USJ Students Take Home Math Competition Awards

University School of Jackson took the lion’s share of the awards in the 55th Annual Statewide High School Mathematics Contest held April 19 at Freed-Hardeman University. The competition, sponsored by the Tennessee Math Teachers Association, is conducted at testing centers throughout the state.

At FHU, 168 students from six area high schools competed. The five areas of competition were Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Pre-calculus, and Calculus. Fayette Academy and the Adamsville, Chester County, Perry, Riverside and Scotts Hill High Schools also participated in the competition. Freed-Hardeman faculty member Jamie Holtin serves as the FHU chair for the competition and supervises grading of the tests; she has been in this position for the last five years.

The top ten tests in each mathematics division from the Freed-Hardeman testing center will be forwarded to the regional chair; after another grading, the top ten regional scores in each division will be sent to the Examinations Director to determine the statewide winners. The FHU testing center also presents awards to the area schools scoring highest in each of the divisions.

The University School of Jackson was the preeminent scorer in all of the mathematics divisions. Top scorers from USJ include Benjamin Coffman, Aisha Suara and Leah Sanders for Algebra I; John Villareal, Akua Nuako and Gouind Bindra for geometry; Benjamin Vargason, Gray Mager and Angad Bindra for Algebra II; Jacob Cohen, Aashray Singareddy and Rachel Harmon for pre-calculus; and Thomas Burton and Kwame Nuako for calculus. Fayette Academy was also represented with Laura Ferguson in the top three for pre-calculus and Daniel Klein for calculus.

All of the top three scorers for the FHU testing center will receive a Certificate of Merit for the contest. They will also be entered into the regional competition for a Certificate of Distinction. If they are among the top three scorers in the region, their scores will go up against the other regional winners to determine the state winners.

School results in the five areas were: Algebra I—USJ, Riverside, Fayette Academy; geometry—USJ, Chester County, Fayette Academy; Algebra II—USJ, Adamsville, Riverside; pre-calculus—USJ, Fayette Academy, Chester County and
calculus—USJ, Scotts Hill, and Riverside.