Victory Helps Taft High Put Its Troubles Behind

In a year full of bad news for Taft High School in Woodland Hills, Monday finally was a day of celebration.

The team of eight boys and one girl came home to a jubilant school after claiming victory at the California Academic Decathlon in Stockton over the weekend.

The squad outsmarted 45 schools from throughout the state to win the decathlon and the right to advance to the national competition next month in Arizona.

The victory, Taft’s third in the state competition, evoked pride among the school’s students and administrators, who have endured a year marked by campus violence and other problems.

Speaking over the intercom in a morning address, Principal Ronald Berz said, “Our hats are off to these fine young men and lady. A lot of sacrifices have been made by these students. . . . We at Taft are very proud of their accomplishments.”

Shoshanna Grunwald, a 17-year-old senior, agreed.

“I thought it was great. It’s good for Taft to be recognized for something good instead of something violent.”

In August, Lamoun Thames, a 15-year-old Taft student waiting for a bus, was stabbed to death by youths who apparently mistook him for a rival gang member.

Last month, Michael Ensley, 17, a former Taft student who had transferred to Reseda High School, was shot and killed by a classmate on the Reseda campus. The shooting prompted school officials to begin equipping all Los Angeles Unified School District high schools with metal detectors.

Berz described the students’ victory as a “positive accomplishment” that defies criticism of the Los Angeles Unified School District for campus violence and budget shortfalls.

“It was not only a breath of fresh air,” said Berz, “it was something good that people could feel positive about as an accomplishment and as a success.”

The members of the winning team are Leonard An, David Bronstein, Adam Caress, Evan Dodge, Chris Hoag, Alex Jacobs, Robert Shaw, Josh Stempel and Mara Weiss. The students claimed a narrow victory over Laguna Hills High School of Orange County by scoring 46,903 points of a possible 60,000 in the weekend-long tournament.

“It was good to bring it back to the school,” said Hoag, the team’s captain. He said the team will take a week off from studying and a weekend trip to Disneyland before gearing up for the national competition to be held in Phoenix at the end of April.

Weiss described the win as “a great honor” that she has yet to fully realize. “I woke up and wondered if I had dreamed the weekend,” said Weiss. “I’m still in shock.”

When asked to disclose the secret to their success, the teen-agers, dressed in jeans, sneakers and decathlon T-shirts, repeatedly attributed their win to teamwork.

“It was the depth of the team,” said Bronstein. “There were no superstars.”

Dodge said the competition was fierce, but the waiting was tougher.

“The easiest part was taking the test,” he said. “It was the other 72 or 80 hours of waiting that was the hard part.”

But in the end, the hours of studying and waiting paid off.

“It was a great thing for them and a great thing for Taft,” said Linda Zimring, a college counselor at Taft, who accompanied the youths to the state competition in Stockton. “There’s been a lot of hubbub all over the place and pride throughout the campus . . . everybody is feeling it.”