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It was a banner weekend for the school district, which saw the Mathcounts team take first place in the state, with two students set to represent New York in the national competition, which will be coached by Scarsdale Middle School math teacher Steve Weiss.
Scarsdale eighth grader Richard Xu and sixth grader Eric Wei will represent the district as part of the state’s four-person team that will compete against the best in the country in May.
Continuing the district-wide celebration, eighth grader Dermot Kantor was among the top 100 qualifiers in the New York National Geographic Bee, and will compete again next month in Albany. Kantor was coached by CHOICE Humanities teacher Rob Daly.
Weiss said the students have been hard at work since September, prepping and studying at school and at home to get ready for the statewide competition.
“This is a very special and talented group of students,” Weiss said. “I’m thrilled that all the hard work paid off. The questions were very difficult this year, so we weren’t that comfortable going into the awards presentation.”
Joining Xu and Wei on the Mathcounts team this year were Jonathan Lin, Benjamin Wang, Alan Chung and coach Heidi Kaplan, also a middle school math teacher.
Although the Scarsdale Mathcounts club typically scores among the highest in the state, Weiss said he was nervous until Xu and Wei scored among the top 12 competitors.
“Once they announced the top 12 individuals and Richard and Eric were among them, we knew we would place high, and we knew we had a strong team round,” he said. “They work so well together. When they called our name first, it was very exciting, but I’m not all that surprised. This is the most talented group of students I’ve ever taken to states.”
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