Students have been taking math classes over the summer so they can “skip” a level of math at PHS and get ahead.

Students had the option to skip sixth grade math and go directly into Pre-Algebra. An increasingly greater number of students are now following that path.

In addition, in seventh grade the math class was split into Intro to Algebra and Algebra I, based on the student’s grade in Pre-Algebra. In order for the student to move up to Algebra I, they had to have at least an A- and a test average of at least 85%. Students that were not able to get into Algebra I have also taken summer classes as an opportunity to “catch up” with the rest of their class.

In the future, it will be less of an issue because the standards have been lowered, allowing students to enter Algebra I with a B- and a test average of 60%.

Junior Irvin Xu skipped both sixth grade math and Math Analysis, making him two levels ahead of the average math student.

“Part of the reason why I felt the need to get ahead was this natural feeling of competition at our school,” he said.

Junior Ben Shotton took Math Analysis last summer through the Academic Talent Development Program (ATDP) at UC Berkeley.

He decided to skip Math Analysis because his current math class felt easy, he wanted to take Calculus BC in high school, and he wanted Calculus teacher Edmund Mahoney as a teacher.

“I’d recommend it if whoever is interested feels they can sacrifice six weeks of their summer vacation for some intense math course,” he said. “It’s a lot of work, but I felt it was worth it.”

Shotton had about seven hours of homework per class, three classes a week, he said. This intense workload greatly prepared him for Calculus AB, he said.

“I felt I was over prepared for Calc AB, which felt like a lot of review for a while, up until we finished differentiation,” he said.

Junior Sierra Yeh skipped Math Analysis through the Alameda Community College, but was not as prepared for Calculus AB as Shotton was.

“You’re busy all summer,” she said. “You may not learn the material as strongly or it may not be ingrained into your memory as well and then you fall behind in the advanced class.”

Yeh said she thinks other people in her Calculus AB class understand the material better than her and does not recommend people to take the Alameda Community College course.

Similarly, Mahoney does not recommend students to skip math levels.

“It’s better to take a class over the course of the whole school year and not cram it into a summer, but there’s good and bad for everything you do,” he said. “You’re cramming a lot of material into a short period of time and that’s probably not the best way to learn things.”

Xu agrees that taking math classes over the summer is not the right choice for everyone.

“I only recommend people to skip if they already have a strong foundation in math, in part because the math classes outside of PHS don’t fully cover all the topics that a math class at PHS would cover,” he said.

Due to the increased number of people “getting ahead” in math, the math department started offering a Calculus BC four years ago, for students to take after taking Calculus AB.

“It looks good on your transcript to take a class like [Calculus BC] and do fairly well in it, and so far the students that have gotten there are very capable, interested students,” Mahoney said. “[Calculus BC] is a class of what should be elite students and I’d like it to stay that way.”