El Camino Real Takes 5th Straight Academic Title

Scoring their fifth straight victory, students from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills won the Los Angeles Unified School District’s annual academic decathlon Friday, edging out a team from Los Angeles High.

“This is awesome. It paid off,” said El Camino student Dmitry Miroshnichenko. “We’re going to party tonight, and then go back to studying.”

El Camino’s nine-student team scored 49,097 points out of a possible 60,000 in the intense 10-event competition. Los Angeles High School, located in Mid-City, earned 49,020 points, followed by third-place winner Palisades Charter High from Pacific Palisades, which scored 45,090.

Fifty-eight district high schools competed.

The highest individual score belonged to Palisades Charter High School student In Young Song.

“When I slept last night, this is what I dreamt about,” Song said.

Decathlon events include tests in music, math, literature, economics, fine arts and social studies, and essay, interview and speech competitions. Each team then competed in a high-pressure Super Quiz as parents and supporters looked on.

About 1,300 people attended the awards ceremony at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown. Parents from El Camino cheered and waved banners as winners were announced.

El Camino Real High, which has won the LAUSD decathlon seven times since 1981, goes on to the state competition next month in Los Angeles, joining at least two other Valley teams. Burbank High School won a spot at the competition by placing third in the Los Angeles County competition, judges said Thursday. Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills won a private school regional decathlon last Saturday.

The state academic decathlon will be held March 17-19 at Loyola Marymount University, Westchester High School and the LAX Marriott Hotel. The state winner will go to the national championship April 14-16 in San Antonio, Texas. El Camino was 1998’s national champion.

First-time El Camino coach Melinda Owen, who led the students with co-coach Christian Cerone, was especially encouraged by the results. Beginning in August, she helped the team study from a syllabus published by the U.S. Academic Decathlon. Students can spend as many as 20 hours a week in class and at home preparing for the contest.

“How they scored, they had no idea,” Owen said in an interview after the decathlon competitions concluded last Saturday. “They just seemed relieved that it was done.”

Marshall High School in Los Feliz took fourth place, followed by San Pedro High School in fifth and Grant High School in Valley Glen in sixth place.

Rounding out the top 10: Venice High came in seventh, followed by Fairfax, North Hollywood and Roosevelt of Boyle Heights.

A team from Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Reseda won the most improved award.

Schools from the Valley have won the LAUSD competition 11 times since 1981.

Decathlon teams are made up of three students from each of three divisions: Honor, for those with a grade-point average above 3.75; Scholastic, for those with a GPA between 3.00 and 3.74; and Varsity, for those with a GPA below 2.99. Judges at the LAUSD banquet in downtown L.A. awarded several other honors in the three divisions.

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El Camino student Ernest Rasyidi won second place in the Scholastic division, and teammates Sean Rostami and Kyle Wilding won first and second place in the Varsity division. The third-place Varsity winner was Erik Himmel of Birmingham High in Van Nuys.

The top three finishers in each division received scholarships of $1,000, $750, and $500 each from the Milken Family Foundation.