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Upper Lake High School, which won the local Academic Decathlon in February with a score of 34,382 out of 60,000, attended the state competition, held March 11-14 in Sacramento, to compete on the topic of the Great Depression.
Upper Lake finished with an overall score of 31,611.9, placing No. 54 among the 65 schools that competed, according to competition records.
Los Angeles Unified School District's Granada Hills Charter High School won the state competition with a score of 50,801 points, officials reported. The nine-member team will represent California as it defends its eighth consecutive national title at the 30th Annual United States Academic Decathlon Competition, which will take place April 27-30 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Upper Lake competed in the state competition's Division III.
Teams are placed in divisions based on their regional score, the state said. Division I includes the top 20 highest scoring teams; Division II, the next top 20 highest scoring teams; and Division III the next top 25 highest scoring teams.
Upper Lake's nine students were among 567 students competing. Each team was composed of three Honor students (3.75 and above GPA), three Scholastic students (3.00-3.74 GPA) and three Varsity students (2.99 GPA and below), according to competition guidelines.
The school had actually fielded two teams in the regional competition. Upper Lake Head Coach Anna Sabalone said the second team also got to go to watch the action in Sacramento, which not only offered support to the school's competing students but will prepare the second team's members for future competitions.
Sabalone's assistant coach, Angel Hayenga, now in her first year, also attended to see the competition firsthand. “It's her observation year,” said Sabalone.
She added, “It was a good experience. The kids had a great time.”
Upper Lake senior Roy Hankins, 18, agreed. Despite the grueling nature of the competition, Hankins said, “Personally, I really liked the experience.”
Hankins, competing in the Varsity category, netted two medals, a silver in economics and a bronze in social sciences, a topic in which he had won a silver medal at the regional competition.
Hankins' teammate, Sarah Barnes, competing in the Scholastic division, received the medal for team high scorer, but perhaps most impressive was her performance in the interview category, where Sabalone said she received a perfect score of 1,000 points, tying for a gold medal with two other students who also received perfect scores.
Sabalone said students in the seven-minute interview had 30 seconds to introduce themselves before responding to a series of questions from the judges. “They just want to have a conversation and get to know the students,” she said.
Barnes “did an amazing job,” Sabalone added.
Overall, Sabalone – a former Upper Lake Academic Decathlon standout now in her third year coaching her alma mater's team – said she felt the judging this year was especially hard. Her assessment was that some of her students' scores didn't reflect the true level of their performance.
Hankins, who marked his second year in competition in 2011, said he did better this year than last. “I just think that this year I studied a little bit more but the topic was easier to understand.”
In 2010, the topic was the French Revolution, and this year it was the Great Depression, an era with which Hankins said he was more easily able to connect. That's thanks to the fact that two of his grandparents survived the Great Depression and were able to share with him about their experiences in leaving the Dust Bowl.
The works of art and literature from the Great Depression also were more recognizable to him, he explained.
Hankins also believed that this year the team was stronger as a whole.
He said the state competition is extremely strict. “You listen and you do,” he said, adding, “There's no room for small mistakes.”
Hankins said he felt his hard work paid off. “Leaving the award ceremony I felt that I had done enough for my last year,” he said.
State Academic Decathlon officials reported that Marshall High/Los Angeles Unified School District received the Large School title with 49,889, Hallmark High/Fresno County received the Medium School title with 41,356 and University High/Fresno County received the Small School title with 44,745 points.
As a result, all three high schools will be eligible to compete – along with Granada Hills Charter High School – in the United States Academic Decathlon On-line National Competitions in April, officials reported.
Other top 10 schools in the state competition's Division I included Marshall/LAUSD (49,889), El Camino Real/LAUSD (48,047), Edison/Fresno County (47,857), West/Los Angeles County (45,572), Franklin/LAUSD (45,173), Palisades Charter/LAUSD (45,040), Oakdale/Stanislaus County (44,876), William Taft/LAUSD (44,826), and University/Fresno County (44,745).
The top three teams in the Division II category were Chino Hills/San Bernardino County (42,954), Torrance/Los Angeles (42,839), Burbank/Los Angeles (42,051), and Division III's top three teams were Olympian/San Diego County (40,357), Oxnard/Ventura County (38,770), and West Ranch/Los Angeles (38,340), the state said.
Sabalone said the 2012 theme is “Age of Empires.”
As in the past, Upper Lake and other Academic Decathlon teams around the county will begin preparing for next year's competition this spring.
Despite lean budget times, Sabalone said it appears that the county will be able to purchase the curriculum – which comes out in May – for the competing schools.
She said the curriculum costs $1,000 per team or $100 per student. “It's an expensive process.”
Sabalone said she feels that the Academic Decathlon offers students the chance to learn how to navigate the world.
She said it shows them how to approach problems and solve them from a variety of ways. It also teaches them to adapt to different topics, and improves time management, study skills and public speaking, which she said are important life skills that will help young people not just in college but in the world beyond school.
Hankins, who is enrolled in Upper Lake's Academic Decathlon preparation class, is now looking at possible careers – including teaching and writing – and preparing to attend California State University, Chico, next fall.
He said he and other seniors will actually be using the class time for the remainder of the year to work on scholarship applications and other preparation for college, “which is going to be an adventure all in itself.”
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