Thirty one students from Saratoga High School have moved on from the Santa Clara County History Day that took place on March 19 to qualify for the State History Day, which will take place from April 28 to May 1.

The number of qualifiers increased significantly from the previous year, which had 12 students move on from county.

Librarian Kevin Heyman attributes the jump in qualifiers to the time spent prepping for History Day.

“We’ve spent a lot more time with some of the less popular categories, so we had three performance categories this time, and we just encouraged a lot more people to get involved,” Heyman said. “Also, I was involved a lot more this year than I was last year, and that makes it easier for Mr. Torrens.”

The students are had to go through a preliminary school competition before becoming eligible for the county competition. With the exception of freshman Anushree Dugar, all the qualifiers are juniors.

The five possible categories to enter under were: exhibit (group or individual), paper (individual), documentary (group or individual), performance (group or individual), and web site (group or individual).

“After the school competition, we got feedback from the judges about improvements to make on our documentary,” junior Sanjana Chetia said. “We made the changes, and it really helped us in the county competition.”

The participants chosen from the county History Day will go onto the California History Day competition that takes place from April 28 to May 1 in San Jose.

“It’s exciting to get to the state level. We never expected to advance beyond the county level, so it’s a bit of a surprise as well,” Chetia said. “We’re going to keep working hard and improving our project for the state competition, and maybe we’ll have a chance at making it to nationals.”

Last year’s had fewer

If chosen to compete at the National History Day competition, students will travel to the University of Maryland from June 12 to 16.