Centennial High School Students Recognized Through C-SPAN’s 2026 StudentCam Competition

June 9th, 2026

Congratulations to five 10th grade students from Centennial High School's (CHS) Humanities
program who earned national recognition in C-SPAN’s 22nd annual Student Cam documentary competition. The students were honored during an assembly at CHS earlier this month with Howard County Public School System Superintendent Bill Barnes; Board of Education members Dr. Linfeng Chen and Jacky McCoy; and representatives from the offices of Senator Chris Van Hollen, Congresswoman Sarah Elfreth and State Delegate Courtney Watson in attendance.

The student winners included two teams of sophomores. Alara Kocoglu, Angela Yang and Satvik
Jain won 3rd prize for their submission, “Removed: The Past, Present, and Future of BookCensorship in America.” Katie Fishman and Rachel Weintraub won an Honorable Mention for their video, “The 51st Star: D.C. Statehood and the Broken Promise of the Declaration.”

The teams’ winning videos were two of 150 entries selected from more than 1,800 submissions.
The videos were completed as part of the students’ Humanities II Social Studies class with CHS
Social Studies teacher and Instructional Team Lead David Riddler and English teacher Corey
O’Brien serving as mentors. CHS students submitted more than 20 submissions to the
competition this year.

StudentCam is C-SPAN’s annual national video documentary competition that encourages
students to think critically about issues that affect our communities and our nation. 2026
marked the 22nd year of the competition and in this semiquincentennial year celebrating the
250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Students in grades 6-12 to create a short
video documentary on either a historical or contemporary topic that related to the competition
theme, “America’s 250th Anniversary” Exploring the American Story through the Declaration of
Independence.”