Waller HS Breaks Records in UIL Academics
The Waller High School (WHS) UIL Academic Team dominated the 2019 District 19-5A Championship in early April. They won the District Sweepstakes Championship by 41 points, surprising last year’s state champion team from College Station High School (CSHS) that came in second this year. The WHS team set another school record when 37 students qualified to advance to the UIL Region 3-5A Academic Meet. This beats their previous record of 36 regional qualifiers. Eighty WHS students worked together to win the championship against eight schools.
“This is the most significant academic event we have had at Waller in the last 20 years,” WISD Advanced Academics Coordinator Scotty Johnson said.
This is the fifth time WHS has won sweepstakes in known UIL Academic history. They also won in 2002, 2011, 2012, and 2013. District 19-5A is considered the toughest UIL district in Texas as it includes several highly ranked high schools of all 284 total 5A-schools. This year, CSHS ranked third; A&M Consolidated High School, fifth; WHS, 10th; and Magnolia High School, 13th.
The District Meet is the only chance for UIL Academics participants students to qualify for Region. The top team and top three individuals in each event advance, along with Wild Card teams. The Current Events and Spelling Teams were named Regional Wild Cards, meaning they were the best second place teams among all eight districts in Region 3-5A.
The Regional Meet will take place on April 12-13 at WHS. A big thank you to UIL Academics Coaches Roy Weesner, Brittany Ortega, Christopher Donalson, Andrew Hart, Tyler Sullivan, Elizabeth Shivers, Melanie Miller, Justin Levy, Chris Young, Carrie Wood, Nicholas Reichert, Joey Gonzaga, Joel Mellen, and Cory Prestwood.