Nellie Mulkay, director of SBETAC, announced today that McDonald's Board of Hispanic Restaurants Owners and their educational foundation "HACER" have offered to support the NY State Spanish Spelling bee winners and participants at the May 28, 2010 event. Laptop computers will be provided by "HACER" to the first place winners. Additional awards will be provided to all students participating in this year's final competition.

The New York State Spanish Bilingual Education Technical Assistance Center (Spanish BETAC) at NYU Steinhardt's Metro Center, in collaboration with the Office of Education of the Consulate of Spain in New York, conducts the New York State Spanish Spelling Bee Final Competition annually on the last Friday of May. Every year, the "bee" generates great excitement among participants and educators while encouraging students to achieve excellence in their education. While there are vast numbers of Spanish language speakers and Spanish language learners in the United States, only New York State has consistently encouraged schools for more than 20 years to conduct local Spanish spelling bees. The event celebrates and showcases the study of the Spanish language in our NY public schools. Teachers and administrators in participating schools organize school and district Spanish spelling bees, and students from grades 4-8 compete in the state-wide competition. The annual Spanish Spelling Bee final competition has been conducted by the NYS SBETAC since 2003.

The 2010 "Final Bee" will host 115 competitors from throughout New York State at the UFT Headquarters Auditorium in Manhattan (52 Broadway). At the end, two first and two second place winners (grades 4-5 and grades 6-7-8) will be declared winners.

In addition to the McDonald's support, Univision, the Spanish-language nation-wide television network, will be recording interviews with students in their schools from now through the end of April in order to show the progression from school Bees to the statewide competition. Videos and interviews will be made available to the general public through a dedicated website at Univision.com. The network is working on a plan to broadcast live the final competition in addition to streaming on the web.