Fort Bend ISD Students Excel in State Math Counts Competition

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Eighty-nine schools from across the state of Texas participated in the State Math Counts Competition on Saturday, March 28th in Austin, Texas. Sponsored by the Texas Association of Professional Engineers, students competed in complex, high level problem solving.

The Quail Valley Middle School (QVMS) team was awarded first place. Team members were Andrew Liu, Shree Mohan, Ben Wright and Ethan Zahid. Fort Settlement Middle School (FSMS) was awarded second place. Team members were Archer Wang, Eric Wu, Claire Zhou and Akash Karasam. Tradition is that the coach from the first place team is the coach for the state team of four for the National Math Counts to be held in Boston, Massachusetts. This year, coach Isil Nal from QVMS will travel to the event in May.

The top 10 students competed one-on-one to advance to the top four in the countdown round, where Andrew Liu and Allen Zheng placed first and second, and Archer Wang and Eric Wu placed third and fourth. Thus, the team for 2015 representing the state of Texas at the National Math Counts in Boston in May will all be Fort Bend ISD students – two from Quail Valley Middle School and two from Fort Settlement Middle School. The students will be coached by Nal and Gwen Curtice of QVMS and Sherri Phegley of FSMS. The competition will be televised live.

Additionally, at the Houston Chapter Competition in February, both Quail Valley Middle School and Fort Settlement Middle School won first and second, respectively. Congratulations to these outstanding students and coaches!