A group of scholars from Success Academy Bronx 2 Middle School made history last Tuesday, February 6, when they became the first-ever team from the SA network to qualify for the annual MATHCOUNTS state tournament in Albany.
A group of scholars from Success Academy Bronx 2 Middle School made history last Tuesday
Facing tough competition from some of the top private and selective public middle schools in New York City, the SA Bronx 2 Middle School team finished third out of ten in the Bronx Chapter Team Round of MATHCOUNTS, an elite national math competition series.
The team is comprised of four eighth graders (above, from left to right): Kamar Farquhar, Isabella Santana, Sneha Johnson, and Dorothea Dwomoh. They were coached by SA Bronx 2 Middle School’s eighth grade math teacher, Karina Mateo (far right).
Though the scholars performed well in individual portions of the competition — Kamar finished in the top six of 40 total participants — their greatest achievement came during the Team Round, which emphasized problem solving and collaboration. Scholars had ten minutes to answer 20 questions covering topics like algebra, geometry, and logic.
“Our scholars are so creative with their mathematics — they’re not just relying on procedural knowledge,” said Karina Mateo, who debuted as a MATHCOUNTS coach this year. “They were able to persevere through challenging problems — some of the hardest problems they’ve ever seen — and figure out solutions to questions they’d never been exposed to before.”
Six other Success Academy middle schools also participated in MATHCOUNTS chapter competitions: SA Harlem East, SA Harlem Central, SA Harlem North Central, SA Harlem North West, SA Harlem West, and SA Bronx 1 Middle School. Scholars were selected for school MATHCOUNTS teams based on their individual performances in a Success Academy internal competition in January. They relied only on their in-school learning for the competition, rather than any individual preparation.
In March, the team from SA Bronx 2 Middle School will head to Albany for the state competition, and then — if they qualify — to Washington D.C. for the national championship in May.
Congratulations to the participating Success Academy middle schools for strongly representing our network, and to SA Bronx 2 Middle School for their outstanding performance!
