Six students from the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse at SB Family School were invited to attend the final round of the Alpha Math Contest in Santa Clara on Saturday, May 4, based on their performance on the first round of the contest, held in January throughout California. Five of the students attended.

In the Euler Division (elementary school), Elena Beckman won a gold medal, meaning she was among the top five performers out of 80 students. Elena, a third-grader at The Knox School, joined the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse when she was in first grade.

In the Fermat Division (middle school), the four students composed a full team, which placed in the top 10 out of 20 teams. The students were Ethan Foong, Daniel Nickolov and William Shen, all eighth-graders at Goleta Valley Junior High; and Liam Avolio, a sixth-grader at Santa Barbara Charter School.

The eighth-graders have been participating in the Santa Barbara Math Ellipse for two years, and Liam has been attending since he was in second grade.

The Santa Barbara Math Ellipse is a set of math circles at SB Family School, a private, year-round, math-enrichment program in Goleta. The math ellipses generally focus on non-competitive, extracurricular mathematics, but were invited to participate in the Alpha Math Contest offered by the AlphaStar Academy.

— Skona Brittain for Santa Barbara Family School.