KATY [February 23, 2019] – It’s a first for Katy Independent School District! This year a total of six high school teams will be headed to the Texas Academic Decathlon Event to be held on March 8-9 in San Antonio, TX. The District has the most schools heading to State of all the districts competing at the 5A Large Schools Division level. Katy, Morton Ranch, Taylor, Cinco Ranch, Seven Lakes and Tompkins high schools will each be sending a team of nine students to compete.
“Participating in decathlon team activities provides our Katy ISD students the opportunity to experience the challenges of high level academic tasks. It also promotes a sense of team effort to accomplish academic excellence,” said Alene Lindley, Director of the Katy ISD Secondary Curriculum, Gifted and Talented (GT) and Advanced Academics Department.
Two weeks ago, the six teams participated in the Regional Academic Decathlon at Seven Lakes High School where they obtained the needed cumulative points to move onto the next level. The curriculum, provided by the United States Academic Decathlon (USAD), changes each year and includes roughly 1,000 pages of high-level curriculum covering Math, Music, Economics, Science, Literature, Art and Social Studies. Students also have to prepare and deliver a memorized speech and give an impromptu presentation. Additionally, they also have to sit in an interview and write an essay.
The Texas Academic Decathlon Event is the second largest academic program in the nation where students have the opportunity to be one of the beneficiaries of $150,000 in scholarship. The top scoring teams will head to the United States Academic Decathlon competition to be held in Bloomington, Minnesota from April 25-27.
Photo Gallery of the Katy ISD Decathlon Teams
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- Cinco Ranch HS: Back Row, from Left to Right: Jeanie Xu, Mahin Ahsan, William Wang, Xavier Williams, Danielle Defreitas, and Camila Santos Front Row, from Left to Right: Emmanuel Jaimes, Hana Chaudhry, and Victoria Zhang Coaches: Susan Shank and Ashley Miller
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- Katy HS: From Left to Right: Grace Goerig, Anjola Oyemade, Dalton Bolen, Kirk Priddy, Tim Chiu, Oscar Villanueva, Stone Garza, Josh Dierker, CJ Arienza Coaches: Kevin Walker and Caitlin Phillips
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- Morton Ranch HS: Top: Aryan Botani, Isaac Lozano, Savannah Espinoza Middle: Thomas Walters, Preston Taylor, Annamarie Ruley, Iman Olajide Bottom: Karen Tseng, Sarah Munoz, Darian Johannsen Coaches: Carrie McDaniel and Divya Kaushal
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- Tompkins HS: From Left to Right: Back row: Courtney Cherry, Dax Nesossi From Left to Right: Middle row: Adhrik Chethan, Jiya Mathuria, Bianca Chen, Paul Davis From Left to Right: Front row: Graham Brown, Carly Chen, Noor Gulrajani, Tori Morales, Cory Graham Coaches: Dax Nesossi and Courtney Cherry
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- Seven Lakes HS: Front Row from Left to Right: Emily Burns, Katelyn Luong, Joyee Chakrabarti, Cristina Pontaza, Anagha Kenikar
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- Taylor HS: Back row from Left to Right: Eric Brunsell, Andrew Zhebrak, William Li, Eric Tang, Catherine Batchelor, Jenny Brunsell Front row from Left to Right: Akash Jothi, Dale Kang, Ashna Rahman, Sakshi Mohta, Sienna Fisher Coaches: Jenny Brunsell and Eric Brunsell (husband and wife)
Katy Independent School District, the leader in educational excellence, together with family and community, provides unparalleled learning experiences designed to prepare and inspire each student to live an honorable, fulfilling life – to create the future.