The Daily Mail
A pair of angry parents have called in lawyers after their daughter lost a regional spelling bee over a technicality they believed had already been addressed.
The outraged parents are demanding justice after their 12-year-old daughter, Amara Chepuri, lost the Tampa Bay regional spelling bee because she misspelled a word that they say was not on a predetermined list.
Now, the Chepuris are seeking legal advice, claiming that Amara was unfairly disqualified and should still be eligible for the national contest.
‘She could have won,’ her father, Ananth Chepuri, told the Tampa Bay Times. ‘She’s one of the best spellers in Florida.’
Ahead of the prestigious spell-off, Amara asked her teacher, Billie Jo Williams, for clarification on the rules and the list of words spellers received to study.
‘If by chance the list gets exhausted, will we have a tiebreaker?’ Amara wrote. ‘Also, if we do have a tiebreaker what words could be given?’
The teacher explained in an email obtained by the Tampa Bay Times that the school would not be implementing a tiebreaker.
However, he mentioned that the school had an additional 150 words, which the competitors had not yet studied, available ‘if we exhaust the list.’
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