Santa Fe and Whittier high schools competed against some of the region’s top scholastic achievers at the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon competition, with Santa Fe celebrating its debut performance by winning 12 medals.
The fierce two-day competition, which took place in early February at El Rancho High School, featured 39 teams and more than 350 students.
“We are incredibly proud of how well our team performed in their first attempt at this challenging and rigorous competition,” Santa Fe Academic Decathlon Coach Annette Snow said. “This reflects their many, many hours of studying and preparing prior to the competition itself.”
Santa Fe High’s decathletes and awards include:
- Griselda Chavez (12th grade) – Gold Medal for Interview, Bronze Medal for Speech
- Tania Padilla (10th grade) – Top Decathlete (per school) Gold Medal, Silver Medal for Essay, Gold Medal for Interview (as well as a perfect score of 1,000 out of 1,000 points for her interview)
- Guillermo Lopez (10th grade) – Silver Medal in Science, Bronze Medal for Speech
- Germain Becerra (10th grade) – Bronze Medal in Science, Gold Medal in Economics, Silver Medal for Interview
- Ashley Ramirez (10th grade) – Bronze Medal for Speech, Silver Medal for Art
- Isaiah Ramos (10th grade)
Whittier High’s decathletes and awards include:
- Meghan Uyeda (12th grade) – Team Top Scorer Gold Medal
- Lee Chu (12th grade) – Gold Medal in Interview (as well as a perfect score of 1,000 out of 1,000 points for her interview)
- Samantha Silva (10th grade) – Silver Medal in Interview and Bronze Medal in Essay
- Josiah Sanchez (12th grade) – Bronze Medal in Economics and Interview
“Three students from the Whittier High Class of 2020 have been our team’s top scorers in three of the last four years and our team has won 28 medals in the last two years, so this has been a special group,” Whittier High Academic Decathlon Coach Kele Perkins said. “Our underclassmen and B team members were excellent. We are proud everyone's performance.”