It’s Saturday at Roybal Learning Center, and the school is packed with kids swarming about in business suits, decked out in dress shoes, dark slacks and ties. On the open, unassuming campus, students swarm before classroom doors, mill about the cafeteria and recite speeches over the greenery. This is an annual tradition for Academic Decathlon, which takes part on two consecutive Saturdays – but it’s a tradition that we may soon lose.
LAUSD has annually hosted the Academic Decathlon, an intensive academic program designed to test students in ten central subjects: mathematics, science, economics, music, art, language and literature, speech, interview, essay and SuperQuiz, whose theme varies each year. But as of the 2012-2013 school year, LAUSD is considering cutting the Academic Decathlon program in its entirely due to severe budget cut issues.
“AcaDeca, [Academic Decathlon], may be gone next year due to the district budget,” Daniel Kim said. “We’re not sure what’s happening yet, but LAUSD has confirmed that it won’t pay for Academic Decathlon next year.”
The decision was announced shortly after the 2011-2012 Academic Decathlon competition. Academic Decathlon coaches met over the issue to discuss the financial issues to hosting the competition next year.
“I think AcaDeca is really important to a lot of students,” Alice Choi said. She participated in Academic Pentathlon, the middle school equivalent of AcaDeca, in 7th grade. “I’m not sure what to say about this.”
The competition is traditionally held at Roybal Learning Center and, within a few weeks, the award ceremony is held at the Convention Center, in which general team awards are distributed and which teams will be going to the state competition, will be decided. If LAUSD no longer hosts the competition, however, it will significant affect the USAD (United States Academic Decathlon) as it affects how many schools will be part of the state and national competition.
LAUSD decided to cut the program upon considering expenses entailed in holding the program by hiring proctors and managers. Citing huge budget cuts in other programs as well, the district decided to no longer fund the Academic Decathlon program as of the next year.
This act has triggered responses in a number of schools. Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies is considering not buying the AcaDeca study packets, which cost up to approximately six hundred dollars, until further notice and is likely to disband its team. Other schools may have to entirely cut their Academic Decathlon classes; LA Center for Enriched Studies is one of a select number of schools in which Academic Decathlon is solely an extracurricular activity, but the school has invested considerable time and money into the team, from $200 letterman jackets to self-coordinated team meetings to compensate for the lack of regular class AcaDeca meetings.
The competition is recognized for its formulaic academic structure and it has been much praised by students who learn not only about the subject matters covered by the program, but also to meet new people and to learn to work in a team setting. The loss of the program, ultimately, will be more than just a loss of an academic opportunity, but also what many students claim to be “a way of maturing and learning to persist and keep trying despite odds.”
