People get blasé about Casa Grande winning, but this was the first academic decathlon competition for this team. The students had a lot of pressure on them, and had to do a lot of work. It was great to see them have fun with it.

It was an overall team victory. There weren't just a couple of superstars on the team.

Our students won't need to learn any new subjects, but they'll need to know them in greater depth. The state finals will be more difficult, and the competition will be much tougher.

I'm very excited for our students, but am disappointed that so few teams participated. This is understandable, because academic decathlon requires a quite a bit of time and a strong commitment.