The University Interscholastic League (UIL) was created by The University of Texas at Austin in 1909. It is the largest inter-school organization in the world, creating and governing rules for academic, athletic, and musical contests for public schools in Texas. For the past 45 years, the Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet has sent students to a wide range of UIL academic competitions, including math, science, journalism, and speech contests. This year, the Law Magnet sent 56 students to compete, and 11 of them placed in the top 3 of their respective competitions, qualifying for regionals. Additionally, in competition with 18 schools, the Law Magnet placed top 3 in 8 team competitions. Each category of event is covered below, detailing student placements and perspectives.
Science and Math
Law students competed in numerous math and science related events, including but not limited to accounting, mathematics, and computer science. The collective placements of all of the Law Magnet students in these events brought the school up to 3rd place for teams overall in accounting, computer science, number sense, and science. The students that placed to get the Law Magnet enough points for these placements are as follows:
- Accounting:
- 8th: Juan Rojas
- 10th: Marcos Prieto
- Calculator Applications:
- 10th: Ryan May
- Number Sense:
- 8th: Anurag Mittal
Speech and Debate
The event category speech and debate entails competitions that, as the name suggests, include public speaking and discourse. Some of these events are poetry interpretation, which involves a vocal performance of poems focused on a specific theme, Lincoln Douglas debate, a one-on-one debate focused on the morality of issues, and persuasive speaking, a speech where the speaker tries to persuade the listener to adopt a certain viewpoint. The Law Magnet got 1st place overall in the speech and debate category due to the hard work of the following students:
- Informative Speaking:
- 1st: Jose Cantarero
- 2nd: Leighton Watson
- 6th: Eliana Michael
- Lincoln Douglas Debate:
- 2nd: Penelope Gray
- Persuasive Speaking:
- 1st: Juan Cantarero
- 5th: Ashima Yadav
- 6th: Willie Ray
- Poetry Interpretation:
- 1st: Ashima Yadav
- 7th: Deanna Pedroza
- Prose Interpretation:
- 2nd: Alondra Rodriguez
- 5th: Kaira Mackifield
Journalism and Writing
Earning 5 total medals across the journalism and writing category, Law Magnet students competed in many events including copy editing, editorial writing, spelling, and many more. These writing events entail many different formats and topics of writing, some being based on specific material provided by the UIL while others allow for more creative freedom. Many students performed well in their individual events, sending 3 students to regionals and others placing within the top 10:
- Editorial Writing:
- 2nd: Adriana Bautista
- 3rd: Iya McCormick
- Copy Editing:
- 9th: Lucia Phelps
- Feature Writing:
- 5th: Adriana Bautista
- Headline Writing:
- 2nd: Iya McCormick
- News Writing:
- 3rd: Iya McCormick
- 4th: Adriana Bautista
- Ready Writing:
- 2nd: Camila Anton Vasquez
- 5th: Adriana Bautista
- Social Studies:
- 6th: Bethany Ramos
- 7th: Thomas Low
- Spelling
- 9th: Jayna Kush
     By the end of the day, the results posted in the student center spoke for themselves, but so did the effort behind them. From early rounds to finals, Law Magnet students showed up, competed, and represented the school across all events. 11 talented students now have regionals to look forward to, where they will build on their excellent performance in a more competitive field.
Joselynn • Apr 20, 2026 at 8:35 am
what a great read uwu