El Camino Real Charter Wins State Academic Decathlon

Originally posted at 1:15 p.m. March 23, 2014. Updated with more details.

El Camino Real Charter High School won the 2014 California Academic Decathlon, tournament officials announced today in Sacramento.

Another Los Angeles Unified School District school, Granada Hills Charter High, placed second. The schools were neck-and-neck, with El Camino scoring 57,747.3 points and Granada Hills scoring 57,214.1 points of the 65,400 possible, tournament officials announced.

The LAUSD's Marshall High won the large school category, with 56,963 points. That was only good enough for third place in the overall competition, however.

El Camino Real and Marshall tied in first place in the Super Quiz, with 4,875 points out of the 5,400 possible. Granada Hills was second, with 4,725 points.

Among local schools in the overall competition, Beverly Hills High placed fifth with 50,823.8, South Pasadena High was seventh with 49,556.7, LAUSD's Franklin High was eight with 49,414.4 and Redondo High was ninth with 49,368.8 points.

This year, 565 students competed for 65 teams from up and down the state in the even, sponsored by Northrup Grumman. Teams are mixed with three "honors" students, who have 3.75-plus grade point averages, three "scholastic" students with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.74, and three "varsity" students with lesser grades.

The winning team goes on the the national Academic Decathlon. In 32 years of decathlons, California schools placed first or second every year but one. Fifteen of the past 18 championships were brought home to the Golden State.

--City News Service