A dormant dynasty is preparing to rise again.
This year, not a single Denver Public Schools student qualified for the Colorado State Spelling Bee.
Fourteen wordy kids from across the state gathered to compete at the bee, sponsored by The Denver Post, last weekend. Aditi Muthukumar, an eighth grader from Hulstrom Options K-8 in Northglenn, won the bee for the second year in a row and advances to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in May.
While Avon, Fruita, Arvada and Aurora — to name a few — were all represented, not a Denver contestant was among them.
This would have been unthinkable under Bill Schaefer’s regime.
The longtime volunteer spelling coach told The Post in 2019 that his Denver Public School protégés had “dominated” the state spelling bee in recent years.
But Schaefer’s 2020 death, paired with the disruptions of the pandemic, hit DPS’ spelling bee community hard.
“It was just such a strong program,” said Jeffra Frank, an educator at Denver’s Slavens School who helps oversee spelling bee preparation and organization along with a handful of teachers across the district. “Fast forward to COVID shutdown and when Bill passed away, everything came to a screeching halt. The semantics program lost its leader.”
Now, Schaefer’s former students, who still think of themselves as “Bill’s kids,” have started their own spelling bee prep program in their mentor’s honor — and name. They plan to give the competition grief, come spell or high water.
“We want to get back to a place where DPS is this high-performing force,” said Bryn Flanigan, 22, director of communications for the nonprofit The Schaefer Program, which provides free mentoring by former spelling bee competitors to Denver students eager to spell their hearts out. “We’re excited to build it back up.”
Himanvi Kopuri won the Colorado State Spelling Bee in 2013 under Schaefer’s tutelage and made it to the sixth round of the semifinals in the Scripps National Spelling Bee that year.
The competition was thrilling, she said, but the community of spellers that Schaefer created through his free tutoring and spelling summer camps set the stage for years of friendship and joyful childhood memories.
“The community he built was so integral to our years as middle and elementary schoolers,” said Kopuri, a 23-year-old who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and now works in management consulting. “I think it created such a great foundation in terms of work ethic and community and finding a love for words. All those skills have carried me to such a great extent throughout the rest of my life.”
Kopuri has dabbled in spelling coaching, but this academic year, she made it official by founding the Schaefer Program, which she leads with the assistance of other students who studied under Schaefer.
She got the band back together, reaching out to young folks who have scattered across the country to see if they’d be interested in giving their time to their one-time school district, the same way retired teacher Schaefer gave his time to them.
“It’s so heartwarming and amazing and really goes to show how much Bill touched their lives,” said Emily Hoagland, parent to 13-year-old Amir Hassan, who is being tutored through the Schaefer Program.
The program pairs ex-spellers now in high school with Denver elementary and middle schoolers eager to learn about semantics, vocabulary, spelling and word etymology.
Amir said he enjoys spelling because it’s something he’s good at.
“My favorite things about spelling, in general, are just it’s simple and it’s an individual thing,” Amir said. “I’m not big on team sports.”
The mentors borrow parts of their lessons from extensive binders of work Schaefer used to give them, while adding in their own tips, tricks and games. Some mentors hold virtual weekly lessons while others conduct in-person sessions. Program leaders — many of whom are in college — are putting together a summer spelling school reminiscent of the one Schaefer used to hold.
“It’s been really amazing to get back together with everyone — people we were all friends with in our middle school days and have all gone different ways to different universities,” Flanigan said.
In the program’s first year of operation, there are eight people on its leadership team and five mentors serving 10 Denver schools.
Benjamin Holland, 18, a senior at Denver’s George Washington High School, worked with Schaefer from early elementary through middle school. Now he’s a mentor coaching Denver kids in weekly virtual lessons featuring games and quizzes about root words, common spelling rules and languages of origin.
For Holland, learning to be a good speller was cool, but he said the real value of the program came from the community formed and the life lessons learned from Schaefer, like how to manage public speaking anxiety and how to be a good sport.
Frank agreed that the magic of the program came from helping kids find a passion that suited them and linking them up with other like-minded word nerds.
The teacher recalls the buzz of attending local spelling bees and watching the younger kids idolize the older ones.
“It was the same sort of way kids idolize Patrick Mahomes or Taylor Swift,” Frank said. “Like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m in the same room as Himanvi Kopuri.’”
Kopuri intends to grow the program as more people learn about it. It’s important to her that the free program remains accessible to students since many spelling bee coaches can be costly.
While the operation is just getting started, Kopuri and the rest of Schaefer’s disciples have their sights set on returning DPS students to the state spelling bee next year.
“Bill instilled the importance of giving back,” Kopuri said. “A lot of institutional knowledge left us when he passed away. We’re building this back with what he taught us.”
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