SHS AcaDeca Wins State Again!

For the fourth year in a row, Sandpoint High School has won the 2022 Idaho Academic Decathlon State Championship, held March 3-5 at Marsing High School in southern Idaho. Twelve schools and about 140 students participated in the competition, which was held in person again this year after being virtual last year.

Sandpoint fielded two teams; the main team won first place in the Large School division and the overall championship with a score of 39,856, while the second team took second place in Large School, with a score of 31,137. The main team also won the Super Quiz Oral Relay, which doesn’t figure into the team score. Sandpoint’s 15 students won a total of 86 individual medals (31 gold, 27 silver, and 28 bronze). They also won most of the overall top decathlete medals in the large school division: 3 gold, 3 silver, and 2 bronze. Sophomore Keane Haesle, a first-year decathlete, was awarded the Phillip Ourada Memorial Award for Meritorious Achievement in the Speech and Interview events. This is the eighth year in a row that a Sandpoint student has won this award.

“We were all so excited to be back to competing in person,” said coach Dana Stockman. “It’s exhausting to travel all the way to the other end of the state, but once there, the students get really energized by being with teams from all over the state. They wanted that fourth championship, and they worked hard to get it. We literally jumped for joy when our names were announced as State Champions.”

The Academic Decathlon competition consists of 10 individual events in art, economics, essay, interview, literature, math, music, science, social science, and speech. Additionally, teams usually compete in a relay ­– the Super Quiz – spanning all topics covered in the individual events. Every year the theme is different. This year the theme was Water: A Most Essential Resource. Next year’s theme is The American Revolution and the New Nation. Award categories include students in Honors (3.8 – 4.0 GPA), Scholastic (3.20 – 3.799 GPA), and Varsity (0.0 – 3.199 GPA) representing small, medium, and large schools.

Representing SHS at the USAD National Finals will be seniors Bethany Badoux and Gavin Jasper; juniors Alex Gonzalez, Logan Jones, and Kyla LaFountain; sophomores Kody Bocksch, Keane Haesle, and Alex Kingma; and freshman Torin Haesle. It will be a virtual competition again this year, with essay and objective testing happening online, and speeches and interviews being conducted over Zoom. They will do their essay and art test on March 31, with the rest of the events happening April 20-23.

Congratulations Erin Eddy and Ryan Graham for being selected as Elk students of the month by the staff at Sandpoint High School - The student program is designed to recognize outstanding young men and women for achievements in school and community life-fine arts, hobbies, athletics, church, school, club and community service, industry and farming.

The PE Department would like to thank the Ambrosiana Pastore Foundation for awarding them a grant for PE shoes for our Sandpoint high students. The shoes will be made available to any student that needs better traction or support in order to function more efficiently in our PE classes. Thank you also to school counselor Jerilyn Mire and Angela Dail for helping to coordinate the grant and for collecting the shoes. Special thanks to our local BIG 5 store for making this all possible. Staff pictured above from left to right, Ryan Knowles, George Yarno, Karen Alsager and Chase Tigert.

Counseling Corner:

Counseling Department Mission: We will ensure and empower every student at Sandpoint High School to achieve academic success, strengthen personal and social growth, and develop achievable post-secondary plans.

Students are assigned to counselors by their last name:

A-G: Shannon Kerrigan

H-O: Sara Gosling

P-Z: Tavi Brandenburg

Post Secondary Transitions Counselor: Jeralyn Mire

College and Career Mentor: Angie Dail

Counseling Office Coordinator/Registrar: Amanda Skinner

Counseling Office Coordinator: Erricka Brownell

Registration Planning: building the 4 year plan and requesting classes for next year

This month students will be considering which classes they will take next year and will be thinking about their 4 year plan. This is a fun time of year when students are encouraged to think about their education and their future plans. SHS has so many amazing opportunities for students to learn and explore. Students will begin hearing about 4 year and registration planning beginning March 7th, so this will be a great time for families to discuss current classes, future goals, and what classes students may want to take in the coming years to prepare them for life after high school.

• Students will come home on March 9th with their transcript, a copy of their 4 year plan to complete, and a list of electives available per grade level.

• On March 16th students will bring back their complete and signed 4 year plan, and their charged chromebook to 2nd period. Students will enter their course requests directly into PowerSchool, our new student information system.

The best part of this season for the counseling department is we get to have many amazing conversations with SHS students about next steps, goals, and educational options. Counselors will be meeting with students in the weeks following March 16th to review class requests. While we do our best to honor student requests we can’t guarantee all of a student’s requests will appear in his or her schedule.

More information coming to families on March 9th!

SHS Juniors: Higher Education Tour March 8

Higher Education Days is a fantastic opportunity to meet all the representatives from area Idaho schools. Juniors will learn about admissions, scholarships, campus life and more. It’s a fun low-pressure way to explore if college could be right for them!

Parents, if you don’t have any plans for spring break, this is the year to start visiting different campuses to get your student excited about life after high school. Junior year is also a great time to discuss which post-secondary path your student may want to take, a few options are: College, Military, Certification, Apprenticeship or Work Force.

ASVAB: April 1, 9:00AM at SHS

If your student has expressed interest in joining the military- taking the ASVAB is one of the first steps. The ASVAB stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and is is a timed, multi-aptitude test that helps the Department of Defense not just determine whether you are a good fit to join the service, but also which service branch you might be best for and even what military jobs you can hold after you finish basic training or boot camp. The better your ASVAB score, the broader your options.

Sign up in the Counseling Office. There is no cost, no supplies needed.