“It’s fun,” said senior Jason Zappulla, Co-captain of the Academic Team.  Along with his fellow Academic Team members, Co-captain Shaun Cleppe, and team sponsor Ms. Alvarez, the team attended the competition for the second stage of districts and received 4^th overall in Pinellas County this month.  “This year placing 4th in the district was a great achievement”, said Ms. Alvarez.  This is not the only achievement for the team. In past years, the team has been ranked 5^th and 3^rd in the district competition as well.

Not everyone knows what being on the Academic Team entails.  So for those who don’t know too much about the team, here is a little bit of information.  The season spans from September to February, and on average includes about 12 members each year.  There isn’t a prerequisite to be a member of the team but they are looking that you are either skilled in at least three areas of the curriculum like math, science, social studies or that you specialize in one of these fields. 

As Zappulla puts it, “the team dynamic is established early”, means that each member gets acquainted with the others’ topic or topics of specialty. During a competition, the team with be asked questions of different in a quiz bowl format, with questions varying from multiple choice, matching, and so on.  If the team buzzes in within 60 seconds then they have the right to answer it.  Each team starts off with 100 points and depending on if they answer a question correctly or not then they can either gain or lose points from the score boards. 

The work doesn’t stop at competing.  The academic team has practices on Thursdays when they don’t have competitions and try to prep. Competitions can last up for 90 minutes and can ask about almost everything so avoid excessive “winging it” they practice after school.