Three Steele students win Microsoft Office Specialist state championships

Three Steele Early College High School students have won state championships for their mastery of Microsoft software, an honor that will now allow them to compete against the best in the nation to showcase their skills.

Valerie Abai, Noah Kiura and Leilani Lopez will all now represent Texas at the Microsoft Office Specialist U.S. National Championship in Dallas in June. 

The students entered the competition by taking an exam that tested their skills on the Office 2019 or Microsoft 365 Apps version of Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint. There are two qualifying periods to enter: the Fall Qualifier and the Spring Qualifier. At the end of each qualifying round, invitations are issued to the students with the top scores in their exam category, for a total of six students from each state possible in each period.

This means that Valerie (PowerPoint 365), Noah (PowerPoint 2019) and Leilani (Word 365) make up half of the qualifiers from the entire state of Texas for the fall. All three students scored a perfect score on their exam.

These three students, and their teacher Sarah Zeballos, will travel to Dallas this summer where they will compete in a live event with a chance to earn a national championship, much like their classmate Preston Nnadi did last year. 

It is possible that additional students from Steele could join them after results from the Spring Qualifier period are announced.