Whitney Tilson's School Reform Blog: Charter school math tournament in NYC

Kudos to Seth Andrew and Democracy Prep for starting this math tournament -- sign your school up by the end of this week!

From: Seth Andrew
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 7:17 PM
To: Amanda Simson
Subject: Invitation to Math Competition @ Democracy Prep Charter School

Charter school friends and colleagues,

Earlier this year, Democracy Prep competed in our first inter-scholastic competition called Math Counts, a national math program in which middle-school students compete on advanced math problems. Our scholars were the only 6^th graders, some of the few students of color, and the only charter school out of the 40 New York public and private schools represented. When we returned, our amazing Math teacher and coach, Amanda Simson, decided to host our own Charter School tournament to both celebrate our students and to help prepare our scholars for the regional competitions next year.

We’d like to invite your school to participate in the 5^th & 6^th grade tournament this year to be held on May 12^th at Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem. As this will be the first tournament of its kind, we want to keep it simple so we can grow and, in time, we hope that other charter schools will host similar tournaments.

Please read the details below about the competition and forward it to the appropriate school leader, math teacher, or math coach at any charter school with grades 5 and/or 6. The more participants, the more fun we’ll have. Please RSVP to Asimson@democracyprep.org by April 27^th to ensure that we have all the necessary trophies and supplies ready for May 12^th.

We hope you will chose to participate in this friendly competition and to make it the first of many academic tournaments in the charter school community.

Best regards,

Seth Andrew

WHAT: Middle School Math Competition for 5^th and 6^th grade teams

WHEN: May 12^th, 2007 from 9am-2pm

WHERE: DPCS Auditorium at PS92, 222 West 134^th street, (Near the B,C,2, or 3 Trains)

WHO: Up to two teams of 4 students from each school (8 students total).

WHY: To promote and celebrate math excellence in New York area Charter Schools.

HOW (much): $50 per team of 4 students to cover breakfast, lunch, and prizes

HOW (to prepare): Visit www.mathcounts.org or http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=510&z=29

Schedule:

9:00- Arrival & Continental Breakfast Served

9:15- Introduction of schools, teams, and hosts and welcome

9:30 - Individual/sprint competitions

10:15- Break

10:30- Team competition

11:30- Break and Pizza Lunch Served

12:30- Guest Speaker (TBD)

1:00- Oral countdown competition for highest ranked individual competitors.

1:30 - Trophy ceremony for individuals and teams, participation ribbons for all.

2:00- Teams depart DPCS

Math and scoring logistics:

There will be separate individual and group rounds. At the end of the day there will be individual awards based on the countdown round and there will be school awards based on the team round.

The individual round will be similar to MathCounts sprint round questions (link below). There can be up to eight students entered for the individual round.
The team round will be similar MathCounts target round questions (link below). Each school can enter up to two teams. The team round will average the two team scores. Teams can be up to four children.
The countdown round will be similar to MathCounts countdown round questions. These will be oral questions, presented on PowerPoint, for the top 10 individual competitors from the morning activities. The countdown round will decide the ranking of the top ten individuals.

· The teachers making the competition problems will be from a non-competing private school and will be based on the past MathCounts annual competition questions.

Seth Andrew, Ed.M.

Founder & Head of School

Democracy Prep Charter School

222 W. 134^th St. NYC, NY 10030