The Adair County High School Future Problem Solving Team came home last weekend with a 9th place finish in the International FPS Championships held at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse June 7-10.
“The achievement of a Top 10 awards-winning finish on the international stage is what many FPS students would only dream of,” says ACHS FPS coach Brett Reliford.
The results were part of a process that started in August. After 10 months of progress, a series of evaluations, and topping the rankings along the way through many rounds of evaluation, the team had advanced to Internationals and awaited the judges’ scores at that level after completing their final competition.
Students representing prestigious schools and private academies from Australia, Singapore, Turkey, New Zealand, China, Canada, Norway, France, Macau, and a host of over 40 U.S. states were represented and eventually sitting in 9th Place overall were the Adair County students.
Even prior to international competition, representative teams from Korea, India, Great Britain, Malaysia, Portugal, and other countries had already been added to the mix before falling just shy of the ultimate prize eventually attained by the ACHS team.
In team competition, ACHS was represented by Benjamin Hancock, Lejano Zavalija, Arabella Caldwell, and Chris Stuchell. The team impressed judges through each stage of evaluation with their efforts concerning the topic of Criminal Justice Systems.
Future Problem Solving International reports that around 250,000 competitors begin the qualification rounds at the beginning of each school year.
After months of competitions across the globe, the campus of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse played host to representatives from around the world.
This was the Adair County school district’s 9th year of qualification for the event.
“Many FPS teams will never get the chance to compete at the State Championship Finals, so for our little school to not only make it to a world championship event but then achieve the right to be called one of the Top 10 teams in the world is the pinnacle of this activity and more than what students realize is possible once they sign up for the challenge of the team,” says Reliford.
Congrats to the 2018 FPS team for their historic accomplishments on the national and international FPS circuits.
