The third grade "Mathletes" include "Max Cubed" — from left, Max Otero, Maxwell Bailey Frommer and Max Derakhshan.

NAPILI — Eight Maui Preparatory Academy Lower School students punched their tickets to the National Math League Competition in Texas later this summer.

As the largest network of local and state math competitions in the United States and abroad, Math League runs more than 400 contests globally and reaches over 30,000 students each year.

Under the direction of third grade teacher Shannon Renner, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders Max Derakhshan (Class of 2031), Maxwell Bailey Frommer (’31), Max Otero (’31), Ari Rosenkrans (’30), Noah Conley (’30), Isabel Pearson (’29), Jacob Gasinsky (’29) and Michelle Nguyen (’29) competed in a four-round individual and team competition.

Inspired by their Upper School peers who have earned state titles in basketball and golf, the eight “Mathletes” came to the competition with goals of their own.

The competition was divided into four rounds: Sprint Round (30 word problems, 40 minutes); Number Sense (80 questions in ten minutes); Target Round (four pairs of word problems, six minutes for each pair); and Team Round (kids work together to solve ten word problems in 20 minutes).

There were 24 students in third through fifth grade who participated in Math League this year.

After an internal school competition, the eight Pueo qualified to represent Maui Prep at the state level.

“I know they were really inspired by our high school athletes this year to go as far as they could in this competition,” commented Renner.

“They put in a lot of hard work and are so motivated to keep working toward this.”