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St. Ignatius Parish School Academic Decathlon Team- Diocese of Sacramento Champs!! 3rd Place in the State of California!!

We are so pleased to announce that for a record-setting ninth consecutive year, St. Ignatius Parish School was the Diocese of Sacramento’s Junior High Academic Decathlon Champions. The team, comprised of seventh and eighth graders, went on to place third at the statewide decathlon championship, which was held this year at St. Edward the Confessor School in Dana Point. No other school in the 27-year history of the event has achieved this unprecedented success.

 “We are so proud of our students, coaches and parents,” said Patty Kochis, principal of St. Ignatius School. “Literally thousands of hours go into preparing for this competition. We were honored to once again represent the Diocese of Sacramento at the statewide competition.” 

The St. Ignatius Academic Decathlon team represents a broad spectrum of the school’s student body.  One member of the team is the Student Council president, as well as running on the cross country and track teams, another is a singer in the Sacramento Children’s Chorus and throws shotput, two are Boy Scouts, two consistently assist as Altar Servers, one is a published author, and three are members of our Championship Volleyball team.  In addition to their full school and extracurricular workload, team members spent most of their lunch hours and weekends studying.

The Academic Junior High Decathlon is a competition for students in grades 6-8. There are ten events. Two are collaborative team efforts – a logic quiz with 20 rigorous thinking problems, and a super quiz with 50 multiple choice questions on five broad academic themes. Twenty-two schools took part in the diocesan event, which culminated in a 50-question “Super Quiz,” where students test their knowledge in five subject areas: science, social studies, literature, fine art and religion.  Some of the subjects they studied for this year’s competition were Leonardo da Vinci, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven,”  Marie Curie, Mother Teresa, Newton’s three laws of motion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the electromagnetic spectrum, the skeleton, animated film, the Declaration of Independence, and radicals and integer exponents.

“The sincere and tireless dedication of these students never ceases to impress me,” explained Erin McGraw, team coach. “The students’ ability to collaborate with, support, and help one another is a testament to the success of the team, and truly embodies the Ignatian theme of men and women for others.”

Our Acadeca team worked hard preparing for these competitions. Their effort and determination was rewarded.

Results from the Diocesan Competition : 1st place Overall, 1st place Super Quiz, 3rd place in Logic, 1st place English, 1st place Religion, 2nd place Literature, 4th place Current Events, 4th place Science, 4th place Math, 4th place Social Studies, and 6thplace Fine Arts.

Results from the State Competition: 3rd place Overall, 5th place Super Quiz, 4th place in Logic, 4th place English, 5th place Religion, 3rd place Literature, 7th place Current Events, 4th place Science, 1st place Math, 4th place Social Studies, and 4thplace Fine Arts.

Individual Event Team Members with those members +2 added for Logic and Super Quiz 

English-Emily Hancock

Math-Jarvis Tiu

Current Events-Aaron Zirbel

Social Studies-Gio DelPiero

Religion-Carlos Contreras

Science-Suzanne Salazar

Literature-Katherine Uy

Fine Arts-6th  Penny Herrera

*Logic and Super Quiz-Kimberly Zirbel 

*Logic and Super Quiz-Jeanette Sullivan