Each year in December, Challenger students in grades 3–8 participate in a week of classroom competitions. After these written and oral classroom rounds, finalists are selected to advance to the campus Spelling Bee.
At the end-of-week campus event, students compete in front of an audience and are judged by a panel. The spellers show off their mastery of word roots, phonics rules, combining forms, and more.
Campus qualifiers go on to compete in state bees, and some may advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In the past, Challenger students have placed and even won state bees and appeared on ESPN in the national finals!