Do you know what nation is home to the most expensive building in the world? What about the state that is the home to Lake Mono and Lake Tahoe? These are examples of the questions being asked of students in the academic competitions. The Saint Stephen’s Academic Team has been very successful during the past years. They have won the Manatee Schools Academic Challenge in two consecutive years and they are currently leading the Manatee County Academic competition by more than 200 points (compared to the second-place team after three meets).

The students of the team attend many academic competitions each year, where they have to answer questions about different subjects such as history, biology, geography, language arts etc. in order to earn points for the team. In April of 2016, the SSES-led team won the division 1 championship of the statewide Florida Commissioner’s Academic Challenge. In the 2016-17 year with new members joining the academic team, they continue to be successful in the competitions.

Mrs. Christina Pommer (upper school media specialiast) and Mr. Huff (7th grade history teacher) are the coaches of the team, alongside Mr. Seth Carlson (upper school physics teacher) who is the assistant coach this year. They are hoping that the team continues to achieve remarkable achievements like in past years.

According to Mrs. Pommer, the Saint Stephen’s academic team started competing in the early 1990’s, when Orlando’s Polk County started the state competition at Disney. At that time, some of the Manatee County public schools, including Saint Stephen’s, started competing against each other. Each county was able to send one team of up to six students to the state competition.

Mrs. Pommer started coaching the academic team five years ago, alongside Mr. Huff as the assistant coach. Before that, Ms. Mishkin, the former head of Modern and Classical Languages Department, led the team.

This season is just getting started, and the Falcons have already competed in three competitions against  Manatee County schools. MaryAnn Placheril, Emma Jones, Sabina Budova, Gaby Pung, Alex Siegal, Kassandra Haakman, Astrid Culp, Rishab Ramamurthy, Jack Berry, Matthew Thomas, Vanessa Yan, Sidney Knowles, MacKenZie Rumage, Luke Valadie and Colton Melnick are the members of the Academic Team this year.

According to Mrs Pommer, “Saint Stephen’s competed against 17 other schools in each of these competitions, and we came in first by a lot of points. Our third meet took place on Saturday, November 19th, at Southeast High School and our teams ended up in first and second place. Also, on Friday November 18th, we attended our first quiz-bowl style meet, which took place at Lake City near the Georgia border and we placed second.”

The SSES Academic Team competes in four competitions around the Manatee County. This year, Saint Stephen’s is hosting one of the meets on December 6th, which is senior night. The Academic Team also competes in quiz-bowl style competitions, which are a lot faster compared to the regular competitions. They involve buzzing and the team who answers the question first unlocks three bonus questions. SSES competes with two separate teams in the county, Saint Stephen’s Green Team, which is the more experienced team, and the Saint Stephen’s Gold Team, which consists of younger students. At the end of these competitions, the top six students of Manatee county will compete in states as a team. Last year, five of the six students of the winning teams were Saint Stephen’s students.

Junior Gaby Pung, who’s experiencing her first year as an academic team member, said: “A few friends recommended it to me and I thought it would be interesting.”

The team holds practices on Mondays for two hours after school and during lunch on Wednesdays, which is less formal. According to Gaby Pung: “The coaches simulate competitions by giving us practice questions. We discuss the answers afterwards, which helps us to remember them. Most of the preparation is really just studying for your own classes. The people who have been on the team for a few years already do well in the competitions because they study hard in and outside of class.”

The coaches play a major role in the success of the Academic Team. According to Gaby Pung: “The coaches are really helpful and understanding. They do everything to keep the team organized and they are a big reason for its success.” She also mentioned, “I missed academic team practice for about a month because of cross country post-season training, but the coaches were really understanding.”

This year, Mr. Huff and Mrs. Pommer are hoping that at least four Saint Stephen’s student will compete in states for the Manatee County Team. Since this team won the states competition last year, in addition to winning the Manatee County competition, the ultimate goal of the academic team is to defend their title in state championship this year.