Selected out of more than a hundred Colorado schools

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Every week, before the school bell rings, a group of West Middle School students with the Mathcounts Program meet.

Before the rest of school is in session, the young men and women are hard at work solving math problems.

"Mathcounts is a club that is sponsored by several engineering companies and sponsors throughout the United States. They are basically trying to get students to be more confident in their math skills and pursue jobs with those abilities and talents," Phillip Hutcherson said.

Hutcherson is a math teacher at West. He said the program gives students the opportunity to compete against other schools.

He said nationally about 5,000 schools participated this year alone, including 20 students from West.

"For example, we went to Colorado College and competed against several schools in the Pikes Peak Region," Hutcherson said. "There is also an in-club part of the competition which you can do as well, and last year we reached the silver level and this year we decided we wanted to reach the gold level, which requires additional steps and tests."

During the regional competition West did reach the gold level. From there the team was chosen out of more than 100 Colorado schools to travel to Orlando, Fla., for the national competition.

From West's group four students were then picked to go on behalf of the team.

"It will consist of a couple different rounds. One of them is an individual round where they take a test by themselves, and then they have a team round as a group, and then if they make it to the final round it is a speed round," Hutcherson said.

The students going to Orlando said they are excited to be part of the national competition and added they hope to bring home a win.

"I did not have a chance to go to state, so going to nationals is going to be really fun," said sixth grader Sami King.

The competition is scheduled for May.

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