SCHOOLS
24 • Thursday, August 9, 2018
OVER THE MOUNTAIN JOURNAL
Taking the Con By Emily Williams Carrying on Mountain Brook Schools’ legacy of strong speech and debate participants, two students from Mountain Brook Junior High made their presence known at the National Speech and Debate Middle School Tournament. Rising ninth-graders Jane Grey Battle and Claire Lauterbach won the national championship in public forum debate. They were the only team from Alabama to compete in the category, going up against 93 other teams. Overall there were more than 1,200 entries from 166 middle schools across the U.S., China, Taiwan and South Korea represented at the tournament, held June 20-22 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Battle and Lauterbach debated whether to keep the North American Free Trade Agreement intact, winning from a “con” stance in the final round. The duo competed in 11 rounds of debate over three days, winning over teams from California, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Virginia and China to end with a 10-1 record. “It was so incredible to be able to debate teams from all over the country and overseas,” said Lauterbach. “We made once in a lifetime connections with people that otherwise, we never would have met.”
Both team members said they were happy just to be able to participate in the tournament, so winning was the icing on the cake. “Nationals is also such a great way to spread the word about debate, especially for middle-schoolers,” Lauterbach said, adding that she and her teammate hope that the tournament itself and their win might possibly influence other kids in Alabama to start debating. Lauterbach was originally pushed to join the debate team by her father. “Going in, I just thought it would just be a supervised way to argue,” she said. “After becoming a part of the team, I learnt it was so much more.” Through their participation on the debate team, Lauterbach said she found that, while the team does require some arguing, it also teaches students to keep up-to-date on current events, learn to think quickly and critically and is an opportunity to create new and lasting friendships with students that they may not have spent a lot of time with otherwise. Fellow MBJH debaters at the competition included eighth-grader Christian Glenos and ninth-grader Jack Sansbury competing in the Lincoln Douglas debate. They went up against 73 other debaters discussing the topic of whether the United States’ use of
Photo courtesy National Speech and Debate Middle School Tournament
MBJH’s Battle and Lauterbach Earn National Speech and Debate Title
Mountain Brook Junior High rising ninth graders Claire Lauterbach and Jane Grey Battle brought home the national champion title for public forum at the National Speech and Debate Middle School Tournament, held June 20-22 in Ft. Laurderdale, Florida.
targeted killing in foreign countries is unjust. Both advanced to elimination rounds and Glenos was recognized as the fourth-best speaker in that division. Though the Mountain Brook Debate Team has been around since the 1980s, this is the fourth year the junior high school team has existed. Debate coach Elizabeth Wood-Weas now oversees the team’s nearly 70 members, as
well as serving as district chair and middle school curriculum committee member for the Alabama chapter of the National Speech and Debate Association. It’s a project that benefits not only the school and its students, but the city as a whole. According to Wood-Weas, Mountain Brook’s hosting the national tournament last summer generated an estimated $14 million dollars for Mountain Brook and Birmingham.
Students in the Over the Mountain community participated in the mathematical event of the year this summer, bringing home high scores. Math teams representing the Alabama School of Fine Arts, Hoover High School and Vestavia Hills High School scored high marks in the Mu Alpha Theta National Math Convention, held July 8-13 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Alabama School of Fine Arts ASFA placed ninth overall as a school, with high-scoring students including Aiden Yoder, ninth in mu differential equations; Eric Cheng, ninth in mu chalk talk; Isabel Silwal, 10th in alpha chalk talk; William Holland, ninth in theta 3-D geometry; Sofia Rabbani, first in theta chalk talk; and Isabel Silwal, second in alpha Gemini and sixth for the Alpha Gemini Award. Hoover High School Overall, the team placed 11th in the country, with sophomores placing sixth and juniors placing ninth. Team members who placed among the top 10 students in the country included Abhinav Gullapalli, eighth in functions; and Andy Kong, sixth in history of math. Vestavia Hills High School Forty VHHS students participated
Photo special to the Journal
OTM Students Get Mathematical, Earn Top Scores at National Mu Alpha Theta Convention
Forty VHHS students participated in the competition, with 82 awards returning home with them. The team placed third overall in the competition with Courtney Flurry earning first in theta applications and Eileen Liu winning first in speed math. in the competition, with 82 awards returning home with them. The team placed third overall in the competition with Courtney Flurry earning first in theta applications and Eileen Liu winning first in speed math. In addition, high scoring teammates in the top 10 in a variety of categories included William Zhang, 4th in open number theory, tenth in mu relay and sixth in mu ciphering; Eileen Liu, sixth in open number theory, third in theta individual and eighth in open codes and ciphers; Courtney Flurry, fourth in theta individual, eighth in theta relay, fourth in theta logs/ exponents/radicals and seventh in theta ciphering; Kyuna Kim, eighth in
open number theory; Colin Bamford, sixth in alpha analytic geometry; and Jack Lin, ninth in alpha trigonometry, eighth in alpha complex numbers and seventh in alpha applications. Others in the top 10 were Rizwan Khan, tenth in alpha polar coordinate system; Jason Han, sixth in theta circles/perimeters/area/volume, eighth in open mental math, second in 2D geometry and seventh in theta 3D geometry; Alex Stern, seventh in theta circles/perimeters/area/ volume and fifth in 2D geometry; David Wang, sixth in theta analytic geometry; Allen Li, second in mu chalk talk; Shivani Reddy, fifth in alpha chalk talk; Safa Khan, ninth in theta chalk talk; Eric Wang, fourth
in theta relay and sixth in theta matrices; Kathy Chen, fifth for the alpha Gemini award, sixth in 2D geometry and ninth in theta Gemini; Walter Zhang, third in mu sequences and series and fifth in open proofs and logics; and Rohith Vuribindi won tenth for the Alpha Gemini Award.
Hoover Schools Welcome New Director of Curriculum and Instruction In July, a new face began to grace the halls of Hoover City Schools and the Board of Education as Dr. Autumm M. Jeter joined the staff as director of curriculum and instruction.
Jeter, a native of Fairfield and resident of Hoover, has been an educator for 17 years, beginning as a middle and high school teacher before serving administratively for the past 12 years. She earned her bachelor’s at Talladega College, her master’s at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her doctorate and educational specialist degree at Samford University. “My new role allows me the opportunity to work with all schools in the district,” Jeter said in a Q&A with school officials. “My focus will be on curriculum and instruction, which is the foundation for all things. I will collaborate with the Dr. Autumm M. Jeter curriculum and instruction department, principals and instructional coaches in order to ensure that the most rigorous and targeted instruction is being provided for all students K-12.” Before taking on this new position, she was a principal, but she said she began to seek opportunities to expand her impact on a districtwide level. “As a leader in education, I recognize one has to be able to build