RANCHO CORDOVA, CA (MPG) - Rancho Cordova’s very own St. John Vianney School continues to shine academically, with some significant successes in this year’s regional Academic Decathlon.  The junior high level competition was held at Jesuit High School, in Carmichael on March 7th, 2020.  

The St. John Vianney Academic Decathlon Team (ACADECA) performed well in all competition areas, but particularly so in the Literature competition, where Mackenzie Santos scored a 3rd Place for the team in the region.  Other top scorers included Justin Paredes in Science and Katrione Ramos in Fine Arts.

For several years now, St. John Vianney’s (SJV) ACADECA team has been among the top contenders in this top regional academic competition, with leading scores in all three major components of the competition - the Logic Test, the Individual Subject Tests, and in the ever-popular Super Quiz — a live-action competition that keeps the audience spellbound.  

This year’s theme for the competition was “water”.  That theme was applied to various subjects that make up the competition’s core academic subject area challenges: Science, Fine Arts, Social Studies, Current Events, Math, English, Writing, and Religion.  Each of those subjects appears in every annual competition, but they are refocused annually on the theme for that particular year.

Mackenzie Santos, in SJV’s 8th Grade, and this year’s Team Captain said, “I’m proud of my team, and of SJV in this competition.  We’ve been near the top in the last few years because we’ve worked so hard.  SJV has taught us to strive for our best and I’ve never studied harder for anything in my life.  Our coaches and teachers really inspired us to never give up, and to push the boundaries of what we thought was possible.”  

The Junior High Academic Decathlon competition is a great preparation for learning later in a student’s academic career.  The competition is stiff, and students who succeed are maximizing their study skills and mastering vast amounts of information.  Successful team efforts like St. John Vianney’s have students studying for 3-4 months to master the assigned books, puzzle types, study guides, and other materials that are assigned in the competition.  Parents typically are amazed at how much information their students can learn, and most importantly, the team members themselves gain a new understanding of how much they can absorb and master with consistent effort.  It’s this later part that makes the Decathlon so valuable for students and the school at large.

“Nothing prepared me for the tough classes in High School as much as ACADECA.  It’s the only place for a middle school student where extreme learning happens — students push their limits and are amazed about how much they can learn in a single subject if they put their mind to it.  That’s what prepared me for honors classes in high school more than anything else.  And it’s really fun!”  said Gian Carlos Gonzalez, an SJV Acadeca Alumni from 2018.

St. John Vianney School is celebrating 60 years of educating kids in Rancho Cordova this year, providing an outstanding educational experience for their students, with full programs of extracurricular academic and athletic offerings exceeding those found in other local schools.

The learning never really stops — the 2021 Academic Decathlon Team is already working on their logic puzzle skills in preparation for next year’s event.