High School Essayists Win Nine-Day Singapore Trips

Students from five Southern California schools are bound for Singapore after winning a competition Thursday addressing U.S.-Singapore relations.

The Ambassador to Singapore competition, sponsored by The Los Angeles Times in Education and Singapore Airlines, is an educational exchange program between Singapore and the United States.

This year’s winners are 24 students and five teachers from El Toro High School, Futures High School in Mission Viejo, Katella High School in Anaheim, Bell High School in Bell and Imperial High School in Pasadena.

The winners will tour Singapore for nine days in May to study the country’s culture and educational system.

The students were judged on essays addressing the theme, “Exploring, comparing and contrasting the global issues of greatest political, social and economic importance to the youth of Singapore and the United States as they become adults.”

More than 19,000 high school students entered the contest in teams. On Thursday, finalists from 10 schools battled in an oral competition at The Times building in Los Angeles on issues relating to Singapore and other Asian nations.

“I’m extremely proud of my students, given the short notice they had to prepare for Thursday’s competition,” said Tracy Ross, El Toro geography teacher who advised the school’s winning team.

Unlike most of the other nine finalists, members of the El Toro team did not know they had reached the final round until Wednesday. El Toro High School was on spring break when the notices were delivered on April 5, Ross said.

“They had 18 hours to prepare,” Ross said. “Some stayed up late, and one happened to have the flu. Despite all that, the kids worked really hard and decided to do it. It shows real determination and ambition on their part.”