Homecoming candidate photos courtesy of the NASH Uproar. 

On Friday, September 29, 2023, North Allegheny School District will celebrate Homecoming with several activities at North Allegheny Senior High School. 

The evening will begin at 4:45 p.m. with food trucks in the NASH parking lot. At 5:40, the NA Tiger Marching Band will lead floats around the school twice. The theme of this year’s parade is “Through the Decades” as North Allegheny School District celebrates its 75th anniversary.   

The North Allegheny Tiger Football team will take on the Pine-Richland Rams with kickoff at 7:30 p.m. For more information to purchase tickets for the game, visit https://athletics.northallegheny.org.

During halftime, the Homecoming Queen and King will be announced. Members of the senior class vying for the titles include: 

North Allegheny School District is pleased to announce that 16 students have been recognized as Semifinalists in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program. 

Approximately 16,000 students across the country were named Semifinalists and have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $28 million that will be offered next spring. About 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar  title. To compete for National Merit Scholarships, Semifinalists must advance to the Finalist level of the competition by fulfilling several additional requirements. 

For more information about the National Merit Scholarship program, visit: www.nationalmerit.org
 
2024 NASD National Merit Semifinalists

• Khadijah Bajwa
• Jeongwoo Cheon
• Claire Cho
• Iris Hong
• Katherine Hu
• Siya Jain
• Lohith Katari
• Noah Lee
• Jerry Li
• Andrew Long
• Helen Mao
• Angel Qu
• Guatam Ramkumar
• Aneri Shethji
• Tharun Sunthar
• Collin Wang

In partnership with the North Allegheny World Languages Department, seven 2023 North Allegheny School District graduates earned the Pennsylvania Seal of Biliteracy. 

Adopted by Pennsylvania in March of 2022, the Seal of Biliteracy recognizes students who have attained proficiency in English and one or more other world languages by the time they graduate from high school. This special award provides employers and universities with a method of identifying people who are bilingual. 

Soaring to new heights! Through the NASD AFJROTC partnership with Civil Air Patrol (CAP), our 9th grade students participated in Cadet Orientation Flights at Butler Regional Airport. The program offers four levels of flight training to inspire the next generation of pilots. Participating in the first week's trip were Kylie Beggs, Logan Derzic, David Finney, and Micah Stewart.

Five North Allegheny Students were selected to participate in the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences (PGSS), an annual program that fosters scientific thinking, scholarly collaboration, and interpersonal connections in our society while encouraging women and minority students to consider scientific careers. The five students representing NASD is the largest number of applicants from any school District ever represented at PGSS in the same year. 

The NASD students selected for PGSS included: Dinuk DeAlmeida, Renuk DeAlmeida, Helen Mao, Edward Mei, and Kamya Rajesh. 

Hundreds of students from across the Commonwealth apply to attend PGSS. Approximately 70 students were selected for the 35-day intensive workshop hosted by Carnegie Mellon University. Students attended classes and worked on a large group project that they had to present to their peers in the final two days.

As the premier STEM education experience for Pennsylvania’s brightest high school students, the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Sciences Program (PGSS Program) provides college-level courses, hands-on laboratory experiments, and original research in a rigorous living-learning environment.

The NASD students (all rising seniors) and the projects that they completed as part of small groups are as follows:
 
Helen Mao:
Journey Through the Star:
A Minimax Exploration of Chinese Checkers
 
Kamya Rajesh:
Connecting the Dots: Using Turn-Based Game Strategy to Solve Dots and Boxes
 
Edward Mei:
Paper Soccer: Exploration of Decision Tree Algorithms
 
Dinuk DeAlmeida:
DNA Damage & Ultraviolet Radiation: Efficacy of Various SPF Containing Products on Saccharomyces Cerevisiae
 
Renuk DeAlmeida:
Investigating the Impacts of Environmental Factors on Neuron Function Using L. terrestris and C. elegans
 
North Allegheny alumnus Derek Wang (Class of 2014) was one of the guest lecturers for the week. He introduced students to Quantum Computing. Derek earned his BS / MS from Stanford in Materials Science / Engineering. Additionally, he obtained an MS in Theoretical and Computation Chemistry from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard.
 
The students invited NASD teachers Mr. Matthew Davis (AP Chemistry) and Ms. Sharon Volpe (AP Calculus BC and Linear Algebra) to attend the final banquet as guests of PGSS (pictured above). 
 

During the National Speech & Debate Championships in Phoenix, Arizona, North Allegheny was recognized as a 2023 Debate School of Excellence, an award bestowed on the Top 20 Debate schools in the country. North Allegheny was the only Pennsylvania public school district recognized as a Top 20 school in either Debate or Speech.

Out of 130,000 Speech & Debate students in the country, 6,000 competitors earned spots to compete at the national championships, including 17 North Allegheny students.

• Individual NASD student achievements included: 
  Satvik Palagani and Srivatsa Bellamkonda, won 6th Place in the nation in Public Forum Debate out of 279 entries from 214 schools in 44 states. Satvik and Sri are the first NA students to place in the Top 6 at the National Championships in 10 years and are the best-performing Public Forum team in NA history.  
• Kristina Wisniewski placed 17th after 11 rounds of competition and NASH junior Siya Jain placed 34th after 10 rounds of competition in Lincoln Douglas Debate out of 280 entries from 225 schools in 44 states.
• Shuban Tiwari was recognized as a Top 25 Policy Debate Speaker out of 356 competitors.
• Daksh Goyal placed 24th in Extemporaneous Debate out of 1,039 entries from 433 schools in 47 states. NASH senior Adi Shankara Mallik placed 60th out of 1,039.  
• Lamees Subeir advanced to the round of 64 as part of the Pittsburgh Black team in theWorld Schools Debate.
  Rajat Reddy was recognized with a Four-Time Competitor Award, the only NA student to have made the tournament for four consecutive years.