Intermediate Math League
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The meeting was held at The Yangtze River Restaurant in Lexington, Massachusetts, from 3:30 to 5:30 PM and was chaired by Kent Findell.
Roll Call: 18 coaches from 16 schools.
Minutes from the Fall Meeting were approved.
Topics for the 2009-2010 season were approved with no changes.
Kent proposed divisions for the 2009-2010 season that were based on a weighted average instead of a straight average of the last three years. Kent explained that the straight average resulted in very close scores at the cut-offs between divisions. He also shared a graphical representation that showed the change in the rank of teams over the last three years. The weighted average doubled the score of current season, making the most recent year more significant in determining the new division assignments. The weighted average would change divisions for 34 teams, whereas the straight average would change divisions for 39 teams. Several people objected to the weighted average. There was a motion to take up the division assignments again in the Fall and look at more than one option.
Kelly Hagan was not present, but her treasurer’s report was accepted. ... The balance as of May 14 was $6771.07. Kent noted that the awards amounted to $1290, which will appear on the fall report.
Kip Bryan gave the Webmaster’s report. He mentioned the idea that we might consider submitting scores online in the future. He noted that this would involve individual usernames and passwords, which can be difficult to manage. He also said that only those who had submitted their scores would have access to view the league results.
The slate of officers willing to serve again was approved: Kent Findell as President, Kip Bryan as Webmaster, Rick Yanco as Tabulator and Kelly Hagan as Treasurer.
The candidate for Test Writer, Avi Nagar of Melrose, introduced himself and spoke about his understanding of the Test Writers job. He said he will try to make one easy, one medium and one hard problem in each category. He will try to make the first meet easier to encourage students to stay interested. Kip and Kent both offered to preview the tests, in addition to the paid Test Checkers. Avi was elected as Test Writer.
Rick Yanco gave the Tabulator’s report. He requested that the league establish definite deadlines for the Vice Presidents of Clusters to submit their scores. After some discussion, we came up with the following language:
The deadline for submitting scores will be either 8 days after the meet dates proposed by the president at the Fall meeting or 24 hours after the last meet date posted online, whichever is later. Scores that are not submitted by that deadline will appear as zeros on the website until the results of the following meet are posted. After Meet #5, the deadline for submitting scores will be either 15 days after the meet dates proposed by the president at the Fall meeting or 8 days after the last scheduled meet, whichever is later, after which the scores will be zeroed.
The motion to accept this new language was passed.
Rick also discussed the possibility of on-line submission of scores. He mentioned an offer from Michael Curry to do our website and tabulation for $1500. Michael Curry currently maintains the websites for the Massachusetts Mathematics League (MML) and the Greater Boston Mathematics League (GBML). The officers will look into this option over the summer and report at the Fall Meeting.
There was a discussion about posting top-scoring student names online with just first name and last initial. The students would be excited to see their names online. As in previous discussions, coaches were concerned about whether this would be acceptable at their schools due to privacy concerns. The discussion was tabled until another meeting.
Rick also presented a new alphabetical naming system for the divisions. It would make it easier to “sort” in a spreadsheet and would make the rank of the divisions more apparent. One coach suggested a way to make sorting easier and another spoke of the rationale for obscuring the rank. There was no motion on this suggestion.
Glenn Ellison, of Newton Bigelow, gave each coach present a copy of his book "Hard Math for Middle School: IMLEM Edition.”
Awards were distributed.
Respectfully submitted,
Kent Findell
IMLEM President