There must be something in the water at Highland Oaks Middle School in Northeast Miami-Dade. Or maybe they just have good teachers and really talented kids. How else do you explain that this year's two winners of the countywide "Do the Write Thing Challenge" both attend Highland Oaks, and so do eight of the 25 finalists?
"It makes a great statement about our school and our students," said Highland Oaks principal Dawn Baglos.
The "Do the Write Thing Challenge" is a national program that challenges students to reduce violence and its impact on their lives.
School districts from all over the country can choose to participate by holding essay contests in which a boy and a girl are declared the winners. In Miami-Dade, 850 students participated.
After being judged by a panel that included a circuit judge and the Mayor Carlos Alvarez, the essays written by 8th-graders Jamie Odzer and Trevor Nesse won the contest.
Jamie Odzer is the daughter of NBCMiami reporter Ari Odzer, which the judges apparently didn't hold against her.
The winners get to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. this summer, joining the winners from other parts of the country. On the tour of the Capital, the students will meet Congressional representatives, cabinet members such as the Secretary of Education, and possibly a Supreme Court Justice.
