SUPERINTENDENCIA  DE   ESCUELAS CATÓLICAS
  ARQUIDIÓCESIS DE SAN JUAN DE PUERTO RICO

The Superintendence of Catholic Schools of San Juan organizes an Annual Archdiocesan Spelling Bee inviting all the school in the Archdiocese. The purpose of the contest is to strengthen our bonds of love, concern and friendship by sharing our knowledge of language.

The Spelling Bee is usually held sometime during the first semester of the academic year and the inscription fee is $37.00 which will cover costs of trophies and medals for the competition.

The following are the rules for the Spelling Bee as of the academic year 2007-2008:

Rules

1.      School champions participating in the bee must be the appropriate Grade level:  Primary -- Grades 1, 2, 3; Elementary -- Grades 4, 5, 6; Junior High -- Grades 7, 8, 9; High School -- Grades 10, 11, 12.

2.      The competition will be oral and letters must be pronounced in English, with eliminations on a “miss-and-out” basis, except as provided in rules 12 and 13.

3.      All contests will have a “practice round” before the actual competition.

4.      Entries will be taken from the lists prepared by the Office of the Superintendent:

Ø      Lists for Grades 1 through 3 will be prepared from Scholastic First Dictionary, Editor in chief, Judith S. Levey, 1998. 

Ø      Lists for Grades 4 through 6 will be prepared from Scholastic Children’s Thesaurus, John K. Bollard, 1998.

Ø      Lists for Grades 7 through 9 will be prepared from Vocabulary Workshop, Introductory, 1^st and 2^nd Course, and for Grades 10 through 12, Vocabulary Workshop, Introductory, 3^rd, and 4^th  and 5^th Course, Holt, Reinhart, Wilson.

Ø      School teachers, school administrators, librarians and parents may purchase these books in order to utilize the study guides, pronunciation clues, sentences and meanings.

5.      If we have used all the words on the list provided per level, we will use a special list of words of champion spellers prepared by the Office of the Superintendent.

6.      Words shall be pronounced according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary.

7.      Students from Grades 1, 2, and 3 will be given the word and a sentence. Contestants may request a definition by saying, “Definition, please.” Contestants may request that the word be repeated by saying, “Please Repeat.”  Contestants from Grades 4 and above may request a sentence by saying, “Sentence please.” Contestants from Grades 7 and above may request the language of origin of the word in question. After all above-mentioned options have been utilized; the contestant must spell the word. Judges are responsible to determine if time allotted to the contestant is reasonable.

8.      In competition, after the pronouncer gives the contestant a word, he or she will: Say the word, spell the word and say the word again. If the word is capitalized, the student must say, "Capital January." If the word has an apostrophe, (o'clock) the student must say, apostrophe where it appears in the word. If the word has a hyphen, (sons-in-law) the student must say, hyphen where it appears in the word.

9.      The judges may disqualify any contestant who ignores a request to start spelling.

10.  Having started to spell a word, a contestant may stop and start over, retracing the spelling from the beginning, but in retracing the spelling there can be no change of letters or their sequence from those first pronounced. If letters or their sequences are changed in the re-spelling, the speller will be disqualified.

11.  The Spelling Bee will be conducted in rounds. Each contestant remaining in the bee at the start of a round shall spell one word in the round, except when there remain only two contestants.

12.  Upon missing the spelling of a word, a contestant immediately drops out of the contest, except as provided in rules 12 and 13. The next word is given to the next contestant.

13.  If none of the contestants remaining in the bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during the round, all shall remain in the competition.

14.  If only one of the contestants remaining in the bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, the contestant shall be given an opportunity to spell the next word on the list. If the contestant succeeds in correctly spelling the new word, the contestant shall be declared the champion.  Otherwise, all contestants remaining in the bee at the start of the round shall remain in the competition.  A new round will begin with all of the contestants spelling in their original order.

15.  If more than one spelling is listed for a word, any of these spellings listed as correct will be accepted provided that the word matches the pronunciation and the definition given (if requested by the speller).

16.  If a word has one or more homonyms, the pronouncer will indicate which word is to be spelled; for example, pear – the fruit.

17.  Any question relating to the spelling of a word should be referred to the designated official immediately in writing on the official form provided on the day of the contest.  The form needs to be given before the end of the round in which the word was given in order to rectify a possible error.

18.  The judges are in complete control of the bee and their decision will be final.

19.  No videos or audio taping are allowed during the bee.

20.  No word lists may be used during the competition by contestants nor by teachers and parents who are guests for the bee.

21.  All cell phones must be turned off from the invocation until the last trophy is awarded.

22.  All photos or video taken by the Office of the Superintendent will be used for publications that promote Catholic education as indicated by the participating school's permission authorization. All parents or guardians will sign the release indicating the above-mentioned authorization for photo use.

23.  The Office of the Superintendent will transmit the bee through closed circuit TV so that parents and