You missed the even dumber part: > One former student said he learned he had won the award through a random email from the school to a school-district email ac

You missed the even dumber part: > One former student said he learned he had won the award through a random email from the school to a school-district email account that students rarely check; the principal neither told his parents nor made a public announcement So the students were notified by email, which they don't bother checking, and it's only the regular old mail that was slow to get to them (for regular old mail and physical constraints reasons, nothing extraordinary).