Friday, May 23, 2014

Mathalete Russell from Southwest


 

Congrats to Russell Pekala from SWHS.  The following note is from David McMayer:

Thought you might like to know that Minneapolis Math League has one current student, Russell Pekala, and one former student (Linxin (Leo) Jiang, who was part of Team Edison last year) who have been selected to represent Minnesota on the All-State Math Team at the Midwest ARML competition at the end of May.

 

Because of the continuing success of recent teams, Minnesota has been granted spots for four teams - three will compete in division A and one will compete in division B. Each team is comprised of 15 students ranging from grade 7 to grade 12. 

 

Over the last four weeks, we have held training sessions/practices at Macalaster College and Wayzata High School. The competition for the final sixty spots was fairly intense. The 75 students who were invited to participate in the training sessions were VERY mathematically talented. I felt pretty small as a mathematician among the group. At least I am good at bringing cookies and other treats.

 

Also noteworthy, Jim Walker is also one of the assistant coaches for the current team. Jim was a resident teacher with the St. Thomas Program who completed his student teaching at Roosevelt in about 2001 or 2002. Next year, Jim is taking over the duties of the head coach on the All-State Math Team. I will likely continue on as an assistant coach nest year.

 

This opportunity has really opened my eyes to what what students are capable of when they are encouraged to push themselves quite a bit harder. We certainly have some work to do with some of the best and brightest math students in our district. Let's not lose sight of these important groups of students at each school.

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