PRLHS AcaDeca off to state and looking to nationals

PRIEST RIVER — Priest River Lamanna High School’s Academic Decathlon team is headed to state — and eyeing nationals.

Academic Decathlon, or AcaDeca, is a team competition where students study 10 subjects based around an annual topic. This year the topic is water, and the students are studying that subject in music, math, literature, economics, science and social science, interview, essay, speech and impromptu speech.

Anne Barker-Simon, teacher at PRLHS and coach of the team, knows the Spartans have a chance to go on to nationals, but is focusing first on the state competition. Last year at state, the Spartans were only a few hundred points from advancing to nationals, instead they fell to Marsing.

Priest River beat Marsing’s score in regionals and so feel that they may have an edge on the competition. The team has grown over the years and maintains seven dedicated students. The PRLHS AcaDeca team has been around for about 20 years.

“[In competition] We’ve done a lot better over the last year,” Emile Johnson said.

In order to prepare for this large undertaking, team members have a large binder they work from filled with materials. They spent the summer going through the materials together.

“To study the material we have these thick binders with all the material in them and we spend time studying that and take practice tests online to help us prepare,” Ethan Korff said.

Simon said that in the fall there were nine other students on the team, but the massive binder of studying material scared them off.

Johnson said that the binders were equivalent to a massive textbook over the many subjects.

The team has found in order to manage the studying for AcaDeca and stay on top of their regular school work that studying together is key in bonding the team and making studying fun.

“We have a class period to study together and went through a lot of the content in the summer,” Caleb McDermeit said.

“We quickly realized that it is hard to get any of us to study [for AcaDeca] outside of class and that it is more efficient for us to study in class,” said Nikita Angel. “We study our materials over the summer and we switched over to just doing practice tests.

Blake Miller said that he has noticed that the team’s scores have gone up throughout the year.

“Compared to last year we’ve gotten about 1,000 to 2,000 points better. And we realized we might have a chance to go to nationals,” Miller said. “If we keep our hard work together and with our new recruits we should make it.”

“We are at the top of our league right now,” Angel said.

PRLHS AcaDeca is one of the smaller teams in the league with only seven members. PRLHS has to compete against Sandpoint High School at local meets due to there not being many AcaDeca teams in the area. SHS has two teams with 15 students each, which means more competition for the Spartans.

For state and national competition, the top 15 scores per school go on. For PRLHS that means the seven students they have available, for other schools students compete with each other in order to qualify for a spot. Simon said it is harder to compete against Sandpoint in league due to the drastic change in school size, but in state, PRLHS will compete against schools closer to their size.

Although PRLHS’s AcaDeca may be a smaller team, the members said they know that their strongest asset is each other.

“It is hard since we have always been a smaller school with a smaller team. We’ve had to put in a lot of work and that is reflecting this year as we are doing better,” Miller said.

“We only compete against Sandpoint because they are the only school in the area that has a team for us to compete against,” Angel said. “Even though they are a lot bigger, we are so small and don’t have to worry about qualifying for state. We also end up going [to state] because we have such few kids.”

Simon said it is hard for the students to compete against Sandpoint since they are so much larger and have two teams, allowing them to have a large pool to pick from when choosing the top 15.

It’s sometimes discouraging competing against SHS, Angel said. At the end of each meet there is an award ceremony and it typically ends with SHS winning all or nearly all of the awards.

PRLHS AcaDeca is not fazed by this and are keeping out of their own heads. They said they know once they get to state things will be different and that in their league, they are the one to look out for.

Dylan Lord is new to the team this year. In the past years the team has been put down since they don’t beat SHS often, he said.

“But we have gained some traction this year because we beat one of their teams last meet and took second,” Lord said.

Miller said that the improvement of the team is like a snowball effect, as their mastery of the math and economics material only gets stronger and their speeches and interviews skills develop each competition adding to higher points scored by Priest River overall.

“Our new guys are struggling a little bit, but once they get a couple years of experience they’ll be fine,” Miller said.

The team has seen their overall scores rise by several thousand over the past year. Last year's state competition was virtual and so the students said they didn’t feel the excitement that they would have had in person. After state, the team is itching to be the first PRLHS team to go to nationals, but are disappointed that the contest is online this year instead of in person.

“So, we don’t get to go to Pittsburgh, we get to go online and be here,” said Angel.

The team agreed if they qualify for nationals that they may not feel the weight of their accomplishment when they sit at a computer all day at PRLHS instead of an in-person competition.

“[Last] year it wasn’t a thought in our heads to go to nationals, it wasn’t something we thought about. Once we realized how close we were, it's been our goal since May 2021.”

AcaDeca is not just about winning, but gaining skills that can be used in the future. The students and Simon have seen these public speaking skills and the confidence that comes with it to help students in Leadership class and take on leadership roles in school and in sports.

Caleb McDermeit always struggled at the AcaDeca meets when giving his speech, Simon said. He had this well written speech, did amazing at practice but when he went to competition he ran into difficulties. This year McDermeit has overcome his public speaking struggle with the help of AcaDeca.

“They work hard and are solid B and A students, they work hard in activities. They are involved in the blood drive and spirit week,” Simon said. “They aren’t a bunch of nerdy geeks, but hardworking students.”

The team agreed that there is an assumption that AcaDeca students are intellectually gifted or are brainy.

It really is more about dedication than smarts, Johnson said. AcaDea for PRLHS isn’t as individually driven, but is a team effort.

“A lot of people think ‘I don’t do AcaDeca because I’m not smart.’ You don’t have to do well in every topic, you can just do well in interviews and speech,” Lord said.

A student may be very good in one topic, but not in everything, that doesn’t disqualify them from the team.

“As a team we know what the other lacks and try to help them improve and come up to where they need to be. It gives me accountability,” Miller said.

“What I enjoy about the team is that they study as a team, they help each other, they support each other and encourage each other immensely. That’s why I am proud of this team,” Simon said.

Simon said a major turning point for the team was when her class was moved to a larger room and she was able to bring in a long table for the team to study at.

They study together, not alone at their desks. By working together and acting as a team they have been very successful, she said.

Brayden Lamanna, said his brother Blake Miller recruited him to the team. He is enjoying being part of the team and is still getting his legs under him. He is the only freshman on the team and is looking forward to building the team in the next few years.

“I can’t wait to see him grow in the future and I hope he does [AcaDeca] four years of school,” Miller said.

They hope that their success as a team will encourage more students to come out and join the AcaDeca team.

Simon said that all the students are involved with extracurricular events such as band, leadership and sports. They are very well rounded and hard working students, she said.

The students are looking forward to the next competition and next year's topic. PRLHS and SHS AcaDeca teams will be riding together down to the state competition next week.