Last year when the Academic Decathlon was headed by Dr. Kathryn Daughton, the team won states, so when Mrs. Nancy Craig took over the reigns this school year, she didn’t change a thing.

“Why mess with success?” she remarked.

In such a large school with so many different clubs, sports, and accomplishments to take pride in, North Penn’s Academic Decathlon team is undeniably at the top of the list of great things to be proud of. Overseen Craig, the Academic Decathlon team is comprised of some of the school’s best and brightest sophomores, juniors, seniors, and even one freshman. Throughout the year, the team practices three days a week, learning from ten hefty packets on different subjects in order to prepare for their scrimmages and matches against other schools.

The team’s goal is to reach nationals- which take place in Honolulu, Hawaii- but first they have to get through regionals at the beginning of February and then states at the end of February and beginning of March. So far, they have had two scrimmages and have won their first competition.

The members of the team put in considerable time and effort into learning all of the material and trying to make this year’s team the best yet.

“It’s a huge time commitment, and [the students] are the ones doing all of the work. It’s the dedication of the team-that’s the most important part,” mused Craig, clearly incredibly proud of all of the team members.

Serena Jiang, junior and co-captain of the team (alongside fellow junior Jerry Zhao) knows how important it is to be motivated and willing to put in the time to learn the material, which her and her team do extremely well.

“We’re all really close. I mean, we bond over having to learn so much, and we have study parties with pizza and bond over the trauma and everything. And we’re all already motivated; no one has to force us to do the work because we all want to succeed.”

The team currently has their sights set on winning regionals on February 1, and if they are in the top two, they move on to states, which are held on February 28 and March 1 at Souderton Area High School.