In a word, spelling bees face major h-u-r-d-l-e-s

With a month to go before the Twin Cities bee, some top spellers are whipping through flashcards and memorizing six-syllable words. But for students at a few schools, the word of the year is U-N-L-U-C-K-Y.

After the Scripps National Spelling Bee started charging a $99 school participation fee this year, and the metro-area qualifying bee nearly didn't get scheduled for lack of a sponsor, some schools are scrambling to organize their spelling bees before the March 13 regional competition in St. Paul, while others have dropped out entirely.

The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district didn't hold a district-wide bee because teachers thought the winner would have no place to go. Shakopee teachers are throwing together last-minute written bees at their schools to take the place of the traditional oral bees that were held last year to pick the district's top spellers. And some schools, including Hidden Oaks Middle School in Prior Lake, just can't afford to participate.

"We have to take a break from programs like this," said Hidden Oaks Principal Sasha Kuznetsov, who said district budget cuts and the Scripps fee hike both played a role in the school's decision.

The Star Tribune, which had sponsored the bee since 2004, withdrew last summer because it feared the new fee would prevent some schools from participating, said Tom Rainey, the newspaper's director of partnership marketing.

"We really wanted this to be all-inclusive, and schools told us that was cost-prohibitive," he said.

A Minneapolis law firm, Lockridge Grindal Nauen, stepped up in December after local media outlets reported the regional bee still didn't have a sponsor.

Enrollment in the regional event is down from last year, with the law firm reporting about 45 students on the list to compete. Last year's competition included an open bee for home-schooled students and others that attracted about 40 contestants, with the winner moving on to a semi-final round of about 55 students, Rainey said.

School bee organizers said they're glad students will have a shot in St. Paul. Still, "We all had to scramble at the last minute to get it done," said Kristin Moak, a high-potential and literacy coordinator in Shakopee.

The written bees won't give spellers as much practice on the podium, Moak said, "and certainly an oral bee is more fun to watch and be a part of." On the other hand, she said, "I think more kids will participate in the written bee if the teacher has the whole class participate."

In the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district, some schools plan to skip their bees this year or just declare a building winner instead of sending a student to the regional competition. But Falcon Ridge Middle School in Apple Valley registered individually with Scripps and went ahead with a school bee last week at which eighth-grader Nathan Salo won with the word "lapidary."

"It's not ideal, and I certainly hope that we're going to be able to resume our spelling bee as it was in the past," said school bee organizer Kate Murphy, who pointed out that only one Falcon Ridge student can advance, instead of the three who went on to the district bee last year. "But at least we have something to give kids this year."

The Scripps National Spelling Bee, which runs on a small, nonprofit budget, introduced the fee after determining that other peer groups such as the National Geographic Bee charged similar fees, said bee director Paige Kimble.

About half a dozen of last year's 286 regional bee sponsors withdrew this year, though they did not give national organizers reasons for dropping out, Kimble said.

New sponsors volunteered in almost every case, but in most of Iowa, spellers won't have a shot at national glory this year after the Des Moines Register discontinued its sponsorship, she said.

The Twin Cities has struggled to find a bee sponsor before; a private donor revived the 2003 bee in the eleventh hour.

Lockridge Grindal Nauen has set aside $15,000 to pay for an up-front bee sponsorship cost of $900, as well as the expense of hosting the competition at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul and sending the winner and an adult to Washington, D.C., for the national bee on May 28-29.