Thanks to Joanna Erdos for submitting this article 

This Year’s Academic Decathlon is the Highest Scoring Team in Marshall History! 

 With an overall total team score of 56,445, the nine students of the 2012-13 team won 2^nd Place in the LAUSD Academic Decathlon, and qualified for the State Championship contest held March 14-17 in Sacramento. The total possible is 65,400 points. The point structure changed this year from the previous 60,000 points; according to that structure, our team had 51,420 points, also a record. This beats our previous highest score, 50,029.8, earned by the 2009-10 team.

Coach Larry Welch is justly proud of his team members: Aninda Bhowmick, Natasha Boyd, Ashley Cruz, Jose Herrera, Julio Lopez, Kevin Martinez, Marvin Paparisto, Amy Tan, and Angelica Tecson.  Additionally, the team tied for 1^st Place in the Super Quiz with overall winner Granada Hills Charter High School, and won team awards in 9 of the 10 events.  Also, individual awards were won by team members. Natasha Boyd won the Larry McCormick Award for the highest scoring student in the Language and Literature category, and Marvin Paparisto won the Perryman Award for the highest scoring student in Economics.

Marvin, a junior, was the highest scoring student in the entire competition with 9,253 points of a possible 10,000. Now, Marvin holds the title of Top Scoring Student in the City (LAUSD records), having exceeded Marshall’s previous highest scorers, David Florey of the 1987 National Championship Team with 8,500 points, and Ann Rose Van of the 1995 National Championship Team with 8,750 points. In 2010, Anastasya Helen Lloyd-Damnjanovic beat Ann’s record with an astonishing 8,933.6 points. 

The team competed at the State Finals held March 14-17 in Sacramento and finished in 4^th Place in a very tight race. There were 61 schools competing at the State Finals and our kids won individual medals in most of the events. The topic this year is Russia and the students were tested in Russian literature, art, music, science, and social science. Tests were given in Math and economics and every student wrote an essay. Additionally, they gave prepared and impromptu speeches, and were interviewed by a panel of judges.

The John Marshall High Alumni Association has been a strong supporter of the Academic Decathlon by raising funds to help the team with materials and other expenses. If you would like to help, please send your donation to the John Marshall High Alumni Association, PO Box 39847, Los Angeles, CA 90039. Please mark “Aca Deca” in the memo section. You may pay online using PayPal if you have an account. Go to www.paypal.com and send your payment to johnmarshallla@gmail.com with a note in the comment box that the payment is for ACADECA.  The Alumni Association is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization and all donations are tax-deductible.

We are very proud of our shining stars and wish them all the best as they continue their education.

I would like to acknowledge my friend Anthea Raymond of EchoPark-SilverLakePatch who covered the story earlier.