Academic Decathlon (need your help)!

[DMDarcs]

(This is a way longer post than I would typically make for something like this, but this is a safe place that I feel more emotionally attached to, so I'm going to let my heart bleed out a little more.)

Academic Decathlon is an academic competition, one of the nation's better known ones. You have a team with 9 starters. Your starters are sorted by their GPA levels - three A's (Honors), three B's (Scholastic), and three C's (Varsity). Grade level is NOT a factor. Each student competes in ten events. After each event, scorers evaluate their team. Every student carries their own point total. The top two scores in each division for each event get added to a team total (so, 6 of the 9 scores, though it will change from event to event which 6 are the scorers). Every year there is an overarching theme that connects the events. This year's theme was Africa. The events?

* Essay - Students are given 50 minutes to write an essay on one of 2-3 available questions. These questions are based on the other event curricula.
* Interview - Students go through a 10 minute interview process. They are scored on poise, professionalism, appearance, their ability to speak - all the type of things you would need to get through a college or job interview.
* Speech - Students prepare a speech on ANY topic of their choice, lasting between 3:30 to 4:00 minutes. They are then given a list of 3 more potential topics, given a minute to prepare, and give a 1:30 to 2:00 minute improvised speech. Scored on many of the same things as interview.
* Mathematics - 30 minutes, 35 multiple choice questions. Use of a programming calculator is allowed. This year's math is based on geometry, permutations and combinations, calculating simple and compounded interest, and introductory calculus.
* Art - 30 minutes, 50 multiple choice questions. Questions are on a broad survey of art (prehistoric to modern), with focus on the art of Africa. Art, in this sense, includes painting, sculpture, architecture, carvings, textiles, collages, and animated film.
* Music - 30 minutes, 50 multiple choice questions. Questions are based on traditional and 20th century musical excerpts displaying the diverse musical styles of Africa.
* Literature - 30 minutes, 50 multiple choice questions. Questions are based on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, as well as some shorter writings (critical essays, fiction, poetry, and a TED talk) by various African authors.
* Social Science - 30 minutes, 50 multiple choice questions. Questions are based on the geography, history, and religions of Africa, with a focus on Western Africa. We're talking starting with the first hominids around Lake Victoria up until 1990s.
* Economics - 30 minutes, 50 multiple choice questions. Microeconomics and macroeconomics, with special attention paid to the economics of post WW-II Africa.
* Science - 30 minutes, 50 multiple choice questions. A detailed study in infectious diseases, particularly malaria, HIV, and ebola.

As you can see, quite a bit of this is beyond a normal high schooler's curriculum.

Our team needs help. We won the state championship this year. This was well earned, but quite unexpected. This was an impossibility when I started coaching the team 5 years ago. The other coaches in the regional competition welcomed me, but told me in a very frank (but kind) manner, "It's good to see you. Your team has never been a contender, so don't expect too much." The following year, we won regionals and went to the state championships. Every year since, we have gone to the state championships, thought not always as the #1 seed. This is made only more remarkable by the fact that we are one of the smallest schools in the state to compete - only 286 students in our high school total. We do not have the same financial resources available to us as the larger districts, and we have a smaller pool of students to add to our team. And now we find ourselves pushing to get 8 students to Frisco, Texas.

I ask, if you are able to donate anything at all to help this cause, to please consider donating any money to our GoFundMe page.

https://www.gofundme.com/tully-academic ... -nationals

Our district is paying for the trip, but we do need help. This is set up to help us pay for hotel lodging, food, and other incidentals that may arise. No amount is too small. (GoFundMe does take a small percentage - I think it's 2.9% plus 30 cents - from each donation to pay for their expenses. But that's it.) You will make these kids very grateful. Most of them have never been on a plane before, and many have never even left the state. The thought they are going to Texas has made them extremely giddy. And, for me, it shows them that there IS value in education and pushing yourself, no matter what your GPA says. Our state director always has the coaches hand out any medals our students have earned to them ourselves during the award ceremony. The look on a student's face - a student who has been given the impression that he/she is not worth much - when they are called up because they've gotten a gold medal in SCIENCE, is priceless. There were 90 medals given out at the state competition - gold, silver, and bronze for each of the 3 divisions. Our students walked away with 30 of them. The other 60 were divided up among 4 other schools. Please, consider showing these students that education and the pursuit of knowledge for KNOWLEDGE'S SAKE is worth something. Please, if you can, invest in their future.

Thank you.

[Phoebe]

So proud of all that you do! In a world with values straight, there would be no end of funding for things like this. I did miss this down here, since I usually don't scroll all the way down, so I'm going to post a link in the other form too.

[Zen]

Best of luck to the team this weekend!