Rockville High School takes it all on ‘It’s Academic’

‘‘It’s Academic” is a television game show that airs Saturday mornings on WRC-TV Channel 4 in the Washington area.

The quiz show starts with 81 teams from Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, Prince George’s County and Montgomery County, with three teams playing each other in a single game to answer questions on a range of topics. Twenty-seven teams compete in the quarter-final round, nine teams compete in the semi-finals and three compete for the championship.

Of the nine teams making it to the semi-finals, six — Walt Whitman, Rockville, Walter Johnson, James Hubert Blake, Richard Montgomery and Bethesda-Chevy Chase — represented Montgomery County public schools this year.

‘‘Especially because we were the underdogs, it was most satisfying,” Lerner said of the wins. ‘‘All credit to team members for their hard work and competitive spirit.”

Josh Lerner, Benjamin Bloom and Megan Roosevelt, all of whom graduated in June, competed in the championship rounds, which were taped May 17 and aired June 28.

Fifteen students in all participated in the ‘‘It’s Academic” program at Rockville during the 2007-2008 school year.

Each of the students who competed in the championship rounds received $2,000 in college scholarship money from ‘‘It’s Academic” sponsor, Giant Foods, Lerner said.

He said the last time Rockville took home both titles was in 1999.

Ron Bloom of Rockville, Benjamin Bloom’s father, wrote in an e-mail message to The Gazette last Thursday that the competition was tough.

‘‘Questions were being tossed out in rapid succession and the teams kept changing leads,” he said. ‘‘When the end-of-game buzzer sounded, I sat there exhausted, so proud of my son and his teammates.”

Benjamin Bloom, who will be a freshman at the University of Virginia in the fall, said that being part of the team has been a great experience. ‘‘Being underdogs made the win all the more exciting, especially after being on the team for three years,” he said. ‘‘Being on the team really helped me learn all types of stuff that is not usually covered in school.”