El Camino Real Wins Academic Decathlon

For the third consecutive year, El Camino Real High School won the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Academic Decathlon, school officials announced Thursday, and now the school will prepare to defend its state title.

The win marks the fifth city championship for the Woodland Hills school in the 17-year history of the event.

San Fernando Valley schools have traditionally dominated the event, winning eight of the 16 contests. Local rival Taft High School, also in Woodland Hills, has won the tournament four times. The two schools have won five of the last six and eight of the last 10 decathlons.

But this year, Taft placed sixth, and two surprise contenders rounded out the medal winners. Garfield High School of East Los Angeles won second place, and Belmont High near downtown placed third.

Since the middle of August, Garfield High decathlon team members have stayed after school from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays to review the study material, said coach John Bennett.

But team member Alvaro Huerta said the long hours weren’t a hardship. “It’s all worth it,” said Alvaro, a 17-year-old senior who hopes to become a neurosurgeon.

El Camino has won the state championship two years in a row and will attempt a third consecutive victory next month at Cal Poly Pomona. The student scholars of El Camino also have distinguished themselves on the national level. The high school placed second last year at the U.S. Academic Decathlon, the nation’s premier academic competition for high school students.

In the academic decathlon, teams have nine members. Three members compete in the Honor Division, with grade-point averages of 3.75 to 4.0; three in the Scholastic Division, with grade-point averages of 3.74 to 3.0; and three in the Varsity Division, with grade point averages of 2.99 and below.

The students take comprehensive tests in science, social science, mathematics, music, literature, art and language. They also deliver a speech, write an essay and are interviewed by a panel of decathlon judges.

The final event is the Super Quiz--40 multiple-choice questions followed by a team question-and-answer session.

Roosevelt High School won the “most improved” award this year among the 59 competing teams. The East Los Angeles high school finished 15th, a jump of 34 places from last year’s contest.

El Camino Real scored 50,099 points out of a possible 60,000, outscoring second place Garfield by about 5,000 points.

El Camino’s Nancy Fu was the top scoring student in the 10-event contest. Steve Chae of El Camino took second and Nishanth Rajan of Palisades Charter High School placed third.

The other members of the winning El Camino decathlon team are: Taimur Baig, Michael Beatty, Nahyun Hwang, Bruce Ngo, Elana Pelman, Carina Yuen and Adi Zarchi.

Times staff writer Miles Corwin contributed to this story.