Many schools, including JFK, often have a special reading promotion. How many have a math promotion? Each year, JFK does something special with math.
This year featured a competition between the homerooms called “Whooooooo’s Adding Up.” The winning homeroom in kindergarten to fourth grade and fifth to eighth grade received a pizza party. Students who completed all of the problems also received a jeans day. Last year, there was a “math bee,” similar to a spelling bee.
Linda Vogel, chair of JFK’s math committee, likes to see the math emphasis in the school. “We’re trying to concentrate on quantitative literacy in classes. We are also trying to express the importance of math.”
In addition to the yearly math promotion, students have special math problems each day that focus on estimation, fractions and multiple-step problem solving. Since these math efforts began, students’ average math scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills at JFK have increased significantly.
