They Learned Tough Lesson in Economics : Education: Students involved in the academic decathlon are irate over their school district’s budget cuts, which eliminated the extracurricular program.

As she talked about losing Mission Viejo High School’s academic decathlon team, member Ellie Terry became more and more irate.

“We are not just losing a team or just a class, we are losing what some of us have spent years studying for and working hard for,” the 16-year-old sophomore said. “And it’s not just that. This team is like a family, we spend a lot of time together, and now it’s like we are going to be divorced. The more I think about it, the angrier I get.”

Last week, the board of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District voted to eliminate more than 30 programs, including funding for the academic decathlon teams at the four high schools. Among the casualties is the Laguna Hills High School team, which won the state championship the past two years and placed second in the national competition both years.

The board’s action stems from proposed cuts in the state education budget that would leave the district’s $100-million budget for the next fiscal year $4.8 million short.

“We are not saying that there cannot be academic decathlon teams,” said Board President R. Kent Hann. “What we are saying is the school district can no longer pay the bill. If the teams can find community support or corporate support to fund the teams, or if the coaches involved want to work for free, they can still have the team. I know that this is not a very fair situation and there is nothing nice about it. It’s horrible what’s going on.”

The program costs the district $41,000 annually, with about 90% of the money paying stipends for 20 coaches and the rest going mostly to books, supplies and study aids for team members.

No other Orange County district has eliminated academic decathlon funding, according to the County Department of Education.

The members and coaches at Laguna Hills and Trabuco Hills high schools are already planning fund-raising activities and are talking about seeking corporate sponsors to keep their teams alive. Teams said they would each need at least $8,000 to survive.

Janet Hooper, the head coach at Trabuco Hills, said she has raised about $1,500 from candy sales in recent months. Kathy Lane, the Laguna Hills coach, said because of recent newspaper articles about the cut, she has received numerous calls from local residents and businesses asking if they can help.

Mission Viejo High School’s coach Phil Koger, however, said he is not optimistic that his team will be able to raise enough money.

“Our community is fund-raised out,” Koger said. “Every athletic team and service club at this school already sells candy and raffle tickets. I don’t think we could make enough money doing that.”

At team gatherings Friday, members from Trabuco Hills, Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills expressed frustration at the cut. Many said they have been participating in academic competitions since elementary school.

“I have been doing this since the sixth grade and now that I’ve got a chance to try for the big one, it’s gone,” said Karen Gross, a 16-year-old member of Laguna Hills High’s sophomore team. She said she would have tried out for the defending state champion 11th- and 12th-grade team in the fall. “Because of the success the teams ahead of us have had, we know what it takes, and we thought that they had paved the road for us to win the national next year.”

Tobi de Vito, a 14-year-old freshman at Mission Viejo, said: “I’m disappointed because I was just getting into it and I had dreams for the next three years and now they are gone. A lot of us have personal goals, like finishing first place in a certain subject at the county competition, and now we can’t work toward that goal.”

Although none of the coaches or students blamed the school board, some questioned why the academic decathlon was cut entirely, while seven sports programs survived.

“There are a lot of sports programs, and if one gets cut the athletes can go to another sport,” said Bryan Walker, a 15-year-old member of Mission Viejo’s sophomore team. “But there aren’t too many programs for students who are academically inclined.”

Hann said that because of the district’s contract with its teachers union, it is easier to drop the stipends paid to academic decathlon coaches than it is to cut stipends to athletic coaches.

But the students did blast Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature. Wilson has proposed a $2-billion cut in the state education budget, and the Legislature is likely to approve a large education cut, although not necessarily as much as Wilson would like.

“They have to look and see what they are doing to our lives,” said Ellie Terry. “If they cut too much, they are closing the door on an important program.”

Amy Albright, Wilson’s education spokeswoman, said the governor sympathizes with the students but has no choice except to cut education funding.

“We can’t deny that schools are going to be hurt by the next budget, but you have to remember that the state is facing a record $14.3-billion budget shortfall,” she said.

Roger Gunderson, Laguna Hills High’s co-coach, said losing the academic decathlon will hurt C student members, who he said are bright but lack motivation in the classroom, because they will not be exposed to the A students and their work habits.

James Diorio, who was a C member of Trabuco Hills team, agreed, saying that it is the camaraderie of the decathlon team that helped push him to study. Students say they spend hundreds of hours studying and preparing for the county competition.

“I’m competitive, and in the academic decathlon I can get awards and instant gratification, but in class all I get is a grade, and I have to wait 4 1/2 months for that and I don’t have the patience,” Diorio, a 17-year-old senior, said.

Laguna Hills students say they spend even more time preparing for the state and national competitions.

“By the end of the national competition, our students will each have two or three spiral notebooks each stuffed with 500 pages of notes,” Lane said.

BACKGROUND

The Orange County Academic Decathlon is a two-day competition involving student teams from 50 public and private schools. Each team is composed of three A students, three B students and three C students. The decathlon competition consists of tests in 10 categories: economics, math, fine arts, language and literature, science, social studies, speech, oral interview, essay writing and the super quiz, an especially difficult test on a subject that changes annually. The winner of the 11th- and 12th-grade decathlon, which has been Laguna Hills High School for the past two years, advances to the state competition, with the state winner advancing to the national competition.