By Molly Lovell
Editor
     It’s common to read about middle and high school sports teams in the local newspaper, but another type of team sometimes goes unnoticed – the community’s academic teams.
     Jean Kelley has been coaching the Scarborough Middle School Math Team for 11 years and can tout 28 first place awards, 25 second place awards and 12 third place awards.
     “We don’t have uniforms or cheerleaders like sports teams, but this is something that has been a vibrant part of our middle school,” Kelley said.
     All middle school students are offered math enrichment opportunities in their regular math instruction. Students wanting to hone their skills further are invited to join a weekly seminar where Kelley teaches problem solving skills.
     These students can then enter what’s called Math Olympiads. It’s a program where students meet three times a month to practice, and once a month take a five-question Math Olympiad test online. Points are earned throughout the school year and tallied during the first week of April. More than 100,000 schools worldwide participate in the program.
     “It’s great for students who love math and don’t have anywhere else to take that passion and do something with it,” Kelley said.
     As if that were not enough, students are invited to join Scarborough Middle School’s traveling math team. Students prepare once a week after school for monthly competitions. They learn skills for solving arithmetic and geometry problems individually. They then form teams of six and work together to solve multi-step problems.
     Each grade level will form a six-member team to send to competition. “The process is repeated each month so there is some degree of flexibility if you are committed to another activity and are not able to make all the practices,” Kelley said.
     Peggy Endrizzi’s son Mark was on this year’s eighth grade winning math team and her 18-year-old son, Doug, was in Kelley’s gifted and talented program when he attended Scarborough Middle School.
     Endrizzi said Kelley has a unique way of engaging kids and motivating them when it comes to math. “She has all these tricks to make it practical to kids and she can recognize each child’s learning style, which is interesting,” Endrizzi said.
     Kelley said roughly one dozen students participated in the math team during its early years. Now the team attracts 60 to 80 kids a year.
     “I think being a member of the math team is no longer social suicide. Most participants are athletes, musicians, dancers and just ordinary adolescents,” she said.
     Any student in the building is eligible to join the program. Kelley said she tries to find ways to make problem solving fun for her students. “As long as they’re having fun, the learning takes place on its own.”
     Kelley said joining the math team is a way for students to reinforce what they’re learning in the classroom. She also finds that such students score higher on SAT’s. “There is a direct relationship between sweat equity and performance.”
     Endrizzi’s son Doug is now home in Scarborough after finishing his freshman year at Yale. He said it was Kelley’s ability to teach math what made it “a blast” for him, a word not often associated with the subject.
     “She gave me so much confidence as a student and that was really what was most important and needed,” he said.
     The math team doesn’t have any sort of booster club to support them. Kelley said the backing of parents in the community has been so strong over the years that forming a club has never had to be a priority.  She also said the support network at Scarborough Middle School is strong in that staff meet regularly to find out what one another is doing.
     Kelley said people don’t realize how large and well attended math meets have become. “When we went to a competition at the Portland Expo there were 700 kids there and not one person from the media was present. It’s really disappointing because people have so many different talents.”
     Kelley said she thinks about her students as a new generation of future leaders. “I am awed by their enthusiasm for learning. They invigorate and inspire me to be a better teacher,” she said.