Chimacum High School’s Knowledge Bowl team appreciated last week’s brief report about Port Townsend and Chimacum winning the second- and third-place trophies at the state Knowledge Bowl tournament in Richland last month.

However, we’d like to correct two factual errors in the article and provide some clarification.

First, the winner of the 1A state tournament was Cascade High School, a public school in Leavenworth — not Cascade Christian, a private school in Puyallup that did not qualify for the tournament.

Second, the tournament pitted the state’s top 12 (not 15) Knowledge Bowl teams competing at the 1A level.

Although Chimacum is a 2B school, we played up at the 1A level and excelled against schools with more than twice our student population.

Chimacum can compete successfully against much larger schools in Knowledge Bowl because East Jefferson families send us brilliant kids, and because our College in the High School program provides academic preparation superior to Running Start or conventional high school courses.

Through partnerships with Everett Community College and Central Washington University, Chimacum students can earn an AA degree concurrently with their high school diploma, with all learning taking place entirely on our campus.

Students experience college-level rigor with daily support from caring master teachers, while remaining fully connected to the high school experience.

All of our Knowledge Bowl scholars have excelled in several College in the High School classes, and cite that coursework as foundational to our team’s stellar performance in the state tournament.

Brian MacKenzie
Assistant Coach
Chimacum Knowledge Bowl Team