On Saturday, May 2, at Truman Middle School, students from around the South Sound area will compete in the annual Washington State Middle School Math Olympiad. The Math Olympiad is a statewide team-based competition sponsored by the Washington State Math Council (WSMC) where teams of three or four students compete at grade levels fifth through eighth.
Teams are recognized for having achieved at the levels superior, excellent, very good or good in each of six test components. These are a long-session problem and five short-session problems in the content areas of number sense, probability and statistics, measurement, geometric sense and algebraic sense.
Truman Middle School has hosted the competition for South Sound area schools since 2003. The Truman event has grown every year and is expected to be the largest site statewide with approximately 75 teams competing this year. The Tacoma Public Schools (TPS) also participated in the Bethel competition, hosted at C. H. Thompson Elementary School. Participation from TPS schools has increased every year to include teams from Giaudrone, Jason Lee, Meeker, Stewart and Truman middle schools, and Sheridan, Wainwright and Washington-Hoyt elementary schools.
For more information on the Middle School Math Olympiad, visit www.wsmc.net/olympiad or contact the state coordinator and Truman site organizer, Dr. Elly Claus-McGahan, at 253.219.9129.