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MBA represents CNMI in academic competition
Marianas Baptist Academy coach and geography and history teacher Manuel Castro, center, supervises the school’s Junior National Academic Team representing the CNMI during a study session. (Erwin Encinares)
The Marianas Baptist Academy would be representing the CNMI in a nation-wide competition after the CNMI was inactive in the competition for several years prior to last year.
The Junior National Academic Championship, or JNAC, has invited MBA to represent the CNMI in the upcoming JNAC competition set from June 10 to 12 in Chicago.
The JNAC is a competition that focuses heavily on academics rather than popular culture and covers subjects such as math, history, geography, and science, to name a few.
The MBA team, which consists of five middle school members, consists of Christian Palattao, Joshua Alfred, Deancey Adrielle Chua, Joanah Jimenez, and Victoria Santos, who was assigned to be the team leader.
Jimenez will also represent the U.S. Pacific territories in the 2017 National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C. this coming May 14-17.
MBA coach and geography and history teacher Manuel Castro said the team’s focus as of now is science, since it is the weakest subject of the team.
“They have study materials which they get their questions from. If a school really wants to win, they would have to spend [time and money],” explained Castro.
“Since the books are expensive and the principal is not able to purchase all of the books, we are relying on other sources to prepare,” he added.
Castro mentioned that the MBA team has solid mathematical understanding with Santos as the leader.
Santos said she was confident in the team’s ability to tackle math and U.S. history questions.
“This is my second time to participate in a competition of this scale. I participated in last year’s competition,” said Santos.
Jimenez, another solid member of the group, mentioned that the team was particularly weak in science, technology, and physical education.
“The majority of us have different interests and it just so happened that [science, technology and physical education] weren’t one of those,” she said.
In a letter dated Mar. 8, 2017, National Academic Association executive director Chris Beall formally invited MBA to participate in the 10th Annual JNAC.
