As soon as I'm not about to pass out, scores will be posted.

Both Hamilton and Mountain Pointe ran into varsity trouble, with one of Hamilton's three unable to show, and my V1 and V4 found to be academically ineligible (you need to be passing classes to compete in AcDec, administration rules) on Thursday. The kicker? Those two varsities would have won a gold and silver metal in essay (959 and 940) had they not been DQ'd. GG.

My first experience as a tournament director went pretty smoothly, though it was rather stressful. That said, I had the pleasant surprise of returning the Mountain Pointe Invitational trophy to Mountain Pointe this year

I'm going to release just the team scores for now, and allow our coaches until Tuesday night to make decisions about their team without being bugged by their kids. What I will give you all are the top three scores from each category, and each team's overall total, followed by their 7 test total. These were USAD Round 1.

SCHOOL - 10 EVENT - (7 ROUND 1 TESTS) - NOTES
1. Mountain Pointe - 38,096 - (22,750)
2. Hamilton - 34,135 - (20,539)
3. Marcos De Niza - 33,101 - (17,745)
4. Mesquite - 32,621 - (18,661)
5. Chandler - 32,617 - (17,240) - There may or may not be divisional irregularities here where honors students may have competed lower. This is currently under review, and unofficial.
6. Gilbert - 32,534 - (17,766)
7. Apache Junction - 30,884 - (17,478)
8. Desert Vista - 30,070 - (15,730) - Only one varsity on Saturday
9. Basha - 29,478
10. Highland - 26,974
11. Desert Ridge - 25,897
12. Higley - 18,267 - Competing shorthanded, only five competitors on Saturday.
13. Cortez - 920 - Showed up for L&L, then bailed. Odd.

Much, much more work to be done, obviously. Tests, to be fair, were quite tough.

Individuals - School - Score - (7 tests, if it's worth calculating)

Honors:

1. Shaina Hassan - Hamilton - 7,773 - (4,968)
2. Shelley Xu - Hamilton - 7,749 - (4,996)
3. Stephen Bergauer - Hamilton - 7,690 - (5,070)

Scholastic:
1. Joshua Anolick - Mountain Pointe - 7,183 - (4,344)
2. Cailen McCloskey - Mountain Pointe - 6,693 - (4,007)
3. Amy Umartiya - Chandler - 6,330 - (3,676)

Varsity:
1. Larisa Frost - Marcos De Niza - 5,742
2. Jennifer Hu - Mesquite - 5,349
3. Emilo Garcia - Marcos De Niza - 5,328

I'll share more of my team's scores, and give any details anyone would like on Tuesday night.

Just as an FYI; Academic Decathlon is NOT AIA; so, those rules do not HAVE to be applied. That's totally up to the relationship between the coach and the administration at the school. Check it out, and please email me what's going on, because this has come up before, and there are ways to deal with issues like this effectively.

From the AIA Manual (on the official AIA website):

1.4 OBJECTIVES - The AIA seeks to supplement the overall aims and objectives of secondary schools by organizing,
developing, directing and regulating activities and competition among member schools in athletics, spiritlines,
music, speech, debate, theatre, chess and Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (J.R.O.T.C.). The objectives of
the AIA shall be as follows:

1.4.1 To regulate athletics, music, speech, debate, theatre, chess, Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps
(J.R.O.T.C.) and spiritline activities of a competitive nature which involve more than one school when a
championship, winner or rating is to be determined and authorized by its member schools.

Incidently, Music (above) is not underlined in the official manual--it's been lined through, indicating it's deletion (I did not know how to make a line through music on this board). Music competitions used to be under AIA and now they're not; that's an interesting story for another time. The point is, if someone (an administrator perhaps) told you those Varsities could not compete because of AIA rules, they are mistaken--AIA does NOT govern Academic Decathlon and never has. So, you can make the argument (and I have, successfully, in the past) that IF you have an Academic Decathlon CLASS, and these students are earning GRADES for their participation in competitions and performances, just like music programs do (think concerts and competitions--orchestra and band directors make performing at night or competiting at various competitions a part of the student's grade for that class), THEN Academic Decathlon students competing at a competition such as yours can be compulsory and point driven. I base 20% of my students' grades on performance at out District Tournament--it's their final exams a month early, which only makes sense.

My bad, it's just administration rules that prevent Mountain Pointe students from competing if they are failing any of their classes.

As an employee of school, I will decline to explain what I think about that policy.

(I think you all have an idea)

Shaina Hassan beat my Connor by 30 points or so; however, he had higher objectives. We (South Mountain) had higher objectives than your Mountain Pointe, but you had higher subjectives AND missing varsities. We'll mix it up with you at State! Again, try to make the argument (in previous message) that competing is a part of the grade for the class (assuming you have a class, not just after school). Administration has a difficult time accepting the very nature of Varsities: bright kids with "issues." If these kids weren't bright, you wouldn't want them on your team. The fact that they ARE bright, and have under 3.00 GPA's, indicates that they have "issues." That's part of what is great about Academic Decathlon; we're INCLUDING the formerly UNINCLUDED! We take in the varsites and get them to care about learning in a system that has never met their needs before, and still does not. I would have made a great Varsity, but ACADEC did not exist back in the Depression.

I actually don't have a class, I'm running this as an after-school club.

Our administration is typically very supportive of AcDec, but they are of the opinion (and perhaps rightfully so) that if they want to compete, they need to get the rest of their grades up, and in some cases, it means that their teammates or their coaches need to get on their cases about it, and make sure they get ample help. That said, they have a tendency to see more benefit in a kid raising his math grade than a kid winning a math medal.

We need to remember that Academic Decathlon was originally created as a "Gifted and Talented" program with the idea of different GPAs on a team supported by research that showed how GT students benefit from grouping (i.e. GT classes). It also was designed to create a program where GT students could examine, in depth, topics not normally offered in a typical high school setting. With that in mind, we also know that about 50% of GT students are "underachievers" because the the criteria for identification is, quite simply, different from what mainstream education values. Varsities are underachieving GT students. The key to success in AcaDec is to get the Varsities to 'learn their way' and bring out their abilities. By the way, that fits the original purpose of AcaDec. The reason to have team practice is not really for the Honors, it is for the Varsity members who learn better through conversation and visuals.

As far as using competitions outside of school for part of the class grade I would emphatically disagree. Our class grade is based on what we do there. I will never use fear for after school participation like the "band Nazis" do. In our district, the last period of the day is athletics and I can't imagine if the football team wins the kids get an A for their exam grade but if they lose they get a C. Grade the preparation, not the results from an event. We give exams in class to measure work completed for the class. Athletics that have prep classes and AcaDec with a class could be argued to be 'co-curricular' rather than 'extra-curricular', but not everyone in the class will make the team and get to compete later on. so, that's more like my 5 cents than 2 cents.

5 cents worth is what 2 cents used to be, adjusted for inflation!

Don't get me wrong; I'm not a "band Nazi" and giving grades on "winning" and "losing" would not be right, either. However, how they do on tests at competition is a valid way of assigning points, especially since every member of our program is allowed to comptete at the District Tournament that we just completed this past weekend. I treat District Competition like final exams. I also don't put the bar unreasonably high: I give a final exam grade of "A" to students who score over 5,000 points at competition--not an unfair amount to achieve if you've read the material. Thirteen of my 27 students scored over 5,000 points, four broke 6,000 points, and one broke 7,000 points; so, they all get an A on their final exam grade for the semester. Many of you will riducule how low that level is, but it's worked for me over the years. If I make it higher than that, it scares everyone off. Students that want to score higher are more intrinsically motivated and so the 5,000 points doesn't mean anything to them anyway.

Chandler, as it turns out, did not have any varsities.

Rather than doing the math, I'm just going to say no one should be super worried.

Hmmmmm; but does that mean if Chandler had a couple of 5,000 point varsities lying in wait, they could have scored 42,000? Now, THAT'S something to cause worry to SOMEBODY . . .

If they had a couple of 5,000 point varsities lying in wait, they would have scored 32,000.

As it stands, they actually scored about 22,000 and picked up about 12,000 on seven tests.

Sorry for any confusion. The scores we have are calculated after being originally informed they had nine scholastics and six varsities, while we found out later they had three scholastics and no varsities.

Welcome to our world, that is the world of Texas and the UIL (University Interscholastic League). In Texas kids who are not passing classes cannot participate in any extra-curricular activity (athletics, fine arts, or adademics), this has been a Texas rule for over 20 years now. They also regulate when, how often, and how much we meet outside the school day. Some schools are allowed to pull kids out of their classes for upcoming competitions - in Texas we would not be allowed to do that. Some schools are allowed to count the AD class multiple times during the school day and give them all kinds of credit - in Texas we would not be allowed to do that. I could go on and on about this . . .

In AD, we are not operating on a level playing field.

In Arizona, as Ian said, we are not an AIA sanctioned activity. However, I insist that all my students are passing their classes if they are to miss school for a competition. Last year this eliminated a very good varsity from the state competition. I feel very strongly that graduation comes first, before competing on an extra-curricular team.

However, if the competition is on Saturday, or after school, they are welcome to participate.

Ian?

I don't let my kids miss school if they are failing either. Luckily, all of our competitions are either after school or on Saturday AND, just as luckily, none of my kids are failing anything this year.

Oops, sorry Todd. I thought I was replying to something that Ian (RM) had said.