The Upper School Math Department has had an exciting year, with the introduction of a new course and the launch of another course in a new modality. Math for Business and Social Science is now available as a junior/senior elective. Mrs. Vollet has been diving back into her business minor knowledge from over 20 years ago to bring this course to life!

Meanwhile, Statistics Honors is now being offered as a dual credit course through Midland College, taught by Mrs. Wheeler. These additions mean that all of our senior students (and some juniors) now have the opportunity to enroll in a dual credit math class. Our current dual credit offerings include:

In addition to these new academic opportunities, we’ve introduced competitive math exams for Upper School students. This year, we are participating in the Texas State Mathematics League (TXML). The high school competition consists of six exams taken throughout the year, with our team’s score determined by the top five scores from each test. As of January 13, we have completed four of the six exams, with several students participating in all four. Here are the individual top scorers so far:

As a team, we are in 16th place out of 22 teams, competing against some of the most selective private schools in the DFW area. Considering the competitiveness of the league and the fact that we haven’t held formal practices, I’m incredibly proud of our team’s performance! We will also offer an Algebra 1 TXML test sometime after April 15th. This will be open to any student (8th or 9th grade) currently enrolled in Algebra 1. We may also expand our test offerings to grades 4-8. Stay tuned for future announcements in The Charger if you have students in multiple divisions.

Looking ahead, from February 28 to March 3, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics will host the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge. In this competition, teams of 3-5 upper school students work to solve open-ended, real-world math-modeling problems. Scholarships are available for top-performing teams, making this an excellent opportunity for junior and senior students to showcase their skills.

If you’d like more information about our math contests, the MathWorks Modeling Challenge, or any of our course offerings, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Mrs. Carly Vollet at cvollet@trinitymidland.org.