The middle school advanced math track has changed over the past few years. Originally, sixth and seventh graders with adequate scores and a teacher recommendation could take pre-algebra. Now, only seventh grade students with adequate scores can take pre-algebra, delaying the opportunity to take higher level math classes.
Current juniors and senior who had the opportunity to take pre-algebra in sixth grade and remain on the advanced math track throughout middle school and high school have mixed feelings about this change.
Senior Patrick McCool took pre-algebra in sixth grade, which led him to take AP statistics and precalculus his sophomore year, calculus AB his junior year, and is currently taking calculus BC. McCool has taken rigorous math courses, which in turn helped him gain enough confidence to take hard classes in other subjects, while earning college credit.
“One of the main arguments [against the advanced math track] was that there wasn’t as much opportunity when you get to high school because you already taken all the math classes, which isn’t true, because I’ve taken five math classes in high school and I took all the advanced classes in middle school,” McCool said. “So, I mean, there’s plenty of opportunity.”
McCool has a younger brother who is currently in sixth grade, and is stuck on the standard math track.
“He won’t have the same opportunity [as me] unless he doubles up in math like every single year [in high school] to take the classes that I’m taking, which takes away opportunity from other things that he might want to do, like electives.”
A key component for the change was that students were getting challenged, and grades were dropping. McCool believes that having an environment where kids are pushing themselves to be the best they can be is important, and will come with struggles and challenges.
“Failure is okay, that’s the thing. I think what a lot of people are preaching is that kids are going into those advanced classes and struggling. That’s the whole point,” McCool said. “You want them to struggle. You don’t want them to just breeze through high school, you want them to have some failure and some struggle.”
Removing the oppurtunities in middle school math contradicts what other schools in the area are doing, and creates a disconnect for students moving into the district, where they get less opportunities than at their previous school.
Freshman Brennan Williams moved to the Platte County School District going into his seventh grade year. Williams is taking precalculus, a class that students on the current advanced math track wouldn’t be able to take until their junior year.
“Up until the end of sixth grade, I was in the North Kansas City district and enrolled in a gifted program where they were accelerated learning in almost everything, and that just enabled me to be able to take algebra I in sixth grade, and then I just took online courses in seventh and eighth grade,” Williams said.
When Williams started at Platte City Middle School, he had no classesto take at the level of math he was learning. Unlike when McCool was in middle school, Williams could not take geometry in person, and herefore had to enroll online. Even when the previous advanced track was still there, Williams would have had to take algebra II online in his eighth grade year, given how advanced NKCSD is compared to Platte County.
He had to take online classes, which were through a different district. This came with challenges other than just hard math problems.
“There were a lot of complications with schedules and there were a lot of assignments. A lot of our breaks and days off weren’t aligned, so when I would have the day off, they would have like three different assignments due,” Williams said. “And so it was a lot of working at home. It’s just kind of not fun.”
Now that Williams is in high school, he gets the opportunity to learn in a classroom setting again and notices its benefits.
“I think it’s a lot easier [to learn in a classroom], and I feel like it’s a lot easier to ask questions about stuff I struggle with, too, just because I don’t have to wait four hours for a response to an email and I can just ask a teacher,” Williams said.
Williams plans on taking both calculus classes, if his year in precalculus goes smoothly, and is excited to have the option to be challenged in the rest of his high school math classes.
