety of career-related projects, goals, and programs:
Future Level: Mark Guerra-Garcia, Sylvia Xi, and Alicia Zhang
Business Level: Mark Guerra-Garcia and Sylvia Xi
Our local West Chapter also received National recognition for achieving the following awards and will receive pins and recognition at the National Leadership Conference in San Antonio this summer:
Non-Stop November
Super Sweeps
Action Awareness
West High School also received from the National FBLA the FBLA Outstanding Chapter Recognition Award. FBLA chapters must complete twenty (20) membership, community service, and education activities in order to receive this award.
This is the first time that West High School has ever received any of these awards!
Debate Wins Region
After two days of competition in speech and debate, West came out on top to become the 2019 Region VI Champions.Individuals finishing in the top three of their respective events include Tyler Shumway in second place and Olivia Hoffman in first place of congressional debate. In impromptu speaking, Adam McVicker won second place. In Lincoln Douglas debate, Jane Zhang won third, Lizzie Peterson won second, and Sriram Srinivas won first. In oratory, Masha Zaitsev won third and Arianna Meinking won second. West policy teams filled out the top four - Madeline Galian & Hanna Rice in fourth, Kiyan Banuri & Ramis Banuri in third, Kenny Nelson & Matthew Kim in second, and Isaiah Ortiz & Dylan Hefley in first. In public forum debate, West also filled out the top four. Jane Galian & Zach Bradford in fourth, Noa Taussky & Nick Carlin in third, Tejita Agarwal & Marissa Goodman in second, and Lauren Bacon & Lauren Berensen in first.
FTC Utah State Championships
The annual FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Utah State Championships was held on Saturday, February 23rd. West High's Robotics Program fielded 4 of the 36 teams at the event. Each of our teams had to qualify to participate in the event. We had roughly 30 students participate, as well as 3 teacher mentors and several student volunteers. Everyone spent many hours this year preparing robots, logistics, outreach and fundraising for the teams.
The 7th grade ELP rookie team "Powder Panthers" finished in 6th place in the field, placing higher than all the other West teams. Their robot was reliable and a consistent scorer through all the qualifying rounds, where they finished with 4 wins and 1 loss. The Powder Panthers won the Promote Award, for making a video used to motivate others to participate in robotics and STEM fields. Also finishing with a 4-1 record and in 9th place was the all girls team, the veteran "Robo Raptors". Their robot was the only one from West's Program that employed vision tracking to remove a block from the field in autonomous. The Raptors nominated me and I won the Compass Award, for being a mentor that points them in the right direction. Finishing 22nd out of 36 was Raspado Robotics, an all Hispanic Team. Raspado engineering a robot with a lead screw mechanism that could successfully land and latch a robot to a spacecraft. Raul Rodriguez, the captain of the Raspado team was selected as a Dean's List Finalist for the state of Utah. This is a prestigious award which qualifies him to compete at the World Robot Festival in Houston, Texas. Finally, Black Ice Robotics finished in 27th place. Their robot scored higher on average than any of the other robots fielded by West High.
The event was attended by following mentors: Patrick Doty, Rob Gabriele, Enrique Arce-Larreta, Elena Balasa, and Elijah Greenfield. Volunteers from our Robotics Program included: Dan Hutten (Lead Queuer), Eric Bulson (Judge), and Avery Shumway (DJ). Student Volunteers included: Sophie Byde, Ryan Shin, Sam and Charles Bonkowski