Westlake math teams participate in national contest

WHS and LBMS math teams placed in the top 100 in the recent Math Madness national contest.

Westlake’s middle and high school math teams placed among the Top 100 schools in the inaugural Math Madness  online contest sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America.

Math Madness featured live, team-based, online academic competition between almost 21,000 students from schools across the country. The contest included League Play with a round robin competition based on skill level, geography and common time availability. It concluded with the Bracket Challenge.

In Westlake, 75 seventh through 12th grade students participated over the course of 13 challenging weeks of competition. Teams of students were coached by parent volunteers Laura Lathem and Mike Stewart, and gifted teacher Anne Dill.

The Lee Burneson Middle School team advanced to the Elite 8 in its division, placing 45th overall. Team members who scored high enough to be included on the top 1,000 Individual Scores list were Angela Zhu, Albert Zhou, Chad Sargent, Talia Zheng and Akshya Dhinakaran.

The Westlake High School team made it to the Sweet 16 in its division, ranking 95th overall. Team members who made it onto the Top 1,000 Individual Scores list include Kartik Dhinakaran, Calvin Pozderac and Ryan Karpuszka.

“This was a very cool way to get the students practicing math questions to prepare for the American Mathematics Competitions, where strong scores lead to the American Invitational Mathematics Examination and show excellence when applying to high-power schools,” Lathem said. “These are national tests that show math performance at a significantly higher level.”

Dill said she hopes to start the online Math Madness contest at Dover Intermediate School next year for fifth- and sixth-grade students.

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Volume 7, Issue 9, Posted 9:12 AM, 05.05.2015