While educators grapple with a decline in state and national middle school math scores that have not regained pre-pandemic levels, an extracurricular activity at Salam School is giving math a boost—the Salam Middle School Math Team.
At the MATHCOUNTS regional tournament Feb. 1 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Salam School’s team placed fifth among a dozen competing middle schools from Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties. Salam School eighth graders Bilal Khan and Malek AbdulJalil qualified for Wisconsin’s statewide competition March 8 in Sheboygan.
Khan officially won fifth place in the competition, based on written tests. However, when awarding his trophy, the announcer noted, “And he did awesome in the Countdown Round.”
Khan (unofficially) won third place after the optional Countdown Round, which focuses on speed and accuracy. Competitors are given word problems and have a maximum of 45 seconds per problem to solve them without a calculator.
Salam High School students Yousef Ahmed, Safa Bahur, Harith Hamdan and Mohammed Odeh serve as team coaches. Salam School’s unique model of having high school students coach the middle schoolers is a key factor in its success, said Marcia Mihdawi, whose son Sami El-Hajjar, 15, a sophomore at the University School of Milwaukee and a Wisconsin math champion, met with the team in 2023 to share tips and help it launch.
“I’ve been with Sami to the national competition twice and coaches were always adults,” she said. “Being coached by high school students becomes very sustainable. Next year, Bilal and Malek can coach and the middle school students will look up to them. That’s something very special you can do in a K-12 school that you can’t do in other environments.”
Salam Middle School Math Team competed in a friendly tournament hosted by the University School of Milwaukee.
Raising math levels
The pandemic setback math learning as many students missed out on foundational skills needed to advance in the subject and educators across Wisconsin feel a “great sense of urgency” to get students back on track in math, The Cap Times reported in January. The Cap Times highlights research that suggests math achievement is a significant predictor of early-career earnings, high school and college graduation and the ability to pursue careers in high-paying fields.
Wisconsin’s statewide decline in math proficiency mirrors national trends, The Cap Times reported. From fall 2019 to 2022, national test scores plunged nine points in math for 13-year-olds—the largest decline ever recorded on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal test also known as “the nation’s report card.” And about three-quarters of eighth graders failed to score proficient. Getting back on track is particularly difficult in math because skills build as students advance to higher grades.
Salam Middle School Math Team may be just the ticket for raising math performance.
Salam School 8th grader Bilal Khan took 3rd place after the MATHCOUNTS Count Down Round.
Sami El-Hajjar, 15, a University School of Milwaukee sophomore, is a Wisconsin math champion.
When the Parent Teacher Association launched the Math Team in 2023, one objective was to create a fun activity for high-achieving math students. The team would have opportunities to compete through MATHCOUNTS in local, state and national tournaments.
Yet, students don’t have to be math rock stars to join the team, parent advisors said. MATHCOUNTS’ mission is to provide “engaging math programs to U.S. middle school students of all ability levels to build confidence and improve attitudes about math and problem-solving.”
“It’s a great program,” said Ream Bahhur, who teaches 7th-10th grade math at Salam School. “It’s very challenging and engaging. I’m very proud of all the Salam School students who have participated.”
Celebrating success (Front row:) Ream Bahur, Salam School math teacher (grades 7-10); Math Team member Yasmeen Fudeh; and Bisan Abu Baker, Salam School 6th grade math teacher. (Second row:) Harith Hamdan, coach; and Math Team members Safwaan Aqueel, Bilal Khan, AbdulWahid Rahamat, Okassh Amin, Sabir Eisa, Malek AbdulJalil, Saleh Fudeh, Tharduke Zubair, Idris Tlemsani and AbduRazakh Rahimullah.
MATHCOUNTS’ competitions focus on applying math to real issues, said parent advisor Fatima Jan, Bilal Khan’s mother. “It helps students think practically and see math as a way to solve problems in our daily lives. It also helps them improve their grades.
“We don’t want to select only the top math students to participate in this program. We want to benefit everybody,” said Jan, who teaches math (and other subjects) at Milwaukee Area Technical College and calls herself a math nerd.
At an in-house Salam School competition, team members vied for a spot on the school’s four-person competing team. Preparing for competition “helped them all challenge themselves and work their brains, rather than wasting time on social media,” Jan said. “And they all definitely benefited from the math coaches.
“We did something really amazing when we asked high schoolers to coach the middle school math team,” she added. “In MATHCOUNTS, you need one-on-one coaching. It is hard for 6th graders to do some of the questions; you really need the 6th grader to come up to the 8th grade level. The high school students did a really good job of helping them improve. It also gave the high school students a chance to know if they like teaching and if they are good at it.”
For high-achieving students like Bilal Khan and Malek AbdulJalil, local, state and national competitions raise the bar.
“This competition with students from around Milwaukee and Waukesha really helped me,” Khan said. “It brings a lot of kids who are good at math, who started studying math when they were in kindergarten. It teaches them that they are not always the best, that there are always kids who are better than them. This helped me progress in my studying of math.”
How it all started
Salam Middle School Math Team began in a conversation between Mihdawi and Ahlam Atta, a Salam School Parent-Teacher Association officer, at a Palestine-themed art event in the fall of 2023.
Mihdawi knew about MATHCOUNTS because her son, Sami El-Hajjar, now a high school sophomore, had participated in sixth, seventh and eighth grades, qualifying for State every year. He also qualified for nationals in seventh and eighth grades.
(El-Hajjar won first place in January in a mathematics and problem-solving competition at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where he was the only student who earned a perfect score for three years in a row.)
PTA officer Ahlam Atta was Salam School Math Team’s first advisor.
“It was the first time I met Marcia,” Atta said. “We both like to create opportunities kids, ours and others. She talked about her son Sami having a mentor, a volunteer in Milwaukee Public Schools who coordinated MATHCOUNTS. He encouraged her son’s interest in math.
“She said we can do the same thing,” Atta recalled.
Atta and others at Salam School felt apprehensive about jumping in because they learned about MATHCOUNTS just a couple of months before the competition. Other teams had been prepping since summer and had participated for years. They doubted the Salam School would have time to prepare, she said.
Mihdawi was organizing an unofficial competition at USM as a service to students and surrounding schools. “’There’s nothing to lose,’ Marcia told me. ‘There’s no entry fee. The scores are not published. If they do well, they can go confidently to the MATHCOUNTS competition in February,” Atta said.
Atta took the idea to Salam School’s middle school principal and teachers, who gave the green light to proceed. The PTA took it on as a project.
Atta took on the responsibility of advising the team and coordinating activities. In 2023-24, the team had six members. “Marcia was mentoring me,” Atta said. “Last year was our practice run.”
The team first competed in the MATHCOUNTS tournament in 2024. Mihdawi reviewed the scores and told Atta the team did well overall and Khan, who has been performing at high school level since he was an elementary school student, did exceptionally well.
Atta passed the baton to Jan this school year. “This year we took it to a whole other level,” Atta said.
Marcia Mihdawi organized a friendly tournament at the University School of Milwaukee and encouraged Salam School to participate.
Meeting the challenges
“We did have challenges because Salam School has kids from households that are underprivileged,” Jan said. “Some of them have a lot of talent but not the privilege to develop and showcase that talent. We want to give them a chance to succeed. That’s why I’m doing this.”
She credited Salam Elementary School teachers who “put in a lot of effort so the kids can be really good. A 3rd grade teacher did timed tests for multiplication, which really helped.” That foundation helped Salam School’s team place fifth, “which is a huge deal,” she said.
Salam School’s administration is very supportive of the team, Jan added.
Luck also played a role. MATHCOUNTS holds a random drawing for a prize and this year Salam School won.
“It was a blessing,” Jan said. “Some of our kids really needed graphing calculators, which are expensive. They won them through this prize and it really benefitted them.”
The survivor
The night before the MATHCOUNTS tournament, Khan was sick with fever and a headache. Jan thought maybe he should miss the tournament. She gave him medicine and his fever went down, so they decided he should try to compete.
He was well prepared.
“Because I like math, I find myself doing math at least a few hours every day,” he said. That’s been going on since kindergarten, his mother said.
Why does he like math so much?
“I discovered I’m good at it,” Khan said. “I discovered I’m better than all my friends.”
In the first round of the competition at UWM, Khan was given a packet of 30 questions to solve in 40 minutes.
“My head hurt,” he recalled.
“He came out and told me he didn’t even attempt the last 10 questions,” Jan said. “Sister Ahlam sent me a text to ask if I thought the team could win. I texted back, ‘I don’t think so.’”
Khan can’t remember much about how he did in the tournament, he said. But he recalled passing the third-place competitor in the Count Down round. “That’s where they knew me as the survivor kid who is really good at math.”
