ACADEMIC DECATHLON: Casa seeks 31st straight trip to state

The Casa Grande High School Academic Decathlon team continues to roll along.

This year’s Casa team will be trying to take the first step toward what it hopes will be the team’s 31st straight trip to the state meet when it participates in speech and interview competition Saturday at Solano Community College in Fairfield.

For the second year after resurrecting its program, Petaluma High School will also have a team in the competition along with Armijo, Davis, Dixon, River City, Rodriguez, St. Helena, Vallejo, Maria Carrillo, MIT Academy and Vanden.

In addition to a prepared speech, students will give an impromptu speech on a topic pulled out of a hat, and take part in an interview with a panel of judges.

The speech and interview competition will be followed on Feb. 7 with written exams and the Super Quiz Team Relay also at Solano Community College.

Students on the local teams choose academic decathlon as an elective and participate weekly in training in everything from math and science to music theory and art history. Just before the competitions, they spend an entire week studying, often being excused from classes to do so.

Each school actually has three teams based on GPA, but the scores of all students count. Students can earn individual medals, but each participant’s points count toward the team total. The winning team, for the past 30 years Casa Grande, moves on to the state competition where it will battle for the right to advance to national competition. Casa Grande was ninth in the state last year.