John Marshall High Wins City’s Athletic Decathlon

A team of four female and two male students from John Marshall High School in the Los Feliz area won this year’s citywide academic decathlon, knocking off four-time champion Palisades High, the Los Angeles school district announced Thursday.

Marshall--which had never before finished higher than eighth place--compiled the most points in the 10-event contest that was held last Saturday, school officials said during an awards banquet Thursday night at the Bonaventure.

University High School in West Los Angeles placed second, as it had done for the last two years.

And Palisades came in third, followed by Dorsey High School--which had tied with Garfield and University high schools for first place in the “Super Quiz” event of the decathlon, the only part of the annual event that is open to the public.

The Marshall team expressed surprise and joy at the outcome.

“Our goal was just to be in the top 10,” said student Ellen Ahn, who was the team’s highest scorer. “When we learned we had won, we went crazy. I’m in total ecstasy. Our semester grades are all messed up--but who cares. We’re going to the state (contest).”

Rose Gilbert, the English teacher who coaches the Palisades team, said she was disappointed that her youngsters had not taken home another championship--but added that she thought Marshall’s victory was “great!”

“The competition is getting much tougher. Everybody’s gunning for Pali.”

Other members of the Marshall team included Carol Lin, Jeanette Woo, Eun Joo Whang, Fred Upton and Greg Mitchell, coached by Mary Fortino. This team will represent Los Angeles in the California Academic Decathlon, which will be held Jan. 3 at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana.

Fifty-three six-member teams took part in this year’s citywide decathlon--and they were competing under highly controversial new guidelines.

In previous years, the teams were selected on the basis of test scores and teacher recommendations, and had to include two A students, two B students and two C students.

Those rules still apply, but last June the Los Angeles Board of Education added a new wrinkle, saying the teams should “reflect” the racial and gender balance of the individual schools’ student bodies.

That policy was formulated in response to criticism that the academic decathlon had always been dominated by white male teams from Westside and West San Fernando Valley schools--schools where, the critics noted, the student body is 40% to 50% made up of minority youngsters.

The new policy now in effect is considerably more lenient than one adopted earlier by the board.

That guideline would have made made the sex- and race-weighting mandatory, rather than merely recommending that it be taken into consideration. But it came under attack for appearing to establish a quota system.

Even so, composition of the teams that competed this year was closely scrutinized by officials of the senior high school division. Assistant Supt. Dan Isaacs said each principal had to submit a report describing efforts made to include all ethnic groups and both sexes.

Isaacs said he was satisfied all schools made efforts to abide by the new policy.

Members of the team from Palisades High, however, said the new policy was specifically aimed at hurting their chances for a fifth championship, calling it “reverse racism.”

Palisades has a student body that is almost 50% minority, and while school officials said there have been some non-whites and females on previous teams, they declined to say how many.

This year’s squad had three girls and one black.

Before the decathlon opened, Palisades team members said the squad from Dorsey High--in South Los Angeles--was “the team to beat.” School officials said ethnic and sex guidelines were not an issue with the Dorsey team, which was made up of five black students and one Asian--and was evenly split between the sexes.