On a recent Saturday afternoon, 32 of Poly’s Middle School students were not playing video games on their screens, but instead were participating in the first Trinity Middle School Virtual Math Competition.

Most of the eight Poly teams who participated on May 30 were made up of students from more than one grade level to collaborate on problems.

Poly Middle School math teacher Stephen Bates said the competition was organized by students at Trinity. “They did so to keep the mathematics passion alive in students,” Bates said.

“It was tough to work on the competition without really being with anyone,” said sixth grader Lucas P-W. ’26. “My teammates and I each worked on a separate problem. My favorite part of the competition was that the problems were quite difficult, and competing virtually was intriguing because that was a real challenge.” He added, “Virtual math class is harder than regular math because it is easier to write and see on a physical whiteboard than a virtual one.”

“Their maturity and sportsmanship—or ‘mathsmanship,’ if you will—really came through big time!”

Stephen Bates

After the competition, Bates said, “The experience was overall good. After a few technology hiccups at the beginning, all of the students worked collaboratively in their groups to solve some pretty challenging problems.  It was amazing to see students of different grade levels work together collectively, to bounce ideas off of one another, and to provide explanations to their peers to clarify a response.  Their maturity and sportsmanship—or ‘mathsmanship,’ if you will—really came through big time!”

The eight Poly teams included: