After Rare Super Quiz Tie, McKittrick Emerges as Whiz Kids Champion

Seventh and eighth grade students from McKittrick Elementary School beat out four other districts Friday to take home the top trophy at the annual Whiz Kids Competition. The Academic Decathlon-style event tests students’ knowledge in a variety of different subjects including math, science, history, and writing. The event concludes with a “Super Quiz” that questions students about a pre-selected novel. In an unexpected twist, the super quiz ended in a tie between McKittrick and Elk Hills, even after all the tie-breaker questions were asked.

“It proves that these kids really knew their stuff,” said Zach Safi, Content Coordinator with KCSOS. “If we had more questions, I bet they still could have kept going.”

The Whiz Kids Competition brings together districts in the Small Schools Consortium, a group of Kern County’s smallest districts serving sparsely populated and rural areas of the county. Students from Maricopa, Piute Mountain, McKittrick, and Midway schools traveled out to Elk Hills for the competition. Administrators say having a separate Academic Decathlon of their own allows their students to compete with peers at their level.

“It gives our students an opportunity to extend themselves beyond the classroom in academic areas and compete with other schools that are in the same relative size as we are,” said Elk Hills Superintendent Tiffany Touchstone. “It sets them up to have academic rigor that will help them as they move into high school.”

Individual Results:

Team Results:

Overall Team: