The Bellevue-based Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle (JDS) has announced national and regional academic excellence awards bestowed on JDS students for the 2007-2008 school year.

More than 40 percent of JDS fifth and eighth graders are recipients of the 2008 President’s Award for Educational Excellence recognizing students with cumulative GPAs of 3.5 or above and ITBS test scores in the top 15 percent overall. A total of 44 percent of JDS eighth graders and 31 percent of fifth graders received the national award this year.

All award recipients receive certificates signed by the President, Secretary of Education, and the Head of

School as well as an educational achievement pin.

Forty-eight percent of all JDS fifth-through-eighth graders have qualified to participate in the 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Program. This national program recognizes students who score in the 95th percentile or above on any portion of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

Also, three of the school’s students, Samuel Dunietz (baseball), Benjamin Weinberg (soccer) and Rachel Witus (ballet), have received the 2008 Paul Robeson Scholar-Athlete Award recognizing academic achievements of area student athletes. The award is presented to students in honor of their classroom accomplishments while also participating in sports or dance.

The award program was co-founded by King County Executive Ron Sims and Lt. Ronald Sylve of the Seattle Police Department and is named after Paul Robeson – an internationally acclaimed African American singer, actor, athlete and scholar and who was the third African American to graduate from Columbia University Law School.

More information is available at www.jds.org.