Revere High School placed first in the Ohio Math League Math Contests (OMLMC) for three of the past five years and is currently ranked third over 52 other teams in Ohio.
Revere students compete against students from across the state in six Ohio Math League Contests once a month from October through March. In each contest, the students complete six questions testing their knowledge and skills in different areas of mathematics, with each question counting for one point.
Joanne Gillette, the teacher and advisor for OMLMC grades the questions by hand. The top five scores added together comprise the team’s score for that contest.
Neal Pannala, a junior who has competed in the Ohio Math for six years highlighted the community aspect of the club.
“I would argue that Ohio Math isn’t really about the math problems. It’s about coming together with a bunch of different people trying your best against a common enemy,” Pannala said.
Gillette enjoys that the students help and offer encouragement to each other on difficult math problems.
“I like working with young people. That is why I became a teacher is to work with students like that,” Gillette said.
Camryn Bir, a regular participant in the math contests, felt the impact of Gillette’s engagement.
“I’m really thankful for everything that she [Gillette] does for the program. She really worked so hard to make it what it is, and she truly cares about all her students,” Bir said.
Eddie Liu, another long time participant in the Ohio Math Contests, said that students do not need to have great math skills to participate in the competitions.
”There’s always questions that are easy, there’s always ones that are challenging. So at the end of the day anyone can take them, anyone can do well on them,” Liu said.
While the competitors saw tremendous success, the competitions also show why math is fun. The competitions give students the fulfillment of winning and overcoming a problem, which makes it fun.
”It shows that math is interesting, math is fun, and that completing a difficult or challenging math question gives a lot of satisfaction to the students,” Gillette said.
The next competitions take place on February 13 and March 12, and anyone can participate at any time.
