On the last day prior to the mid-year exams, the school's administration makes an announcement at the beginning of the day about the exemplary performance of the Venomous Agendas on the AMC12, as well as the other participants at this competition that were not part of the math team. And there were a lot of them.
"Good morning, today the results achieved by our own on the AMC-twelve are released and, in the face of a record participation, it happens to be the year where several school records are broken. First, the individual record, previously set last year, is now one hundred thirty-three point five. And the team record has been beaten, with three hundred and eighty-one points for our best three participants! We also set a new record for the largest number of AIME qualifiers, with ten students qualified for the second phase of the competition. Also, the math team organizes its Christmas dinner on December twenty-fourth, with tickets sold for twenty dollars"
He reviews the manifest of the school's scores, realizing that its strong performance at the AMC12 further cements its position as a mathletic powerhouse in the state. He's happy that so many students were able to do well, and not just people on the math team. And most strikingly, there are 2 features of this year's AIME field that made it so different from previous years' AMC12 fields.
"Last year, we only had two AIME participants, both female, one of which is playing still. This year we even have a football player at the AIME; in past years, football players tended to balk at the AMC-twelve" Glen thinks out loud.
"Boss, your obsession for mathletics is becoming unhealthy. I'm happy for the math team, don't get me wrong, but it seems a bit much" the secretary points out to him.
It's now that I realize that what I made Catalena endure in sophomore year turned her off from mathletics. However, there is a fourth girl at the AIME: there already were the "Big Three" of Gen, Krista and Marcia, but there was Jennifer, too. A sophomore. Everyone else at the AIME was playing at the Math Madness, he reflects on the difference mathletics made between then and now.
However, if the reaction to the usage of Math Madness playoff questions for extra credit is any indication, it would make no sense to make the AIME available for extra credit. Especially not since the majority of playoff questions were similar in level to questions on the first half of the AIME.
And he also reviews the evolution in the student body's math proficiency since he made mathletics the main thrust of the school's extracurriculars, noticing that making mathletics aspirational to the students, especially with local role models, made students work harder in math, but it certainly didn't explain everything to him. Making the real-world uses of the material clear also helped some, too. And stronger math proficiency also appeared to have helped in science, too.
-----------------------
Around the dinner table that night, he feels the need to tell the rest of the family about his plans for Valerie.
"When I started out as a principal, I inherited a school that was underperforming in math. I stopped announcing any kind of athletic results but it wouldn't have been possible without the risk taken by the math team. However, the mathletic success we currently enjoy, to be sustained, requires mathletics to be cultivated in middle school, too" Glen explains to his family.
"You only said your predecessor was too focused on sports" Selena complains about not being told the whole truth.
"Daddy, working these problems from the Math Madness and the AMC-twelve made me work so much harder than I ever needed to in a middle school class" Valerie then makes her observations.
"You have a better idea of how hard high school mathletics is now. Of course not many people would even compete at that level, but three years from now, it may very well be you that people in this town will admire" Glen tries to encourage his daughter but instead sends her in a tailspin.
Why me and not Chantal? Valerie harbors doubts about why her father believed that she would take center stage over her current classmates going forward. Chantal is way more advanced than I when it comes to social studies, especially in international geopolitics, she will probably become the star player on the debate team at some point. She's even smarter than I am... but mathletics was a poor fit for her despite being as accelerated as I am. As for Daisy? She doesn't have even my intellectual intensity, let alone Chantal's...
While elsewhere in this region, people tended to dislike mathletics, and academic teams in general fly under the radar, here, not so much, Selena reflects on the state of mathletics elsewhere in the region.
"But to get there, you need to do well at the AMC-twelve and the AIME even in freshman year. Considering the problems I gave you during the playoffs, you should be in a good position for the AMC-eight" Glen sermons his daughter.
"You said it so yourself that I should have a good idea of how hard mathletics is going to be as a VA. Of course, the AMC-eight is not going to be like the Math Madness or the AIME!" Valerie retorts, realizing that past AMC8 questions didn't seem to trouble her at all.
"How do you think the neighboring parish is approaching this tournament?" Selena asks the family.
The school Venomous Agenda fans call the neighboring parish is, yes, in a neighboring parish (Allen Parish to its north) but recently started doing mathletics, quiz bowl and debate on top of FFA and 4-H. However, while, by Louisiana standards, it's a strong mathletics school, in debate and quiz bowl, they always get crushed against the VAs in either one.
"Mathletics fly under the radar there. They don't care about how their own perform. Have you been at the Duel of the Parishes at the beginning of the season?" Valerie asks her parents.
"The neighboring parish only had the mathletes' parents, and we filled the rest of the auditorium" Glen answers his daughter's question.
"I hope you realize by now that the obsession for mathletics has created some rifts in the local community" Selena points out. "The novelty of mathletics has worn off and I don't think people will keep supporting mathletics!"
Glen then turns to his wife, while Valerie instead leaves the scene to rehearse music. "Just see this season through, honey"
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"I believe you have been too hard on Valerie. You kept giving her math problems that are not age-appropriate for her!" Selena keeps arguing over Glen having given, for all of November, math problems from past AMC12 and AIME editions, alongside Math Madness questions, for Valerie to solve.
"What do you mean, these things are not age-appropriate for her? She's clearly strong enough to handle high school math!"
"The size of the jump must not be underestimated between MOEMS/AMC-eight and even AMC-twelve, let alone AIME/Math Madness playoffs!"
"When you want to nurture mathletic talent, sometimes you have no choice but to push the envelope of what the kid can do beyond what would be age-appropriate! She's very advanced, and for my vision for the school to remain viable long-term we need constant access to home-grown role models for the student body, and if it means Valerie, so be it! Surely you know that students are often very influential in other students' lives at this phase, and they don't last forever in school!"
And sometimes peers are even more influential on students than teachers are. But this calls into question who else could serve as a mathletic role model for Valerie's incoming high school class.
"If not Valerie, I wonder who could be mathletic role models for the incoming high school class next year, especially since the Big Three will all graduate this school year?" Selena asks her husband.
"At this point, Jennifer is the most likely candidate. But if we focus solely on next year's incoming high school class, because, after all, Jennifer is two years older than Valerie..."
"Who?" Selena's face is about to turn red from being on the defensive.
"Our middle school's best two female mathletes are Valerie and Daisy, in that order. Daisy is good, at least by southwest Louisiana standards, but she is showing signs of burnout, which leaves us with our daughter"
But everything I know about our middle school's mathletics come from Valerie and her teammates so I must take this with a grain of salt, Selena thinks about what she knew about the local middle school's mathletics team.
"The middle school has even more limited extracurricular budgets compared to the high school, and, at the middle school level, this region is, practically speaking, an EC desert. People don't think much of middle school ECs here" Selena adds. "Anna then?"
"Anna didn't seem like the kind of girl who would have liked mathletics that much. As far as I'm concerned, Anna is more of the kind of girl who would prefer band or quiz bowl" Glen then seems to have other plans for her.
"Anna and Chantal both seemed to be more of the kind of girls who would prefer either quiz bowl or debate to mathletics" Selena then shares her observations, knowing there are 4 girls who stand out intellectually from the rest of the middle school class.
"But my point stands: Valerie is our middle school's best mathlete and should be groomed for high school mathletics!"
"For you, students, especially those with special academic talents, are treated as cards with a shelf life!"
"The shelf-life part I understand. But why is it that I seem to treat kids like cards in a poker hand?" Glen asks his wife, while having flashbacks of the last pandemic year.
First Catalena, now my wife, too? It's not the first time I was told I am using students like cards in a poker game! I might have vision, but students are key to realizing it! Most students don't seem to complain, though, Glen reflects while he gets flashbacks of Catalena accusing him of using students in what she termed his own poker game.
-----------------------
Fast-forward to late January 2024. Whereas last year, there was hype surrounding the then-SRA, this year, there seemed not to be, judging by the much more muted reaction to the morning announcement related to the results of the state phase of the VMC.
"Good morning, everyone! We successfully defended our state title at the Vans Math Contest, formerly known as the Square Root of the Answer! The VMC contestants are summoned to the mathematics department office with their shoe sizes, and they will receive their prizes in one or two business days" the principal announces on the intercom.
This time around, there is not nearly as much excitement over the results at the VMC, it's as If the local community treated the state phase as a formality with the team's roster. By then, however, the parish media floated the idea that Gen and Krista would be the parish's beacons of mathletic hopes, and maybe even the whole state's, but for a different tournament: the EGMO, or European Girls Mathematical Olympiad, the premier girls-only international mathematics competition. And, with it, the International Mathematical Olympiad, or IMO.
What no one in the parish realizes is that EG/IMO participants tended to be at the USAMO at least twice, and often thrice, during their high school careers and then both Gen and Krista would clearly be outliers. In a sense, the VAs already are outliers since they are by far the worst school in the EG/IMO discussion.
However, long before Gen and Krista could even get within range of the EG/IMO, or even the USAMO, there was still one hurdle to cross. Marcia will face the strongest headwinds going into the AIME, she is at a 2-point disadvantage and therefore she has an outside chance at the USAMO at best. People will know about us nationwide if any one of them makes it to the EG/IMO... But was Marcia playing anywhere else in the state, she would have been the star mathlete. Around the dinner table that night, which is pretty much the only moment they have to be together as a family by now...
"Rumor has it that Gen and Krista both aim for 11 points on the AIME, and, if historical trends are anything to go by, Marcia will need to score at least that many points. Do you feel like it's realistic for all three to qualify?" Glen asks the rest of the family.
"Marcia will need to have a very good tournament to get to the USAMO. I hope she is psychologically prepared if she falls short. Krista proved time and time again that, when she's on her game, she performs almost identically to Gen, and maybe because of Gen" Selena points out, having watched all the Math Madness games at school.
"Gen therefore represents our best bet to make it to the USAMO and, hopefully, to the EGMO or IMO. But don't underestimate the other two. Marcia is a very intellectually nimble person, as far as I know her" Glen warns the other two before turning to Valerie. "Sorry for not asking you about it earlier, but how do you feel about the AMC-eight?"
"No trouble for me at all, and neither did the MOEMS round three" Valerie answers her father. "Making me do Math Madness and AMC-twelve problems paid off here"
The main difference is that I don't expect Daisy to perform as well as I did on the AMC8, simply because she balked at using AMC12 problems and up to practice, Valerie reflects on this tournament and what she expects out of her teammates. Maybe one or two of my mathlete teammates might have done old AMC8s or even AMC12s. But Math Madness or AIME? If they had siblings playing in either... most of my teammates would be entertained by that kind of problems, yet would not attempt to solve these themselves. After all, they feel they're not ready for that yet.
"The rest of the season is made up of two more MOEMS rounds and that's pretty much it. AMC-eight was harder. The hardest is therefore already done" Valerie keeps commenting on her own mathletic season.
"Remember when I told you about what to expect from high school mathletics?" Glen reminds her.
While I don't expect much from Randy, how many schools would even have a football player competing at the AIME? They certainly exist, but I don't think there's a whole lot of these. Probably no other school in the state. In Louisiana, there aren't a whole lot of schools even competing at the AMC12 and footballers often balk at it. But, if Daisy is any indication, should we fail to get to the USAMO, the humanities and social studies faction will score a major victory and they will push for debate and quiz bowl, or just to gut mathletics. I don't want the infrastructure I built during my entire tenure as a principal to vanish! Glen ruminates while he realizes the VAs' mathletes are going to have their hands full with preparing for the AIME and the VMC final. As such he expects the Big Three to focus on the AIME and everyone else to focus on the VMC final.
Yet it dawns upon him that he might be forced to alter his vision, and maybe even forced out of office, should the VAs fail to make it to the USAMO.