With the gradual implementation of Common Core at Piedmont schools, the Math Task Force will be providing recommendations and research on the math curriculum to the School Board in February and March.

Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Randall Booker leads the Math Task Force, a group of teachers, students and parents, in their monthly meetings.

“The Math Task Force was established to facilitate Common Core changes and improve the pathways students can take in the math curriculum,” Booker said.

A major goal for the Math Task Force is finding multiple pathways to AP Calculus AB and BC for students interested in advancing ahead in the curricumlum.

“In the old system, the only place for students to accelerate and be able to eventually take Calculus BC was in sixth grade,” Booker said.

Students who want to skip ahead later on would have to take summer classes, but there should be opportunities to do so in school, Booker said.

“If a student matured later on in math skills and wanted to skip ahead, the school should be able to provide those courses,” Booker said.

In order to help students accelerate in math, the Math Task Force wants to create compression opportunities in the middle school and high school curriculums. Compressing classes would allow students to accelerate forward by taking three years’ worth of classes in two years, Booker said.

“Currently under Common Core at the middle school, all students go through the Common Core classes, with no chance to accelerate,” Booker said. “We hope that adding more compressed courses will bring more flexibility to students to advance further.”

In recent meetings, the Math Task Force has been focused on determining which pathway to use in the high school math curriculum, principal Brent Daniels said.

“Right now, we are trying to evaluate both the traditional pathway as well as the integrated math pathway,” Daniels said.

The current traditional math pathway involves math classes being taught by topic, such as one year of Geometry and then one year of Algebra 2, with each class teaching separate material.

“Under the integrated pathway, we would have courses that build upon each other, with each course covering multiple concepts, like a little bit of Geometry and a little bit of Algebra 2, each year,” Daniels said. “In order to figure out courses to compress, we need to first figure out which of these pathways to take.”

Sophomores Polina Dorfman-Su and Isabella Schwarz are student representatives from Millenium High School in the Math Task Force.

“Our current focus right now is helping decide which pathway best matches what students want,” Dorfman-Su said. “At meetings, we break off into group discussions about the pros and cons of each pathway.”

In discussions, student representatives contribute their thoughts to the Task Force.

“Personally, I like the traditional pathway, but we have to balance student and teacher thoughts,” Dorfman-Su said.

Schwarz agrees that sticking to the traditional pathway is easier and less of a hassle.

“There would be a lot of work involved if we switch to the integrated pathway, such as new teacher training,” Schwarz said.