Congratulations to our Class of 2020! For a complete photo gallery, click here. Professional video of the entire ceremony coming soon.

At the end of May, our lower school administration and fifth grade teachers shared a video honoring the Class of 2027. Families then drove their fifth-graders through campus to pick up gift bags and certificates marking the completion of our Lower School. Earlier in the month, those same families had organized “gratitude parades" that went by each teacher’s house. “It was awesome,” said one of the organizers. “Kids, parents and teachers were all so excited to see each other and say hi!”

For the fourth time in the past five years, a team from Columbus Academy has placed first in the state among high schools with less than 1,200 students in the Purple Comet Math Meet, a international competition that attracted 2505 registered teams from 53 countries! This year's winning squad consisted of rising senior Lucas Huang of New Albany, rising sophomore Grace Luo of Lewis Center and Class of 2020 member Alex Wang of Dublin, who as a team named "You Say Something" correctly answered 20 of the difficult test's 30 questions (state runner-up Seven Hills School managed 17 correct answers). Academy teams placed first in Ohio for three straight years from 2016-18 and were also state runners-up in 2017 and 2019 (in 2017, one CA team won the state title and another tied for second).

To present this year's fine arts awards, our faculty embarked on an "Art Award Caravan" to celebrate each student in person, at a distance. Congratulations to these award-winners!

Ceramics: Noelle Boltz and Livy Seline

Photography: Ryan Hunker

Graphic Design: Grace Harrison

2D Art: Max Brown, Lindsay Dunlap, Abigail Freytag, Anna Ruhl, Emma Smith and Philip Soderberg

Ten of our student-athletes and coaches, including five special award-winners and five finalists, were honored during the virtual ThisWeek News Central Ohio All Star Preps awards show, including Players of the Year Sydni Ratliff (girls tennis) & Kiersten Thomassey (field hockey), Coaches of the Year Anne Horton (field hockey) & Matt Thompson (girls soccer) and Community Engagement Award recipient Annalise Grammel (watch complete awards show at thisweeknews.com/allstarpreps). Player-of-the-year finalists Sam Massick (boys soccer) and Sarah Neltner (girls soccer) were later named the Columbus Dispatch's top male scholar-athlete and first alternate for top female scholar-athlete, respectively. Sarah also recently earned a spot on the 2019-20 United Soccer Coaches Scholar High School All-America Team, and don't miss the photo gallery of last year's state champions picking up their rings!

Rising senior Olivia Pierre-Louis (second from right) did a superb job representing herself, our school and her community at a recent Columbus Metropolitan Club forum entitled "Racism: Where Do We Go From Here?" ( watch video). You can also watch a terrific interview with professional baseball player and alumnus Lee Solomon '14, who was recently quoted extensively in a national sports journal article, by clicking here.

Thank you to the many members of our community who joined in last month's The Big Give to support the Academy Community Fund. Your generous spirit placed Columbus Academy in the top ten organizations with the most donors (366) during the event! Your gifts are providing immediate tuition assistance for families experiencing hardship, and also enabling the school to implement pandemic accommodations to facilitate a safe return to school next month. This initial outpouring of support has been vital to ensure that the value of the Academy experience is not diminished by the uncertainties that lie ahead. For those who missed The Big Give and can still help with these efforts, you may donate  online or mail your gift to the school, attention Academy Community Fund. Thank you for your important support!

In addition to writing a recently published piece in The Columbus Dispatch, rising Academy senior Nia Law placed first in Ohio and second in the nation in last fall's InvestWrite competition! InvestWrite is an innovative national writing competition offered exclusively to teachers and students participating in The Stock Market Game, which our upper-schoolers learn about in John Exline's economics class. And in fact, three members of our Class of 2020 (Griffin Mitchell, Alex O'Connor and Max Walter) won the state's high school division of The Stock Market Game.

Rising senior Nischal Chennuru donated $20,500 in funds earned from doing computer work to Mid-Ohio Food Collective in order to make sure that children and seniors in our community have regular access to food during this pandemic! Also, check out photos and results from our Service Board's most recent blood drive by clicking here.

Tom DeVore, a science teacher in our Upper School since 2012, recently received the Joseph B. Whitehead Educator of Distinction Award for his dedication to the field of education from the Coca-Cola Foundation! He was nominated by Ashton Cofer '20, who was announced as a 2020 Coca-Cola Scholar back in March. Please click on the following links for more news about Academy's outstanding educators.