11-year-old says school cheated him out of spelling bee win

A fifth-grade student said his school cheated him out of a chance to win a spelling bee.

Eleven-year-old Dazmin Watkins really wanted to win the spelling bee at Mount Carmel Elementary. He said he thought he had a chance until he lost and found out the deck was stacked against him.

"I was like wow, I've been cheated," Dazmin told Channel 2 News reporter Tom Jones.

Dazmin had won his class spelling bee, and was participating in a contest involving all fifth-grade students at the school to see who would compete in the county spelling bee.

After Dazmin lost the school spelling be, he said he took a look at the study list of words given to one of the contestants. He said that list was much different than the one he was given to prep for the contest.

He said that made all the difference in the world.

"Cause the lists that I saw it had, like, 100 easy words. And the 240 words that I had to study were very, very hard," Dazmin explained.

The school admits he received the wrong study list. It also said there was no guarantee the study words would be used in the spelling bee. But Dazmin said words he saw on other students' study list were used in the contest.

His mother asked the principal to have another spelling bee, have her son go head to head with the winner, or have both students go to the county contest. She said those are the options Dazmin came up with.

"He (the principal) was like, 'There's no way we can re-hold the spelling bee," Gemecious Watkins said.

The school said the other options wouldn't work either.

Dazmin's mother is not happy the school won't accommodate him. Especially after admitting it was wrong.

Dazmin then asked for an apology and a trip to Chic-fil-A. The school agreed. He decided at the last minute to go to CiCi's Pizza instead and he was allowed to take a classmate.

As for the apology, "Yes they apologized to me. They said, 'I'm sorry for giving you the wrong lists,'" he said.

Dazmin said this experience has taught him that life isn't fair and he said it also taught him to keep fighting for what is right.