Costa Mesa : New Academic Contest Offered for 6th Graders

Orange County’s Department of Education, which launched its annual high school academic decathlon 17 years ago, now is inaugurating a similar contest for sixth graders.

The first Academic Pentathlon will be held Saturday at the county Department of Education headquarters in Costa Mesa, starting at 8 a.m. The five-event “brainpower” contest will offer these categories: mathematics, science, social studies, communication skills and the Super Quiz.

The Super Quiz topic will be on “romantic music of the 1800s.”

Jane Van Treese of the Department of Education said that sixth graders from eight Orange County elementaries and one school each from Arizona, Texas and Nevada will participate in the inaugural contest.

“Because this was the first one, we simply invited schools this year, and there weren’t elimination contests as there are in the decathlons,” she said. She added that in future years, county-level contests will select winners to vie in the national pentathlon.

Robert Peterson, Orange County superintendent of schools, invented and developed the high school decathlon, which now is nationally prominent and involves scores of teams from all over the country each year.

Van Treese said Peterson believes the grade school contest will also become a nationally recognized annual event.

The Super Quiz portion of Saturday’s pentathlon is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. and is open to the public, Van Treese said. The contest site is at 200 Kalmus Drive, Costa Mesa.