The School District of Lee County is proud to announce the Dunbar High School math team finished 5th in the nation at the Mu Alpha Theta National Convention. Dunbar also won two team awards and had seven students finish in the top ten of the competition’s various categories.
“I am so proud of the Dunbar High Math Team as well as Coach Phil Savage for capturing 5th place in the United States,” said Dunbar High School Principal Carl Burnside. “As a former math team coach myself, I truly understand the dedication and hard work that is required of both math students (or “mathletes” as I call them) and math coaches to have such success on the national level. Dunbar High is proud that it is representing not just Lee County but all of Southwest Florida as the premiere math team. We continue to set the standard for excellence in STEM education not just in Lee County but Florida.”
In the Team Competition, Dunbar High School’s Theta team finished 6th in the nation. Theta level is for students who have completed Geometry and/or Algebra II but have not been enrolled in a higher-level mathematics course. Team members are Isabel Liu, Thi Phan, Dylan Melillo, and Nate Caves. The Alpha Team, for students who have completed math courses above Algebra II but have not been enrolled in Calculus, finished 7th in the nation. Team members are Jaansi Parsa, Advaith Menon, Ben Hamilton, and Andrew Chaung-Saladin.
In two other group competitions, the Dunbar relay team made up of Isabel Liu, Advaith Menon, and Carson Mulvey finished 6th. In the Relay competition, each team member works on their own math problem and earns points for finding the correct answers. Dunbar’s Hustle team of Jaansi Parsa, Isabel Liu, Jakob Musich, and Carson Mulvey finished in 5th place. In the Hustle competition there are five rounds of five minutes each and 125 problems to solve.
In the individual topics, the following students placed in the top ten:
- Isabel Liu
- 2nd overall in nation at Theta (Algebra 2) level; 2nd in Equations & Inequalities; 2nd in Theta Ciphering; 2nd place in Theta Applications; 7th in place in 3D Geometry; 8th in Speed Math
- Thi Phan
- 5th in Logarithms, 5th in Chalk Talk; 5th in Matrices and Determinants,
- Jaansi Parsa
- 9th in Analytic Geometry; 15th in Matrices and Vectors
- Zach Burkett
- 8th in Open Codes and Ciphers
- Carson Mulvey
- 3rd place in Discreet Mathematics Calculus Division; 9th in Comprehensive Math
- Nate Caves
- Esteban Aguinaga
- Coach Phil Savage
- 7th Place in Sponsors Speed Math
Mu Alpha Theta is the National High School and Two-Year College Mathematics Honor Society. Accredited high schools must offer at least two years of algebra and one year of geometry, or their equivalent, a minimum of one year of more advanced mathematics and have a math teacher whose undergraduate degree is in mathematics. Students can become members after completing the equivalent of two years of college preparatory mathematics, including algebra and/or geometry, and have completed or are enrolled in a third year of college preparatory mathematics. The name Mu Alpha Theta was constructed from the Greek lettering for the phonemes m, a, and th.