Clubs and Extracurricular Activities

Debate Kansas City
In order to prepare students to succeed in college and to participate as leaders in society, they must have good presentation skills. They must also be able to think clearly concerning the issues they face and to respond appropriately. Debate plays an important role in preparing our students and is a critical component of our extracurricular program, as well as an integral part of our language arts and social studies classes. University Academy is a member of Debate Kansas City at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Our debate team competes successfully at local, regional, and national competitions. The debate team practices after school during activity period. All high school students are urged to join and participate.

Academic Decathlon
The Academic Decathlon competition is comprised of ten events. There are seven multiple-choice exams, one in each of the following subject areas: Art, Economics, Language and Literature, Music, Mathematics, Science and Super Quiz. Students also take an Essay exam and are judged in a Speech event as well as an Interview event. Other than mathematics, the focus of each event changes each year.

The Academic Decathlon is unique among academic competitions because it involves students at the "A," "B," and "C" academic levels working together as a team to achieve a specific goal. The impact on the "C" students is particularly significant, and many "C" students have improved their personal academic achievement after participating in the Decathlon. In addition, the Decathlon includes students from grades 9 - 12, giving younger students a chance to become involved early in their high school careers in an academic competition. At present there are forty states involved in the competition.

The purposes of the Academic Decathlon are to a) develop a greater respect for knowledge b) promote wholesome competition in academic areas of study and interest and c) stimulate intellectual growth and achievement.

University Academy became involved in the competition because it offered our students the opportunity to compete against some of the best students in the country. Students whose strengths are in music, art, and language and literature are as valuable to a team as the student who gets an "A" in math and science.

Most academic competitions are designed to favor the "A" student, or those with a quick recall of facts. The Academic Decathlon's three divisions allows students with similar GPA's to compete against each other which, to a certain extent, levels the playing field for each student.