Pine Tree High School Math and Science Team Dominates State Competition!
The last time the Pine Tree Math and Science Team won the championship trophy at the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association (TMSCA) State Meet in San Antonio was 2009. That was 17 years ago. The students on the team today were infants or not even born then. Three years ago, the team landed in ninth place. Two years ago, they excitedly moved up to fourth. Last year, they placed second, and this year, the team brought the 4A championship trophy home to Pine Tree, beating Spring Hill (fourth place) and Lindale (fifth place).
The win did not happen by gambling. The coaches, Amber Harrington and Dannie Urban, invest countless hours in developing strategies and finding the best learning opportunities for their students. For two years, the Pine Tree Educational Foundation has funded special classes that students take online outside of school hours, sometimes on Sunday and sometimes during the week at night. If you walk into the Math and Science Team classroom, your eyes are drawn to the leaderboard, the goals pyramid, and the innumerable medals and trophies, most belonging to the current team but some reminiscent of Pine Tree’s former days as the leading competitive math and science program in East Texas. Now, however, they are the top 4A team in all of Texas.
At the most recent competition in San Antonio, March 20-22, Pine Tree students also garnered individual and grade-level honors. The competition recognizes the Top Gun in each grade level. The Top Gun is the student who has the highest average among all four contests: Number Sense, Mathematics, Calculator, and Science. Pine Tree brought home Top Gun for 9th-11th grades, and two seniors won scholarships. In addition, the team won first place in Number Sense in all four grades and 1st place in ninth grade and first place in tenth grade Mathematics. The team is strategically pitching their momentum and staking a claim on another state championship–the 4A UIL State tournament in May.
More information about the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association can be found at www.tmsca.org.