The Paul W. Bryant MCJROTC Academic Team has qualified for the JROTC Leadership & Academic Bowl (JLAB) National Championship. The team-composed of students from both Bryant High School and Northridge High School--successfully navigated two intense elimination rounds of online competition to claim their spot, earning top scores out of the 110 Marine Corps JROTC academic teams that competed from around the world.

The team is one of only eight MCJROTC Academic Bowl teams in the nation to advance to the final competition, which includes an all-expense paid trip to Washington, DC., where the championship will be held on the campus of The Catholic University of America, June 23-27, 2023.

During the two fast-paced preliminary rounds, cadets were tested on their knowledge of core curriculum such as math, science, and language arts as well as current events, citizenship, leadership skills, and financial literacy. Financial literacy videos are sponsored by the USAA Educational Foundation and provided to all cadets. Questions from the videos were included in Levels I and II of the online competition.

Team members Estefhania Marquez-Zamora and Daijah Hellem from Bryant High School, and sisters Grace & Faith York from Northridge High School credited their success to ACT preparation work that they did as part of their JROTC classes, as well as their own self-study. Cadet Faith York stated “The math, science, and English portions of the competition were just like ACT questions you would see on a typical test, so our ACT prep work really helped us answer the questions quickly in the 30 second time limit for each question.”

The JROTC Leadership & Academic Bowl is a nationally recognized competition created exclusively for JROTC students.