Wealthier PTAs can afford to give grants to cover teachers who sponsor extracurriculars. Some pandemic funding that had provided a nice bump for that kind of thing fell off a cliff this year. Also, even if a parent runs a club/activity, there typically still needs to be a staff sponsor.

Some folks are oblivious to this or other realities, thinking that funding comes from central, that teachers have all this extra time to donate (though some very generous ones do), or that kids tend to come up with academic club ideas themselves, instead of those being more family driven, with awareness, itself, tending to come from prior years' implementations.

There *are* kids at places without Mathcounts who would be interested, but without all *schools* making academic extracurriculars a priority (some don't even make them suggestions for what *could* be an option to ascertain interest), it's a chicken and egg thing, in addition to a family resource thing, and they're left out in the cold. Those suggesting they don't exist or somehow should be fine with less are willfully ignorant or engaging in schadenfreude.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

Not true. We have kids into math at our school. We do pretty well at Science Olympiad and Robotics competitions. But there's no teacher sponsor for math club/team anymore (yes I have asked repeatedly).

I don't think we have ever done math counts as a school before. It's lack of staff time. The science Olympiad teacher's done it for a decade; the robotics team is run by a parent actually. When I asked the department head, she asked me if I'd like to run math club/team! Lol. I am actually considering it for next year actually because I *am* in stem, and I did do math competitions as a kid. So not totally ignorant but not at all a teacher and wouldn't really know how to start.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

Not true. We have kids into math at our school. We do pretty well at Science Olympiad and Robotics competitions. But there's no teacher sponsor for math club/team anymore (yes I have asked repeatedly).

Then it’s lack of interest from teachers to sponsor the math team. It takes considerable personal time to be a math teacher sponsor (evenings and weekends). But your school has science teachers who’re willing to sacrifice personal time to sponsor science Olympiad team. Maybe simply because the past performance on math competition is not giving the math teachers hope to justify the sacrifice of their personal time?

That's one possibility but the more likely one is a lack of student interest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

Not true. We have kids into math at our school. We do pretty well at Science Olympiad and Robotics competitions. But there's no teacher sponsor for math club/team anymore (yes I have asked repeatedly).

Then it’s lack of interest from teachers to sponsor the math team. It takes considerable personal time to be a math teacher sponsor (evenings and weekends). But your school has science teachers who’re willing to sacrifice personal time to sponsor science Olympiad team. Maybe simply because the past performance on math competition is not giving the math teachers hope to justify the sacrifice of their personal time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

Not true. We have kids into math at our school. We do pretty well at Science Olympiad and Robotics competitions. But there's no teacher sponsor for math club/team anymore (yes I have asked repeatedly).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

God forbid schools encourage students to get more involved in learning math.

If math team students even spent 50% of the effort kids made for sports like football, the future of this country would look very different.

It never works out when math interested students are accused of being heavily prepped from outside and deprived from getting opportunities of gifted education at school. So no wonder this country is going downhill.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

God forbid schools encourage students to get more involved in learning math.

If math team students even spent 50% of the effort kids made for sports like football, the future of this country would look very different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are A++ Binders and why would you need them on the day of the test?

A++ is some expensive prep thing that families in Western moco often invest heavily in to help their kids to present as gifted.

So you don't know what it is but you make up stories about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

God forbid schools encourage students to get more involved in learning math.

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Math team is a student club. If their middle schools don’t have math team then it just means there isn’t enough interest from students in the school to run a club. It’s nothing to do with polarization. They just have different interests.

Anonymous wrote:Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

I don't know. Maybe not everyone is into maths. Maybe upcountry kids are more into sports or something else and that's okay.

Poor kids in the upper county. Their middle schools don't even have math teams!
This shows how polarized this society is. Sigh!

Anonymous wrote:What are A++ Binders and why would you need them on the day of the test?

A++ is some expensive prep thing that families in Western moco often invest heavily in to help their kids to present as gifted.

What are A++ Binders and why would you need them on the day of the test?

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so sad. Mathcounts is great and instead of just celebrating all the kids who participated, this thread is just using it to bash and complain. Kids, if you are reading, I think you’re all wonderful. Every mathlete is a champion because anyone who loves math enough to compete is already a winner. Super corny, but really true.

DCUM may be a toxic cesspool, but it's our toxic cesspool!