After the RMM (Romanian Masters of Mathematics) results come back, the parochial newspaper's Race to the IMO trackers are updated, and Valerie is in the middle of the pack as it relates to the overall race, and in fourth place in the girls-only leaderboard, and Svitlana behind her. However, nothing is over because half the points are still up for grabs. The much-awaited AIME results arrive, and with the VAs fielding 9 AIME contestants, 5 female and 4 male, the whole family, the whole town even, is eagerly awaiting the results, which are published in the parochial newspaper as well as any USAMO qualifiers.
Upon release of the AIME scores, they discuss the results around the dinner table at night...
"My favorite part of the job as a principal was these morning announcements where I could announce the good things the kids do. So Valerie, the USAMO cutoff is two hundred twenty-four points, for the combination AMC-twelve A and AIME I, you know what this means, you will get to the USAMO. And Faith, too, but Salome narrowly missed it. No one else made it to the USAMO this year" Glen then tells the other two.
"Phew... I guess I will spend senior year among the Venomous Agendas" Valerie then sighs, relieved that she hasn't jeopardized her future on the AIME.
Let's see: 132 + 12*10 = 252 points for Val, 127.5 + 10*10 = 227.5 for Faith. However, this spring, if last year is any indication, Salome, Cristiano and Nicole are going to be our linchpins going into the playoffs. Especially Salome and Nicole, depending on how tired Cristiano is from quiz bowl, because Chantal is going to focus more on extemp this month, Selena wonders how Valerie's teammates' extracurricular schedules would play into the Math Madness playoffs, which start the week after the APMO.
"For the next three weeks, I want you to buckle down with Faith and practice for the APMO (Asia-Pacific Math Olympiad) and USAMO with her!" Glen then yells at Valerie, even though Valerie secured her collegiate financing future.
"But dad, for the past few months, that's the main thing I've been doing day in, day out! Because of this God-forsaken race to the IMO, everyone in town asks me about it whenever results of any given math tournament are released!" Valerie vehemently clamors. "I also have the ACT to worry about!"
"Can you be brave for another three weeks, please? Or more, depending on the Math Madness and possibly the EGMO" Glen asks his daughter before looking at the parish's incomplete application for the Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant Opportunity, as he gets a flash to flesh it out somewhat.
That's insane! Most school districts in the country would be happy to have even 1 EGMO qualifier. The VAs are possibly looking at a third EGMO qualifier in 4 years! Depending on the results of the APMO and the USAMO, of course. But the fact that VA is racking up all the mathletic glory this parish, and the entire state, gets at the high school level, and the rest of the parish can't even get to the AIME, that's one thing I can use to claim that wide achievement inequalities exist among the parochial schools, even though the entire parish is made up of Title I schools! Glen then proceeds to write about all the possible markers the legislature can use to show the need to give the rest of the parish the resources to improve STEM instruction.
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It appears that the rest of the parish mostly used their share of the ESSER money for repairs, instructional technology as well as literacy curricula redesign, and addressing learning losses. So many in the parish deemed technology a priority over other aspects of instruction during those years... and no, technology is not the end of the story to get achievement to improve.
Yet there is one important area that Faith only starts learning about and that Valerie drills her on prior to the APMO. After Valerie arrives at Faith's home, Faith has some news for her about the race to the IMO...
"Valerie, it appears Trent is making me compete in the APMO and I will miss a day of class for it" Faith then tells her.
"Faith, when I first qualified for the USAMO, Trent didn't make me compete in the APMO first. There's one last area that could appear on the APMO and USAMO, but you know next to nothing about: functional equations. I know he wouldn't ask you to do this if he didn't trust you had what it takes to catch up on one day of missed classes, and you will have to miss two more days of classes when the USAMO arrives"
"Math and science classes, no problem. But it's language arts and social studies that worry me more" Faith voices her concerns to her teammate before they start studying functional equations.
People usually pictured mathletes as people who perform well in class across the board. But what people often don't realize, unless you're close to one personally, is the amount of effort required to achieve a certain grade is not uniform across subjects for a given person. There might be social pressure to conform to a certain image when you're a known smart kid, and mathletes get known as such fast, but we don't fight each other over grades, Faith reflects on how she personally lives with the necessity of missing 3 days of classes for math tournaments. And, of course, the few mathletes (2-3 males, depending on the quarter) who fall short of the top 10% mark tended to struggle more in one of language arts and social studies.
Then the pair buckles down and study functional equations, and it appears somewhat rocky for Faith, but she still feels up to it nonetheless. Once the training session ends:
"Here's the plan: this Sunday after mass, we go out and take a past APMO, five problems, under the same conditions as we will be taking the APMO next week. And the weekend before the USAMO, we instead do the last IMO, so we know where we stand" Valerie suggests to Faith.
"Why a past IMO?" Faith asks her captain, doubting its necessity.
"I'm in the race to the IMO, remember? Everyone in the parish questions me about it; It may very well be you next season, too!" Valerie starts losing her cool.
"You think I'm that good? So good that you believe I could make it to the IMO if you don't?" Faith asks, astonished by this seemingly show of excessive faith towards her.
"When I first knew you in middle school, Faith, you had talent, but it was a little raw. Now that you're a more polished mathlete..."
"I believe there is only a handful of schools in the country that have more than one girl at the USAMO, and none of them have two girls or more but no boy in the tournament"
"Faith! Now you sound like someone else!"
"Who?" Faith asks, still astonished about that statement.
"M... Marcia I think?" Valerie answers, shaking on her seat. "Back to the original topic: we agree that we need to practice under the conditions of the actual contest"
"All right, Valerie, you win..."
The one time I ever heard Marcia speak like this was when I was in middle school. It was on the parochial radio when she was asked about how it feels to be juggling quiz bowl and mathletics. She said there just weren't that many people at the HSNCT who had 10 or higher on the AIME. Like 5-10 in any given year, Valerie then gets a flashback of an earlier, happier time before she was propelled into the VAs' spotlight.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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The following day, Glen holds a videoconference with the other principals in the parish while he is about to finalize the parish's applications for the Education Excellence Fund (EEF) and the Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant Opportunity (MSPGO), with a few missing details on the allocation of the money for the year.
"Dear principals, the race to the IMO, in which Venomous Agendas are entered, is a painful reminder of the vast inequalities that exist in the parish with respect to STEM instruction. Let's begin with your needs in that area, be it mathematics or science" Glen begins the meeting.
"Our teachers complain that they want to have the kids conduct experiments but have inadequate equipment to do so" Welsh's principal starts talking.
Other complaints include, beyond a lack of equipment or supplies, a lack of resources to implement after-school remediation and enrichment. And, of course, early childhood intervention for at-risk pre-schoolers. Yet he urges them to think of how urgent the needs are because not all needs are made equal in his mind. And that's precisely what's missing from the earlier versions of the parish's application.
"I feel our case would be stronger for the MSPGO if the Venomous Agendas win the race to the IMO. However, the race to the IMO ends after the deadline for MSPGO money" Glen warns the other principals.
But he feels that Bâton-Rouge won't be very happy to frame the plans of action on the MSPGO or EEF towards getting more students from elsewhere in the parish to compete at higher mathletic levels, not even Lacassine or Elton, which was the old school of a certain Krista. Speaking of Elton, it even discontinued mathletics three years ago. In his mind, Bâton-Rouge would rather see increases on test performance and academic achievement as measured by grades and pass rates over increases in extracurricular achievement. The bulk of the money requested would then go to, well, anyone but VA, and the EEF and MSPGO monies would arrive to the parish at the same time as the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP), which all parishes receive as a block grant from the state at the start of the year, based mostly on enrollment.
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But as the weeks go on, and the 2 VA girls keep chugging along towards the USAMO, Glen can tell these two girls are very, very stressed out. So much that it seemed no amount of solving past IMO questions would help calm their nerves about the USAMO and its implications for the race to the IMO.
"We're down in the home stretch of the race to the IMO, it's still winnable, you're only three points behind sixth place, and, if you keep up the pace, you'll compete at the EGMO as well" Glen then tells Valerie upon receipt of the APMO results the Monday before the USAMO.
"As I expected, Faith doesn't perform as well as you did, after all, it's her first competition at that level. Trent seemed to have thrown her into the deep end" Selena reviews the parochial newspaper's article on the APMO, which is admittedly a little short.
"Remember, Valerie: you will need to play perfectly over the next two days, so that not only you can keep Svitlana away from the EGMO, but also win an IMO berth as well as more money for the parish's school district along with it!"
"As if I didn't have enough pressure from the rest of the parish as it is! Now you must go along and claim that state money for our district schools is on the line, too?" Valerie complains while she always seems to have at the back of her mind the rest of the parish's lack of extracurricular success in the academic arena.
Even with daddy as superintendent, rather than as principal, he won't let go of this toxic idea that the holy grail of the parish is a girl at the IMO! What would daddy accomplish with an IMO contestant under his belt that he can't without? Whatever that is, would the pursuit of mathletic glory in a way analogous to either racehorse ownership or a pro sports general manager be worth sacrificing girls to the altar of the mathletics gods (in a Hindu sense) year after year? Valerie muses, believing that, much like so many in more affluent locales, his father considered a successful child as a marker of parental success.
"I'm going to sleep at Faith's place tonight, I don't think I can sleep well here; you're just adding fuel to the fire. When I started doing mathletics, it was about treating the IMO as some get-into-college-free card, then about bankrolling the school's other academic teams, and now getting additional funding for the whole parish? You must stop treating me as the solution to the parish's educational problems!" Valerie warns her dad before calling Faith's mom on the day prior to the USAMO starting. "In fact, it might be better for me to sleep at Faith's place for the whole duration of that tournament: this home is stressing me out to no end!" Valerie then starts crying.
"If that's what you think is necessary for you to perform at your best on the USAMO... I guess" Glen then nods in approval to this request.
While the USAMO proper didn't seem to be troubling either girl, it's obvious that Faith would not perform as well as Valerie. However, as soon as the USAMO ended, she feels like her mind is no longer working straight. So tired she is by intense mathletic training for months on end that she goes straight to the bed upon returning home that day.
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The following day at lunchtime, the school district's central office staff makes an informal wager on the race to the IMO, using a system like parimutuel to pool the wagered money on three possible outcomes:
"Outcome one: Valerie wins the race to the IMO, outcome two: Valerie does not compete at the IMO but instead competes at the EGMO, outcome three: Valerie does not compete at either one" Glen announces the possible outcomes staff members can place their bets on, and takes note of who wagered how much on what.
The parish personnel only appears to wager the cost of the next round's playoff tickets for the Math Madness at most, which they estimated to be $12. However, they appeared to be mostly optimistic about the USAMO, which makes up one-third of the points of the race to the IMO.
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Yet, stuff such as quiz bowl-State and the NSDA district qualifier (or NSDA-State as so many call it in town) competed with the race to the IMO for the attention of the population. Of course, the VAs won quiz bowl-State in the high school division, even when Mandeville hosted it for the first time in history. And the LQBA hosted both a middle and high school division at State for the first time. The middle school division then finishes second.
As for the VAs' debate team, they achieve the same berths at NSDA Nats as last season, with the main difference being that Daisy made it to the semifinal, losing it.
In the post-USAMO period, the whole family is anxiously awaiting the result from the USAMO, but refrains from talking about it, and Valerie finally catches up on multi-variable calculus as required by the VMC, without a hitch since she solved far more difficult problems in the past 3 years than what she expected to be the hardest problems at the VMC.
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Two weeks after the USAMO ends, the VAs are still in the Math Madness because of Salome and Nicole playing their best, and Cristiano could focus fully on it after the first round. Chantal proved to be mostly a non-factor for the first 2 rounds, while it was clear that, early on, Faith and Valerie were a little slower than in Fall, but still able to contribute nonetheless. At the start of the quarterfinal game, Glen makes an announcement:
"This is Glen Watkins, the parish school district superintendent. Dear parishioners, the race to the IMO gave us a riveting four months of high-level mathletic play from Valerie Watkins. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and this is perhaps the most heartbreaking way possible to lose that race, but Valerie is not going to attend even the EGMO, despite scoring a thirty-four on the USAMO: she lost out on starter status at the EGMO by one measly point, simply because Svitlana Myrosh, playing for Permian, in Texas, which the Venomous Agendas are playing tonight in the quarterfinals of the spring Math Madness, had the USAMO of her lifetime and scored a forty-one. Now, on to the result of our other Venomous Agenda at this tournament, Faith Kingsford, a sophomore, who will attend MOP alongside Valerie!" Glen then hands over the mic to Faith.
"No one would have expected me to score more than Valerie did as a sophomore, I finished only three points behind Valerie, so I scored a thirty-one. May we still have faith for next season and may both Valerie and I enter the race to the IMO next season..." Faith then makes her prayer. "Amen"
Ouch. The race to the IMO will continue for one more season, but now Faith is in the race, too? I wonder if Salome has a grasp of just how much pressure she will be under if she makes it to the USAMO next year, especially if she makes it to MOP, Valerie reflects on the implications of these results, while in the stadium's locker room with the rest of the Venomous Agenda mathletes, waiting on the quarterfinal Math Madness game to begin.
"Once again, we're squaring off against Permian! And once again, we must not let Svitlana and the Panthers win! Justice for Svitlana!" Valerie shouts, while her eyes are about to turn red. "It's not because I lost an EGMO berth and the race to the IMO to them that we will lose here!"