Rhode Island Academic Decathlon

7th Grade Champions division - 3rd Place trophy goes to Blackstone Valley Prep!

7th Grade Invited division - 3rd Place trophy goes to Monsignor Clarke School!

Coach recognitions… Thank you Diana and Adam for your time and dedication!

The USAP Awards Ceremony is about to begin. The event is being streamed on YouTube, search USAP 2026.

USAP SuperQuiz event just finished. A lot of excitement over the Roaring Twenties. MCS and BVP represented Rhode Island well.

The Academic Pentathlon competition has begun. This is the quietest moment you will ever hear from 350 middle school students!

Happy to be participating with USAP (Academic Pentathlon), the Decathlon for our middle schools. This year’s Nationals are in Nashville, TN and Rhode Island has 2 schools participating - Blackstone Valley and Monsignor Clarke! Go Rhody!

It is a fitting way to end Teacher Appreciation Week by thanking our Coaches for sharing your time and energy with students to help them compete in the Rhode Island Academic Decathlon. This year we will be celebrating 12 Gold Medal Seniors at the State House who come from 8 different schools. This is a testament to the many hats you wear - as teachers and coaches. On behalf of the RIAD Board, Thank you Coaches!

Dr. Les Martisko, CEO of USAD, passed away this week. Coming from rural West Virginia, he was a great example of how education can lift any individual out of poverty. He went on to become the CEO of US Academic Decathlon... a model of educational pursuits. He also ran over 500 marathons along the way.

Here is a statement from him on the USAD website, which captures the essence of AD...
"There are lots of wonderful academic competitions out there. You can go prove you’re the best writer, or the best physicist, or the best speller.

Academic Decathlon isn't about any of that, though. It’s not about demonstrating how good a student you already are. It’s about daring to push your limits, to master college-level material and to practice skills, like public speaking, that might be wholly new to you. It’s about the people you’ll meet along the way—the coaches who will mentor you, the competitors who will challenge you, and the teammates who will become your lifelong friends.

As Decathletes, you’ll learn about an exciting new theme each year, such as Russia, World War I, and New Alternatives in Energy. You’ll explore six subjects connected to that theme, from art and science to literature and economics. You’ll learn to move an audience not just with facts and rhetoric, but with confidence. And you’ll never do any of this alone. You’ll be working with a team—a team composed of students with a wide range of grades but a single shared goal.

You should join the Academic Decathlon not because that goal will be easy to achieve, but because it will be hard. You and your teammates may study more than you ever have before, not knowing whether you will take home ten medals each—or none at all. The philosopher Mortimer Adler once wrote, “It is only by struggling with difficult books, books over one's head, that anyone learns to read.” I invite you to become part of a program that you may think is over your head, until you realize you can reach higher as a team. I invite you to struggle. And I invite you to learn—not just to read, but to understand; not just to win, but to lead."

Dr. Les Martisko will be greatly missed.

More awards for The Wheeler School at USAD Nationals… Philip - silver in Math; Daniel - bronze in Math.