Boston Public Schools Student Wins State Championship In Wicked Math Year 1

O'Donnell Elementary School Grade 4 student Haytam El Ayoubi has qualified for the Math League National Championship, showing the impact of the Wicked Math Initiative.

Boston Public Schools Student Wins State Championship In Wicked Math Year 1

Boston Public Schools (BPS) celebrates our latest champion math wiz. O'Donnell Elementary School Grade 4 student Haytam El Ayoubi won the Massachusetts Math League State Championship last month after earning the highest score in the competition among Grade 4 students. He will compete in the Math League National Championship on June 13, 2026, at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He represents Boston among the nation's top young mathematicians, with support from the City of Boston's Wicked Math initiative.

Mayor Michelle Wu visited the O'Donnell Elementary Math Club on June 10, 2026 to celebrate Haytam's accomplishment and recognize the successful first year of Wicked Math. Wu's visit was both a sendoff for Haytam and a reminder of the opportunities high-quality math enrichment can make available to students.

Throughout the school year, Haytam attended Math Club twice each week before school, demonstrating exceptional dedication, perseverance, and a genuine love of mathematics. He also represented O'Donnell monthly in Math League competitions, consistently challenging himself through advanced problem-solving and mathematical reasoning.

Haytam's success reflects the broader impact of Wicked Math, the City of Boston's initiative to expand access to advanced math programming across BPS. Launched in the 2025-26 school year through a partnership among EdVestors, The Calculus Project, the Young People's Project (YPP), and the BPS STEM Department, Wicked Math is helping build a stronger citywide math culture and ensuring students who love math have opportunities to deepen their learning inside and outside the classroom.

In its first year, Wicked Math established math clubs at 11 BPS schools, engaged hundreds of students in enrichment opportunities, hired 19 student math mentors through YPP, recruited students for The Calculus Project's summer program at MIT, and provided 11 professional development sessions for 161 BPS math educators.

The O'Donnell Elementary Math Club, led by Taylor O'Brien and Zhi Wang, has been one of the initiative's standout programs. The school's overall math performance has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, improving by 10 percentage points over the past two years.

As we celebrate Haytam's remarkable accomplishment, we also encourage students, families, and educators across Boston to get involved in the next chapter of Wicked Math. Opportunities include summer math programming, school-based math clubs, mentoring, competitions, and advanced learning pathways launching for the 2026-27 school year.

Haytam's achievement demonstrates what is possible when students are given opportunities to explore their passion for mathematics. As he prepares to compete against the country's best young problem-solvers, the entire BPS community is cheering him on and looking forward to welcoming him home after representing Boston with pride.

Summer Early Focus

Summer Early Focus is a five-week summer program designed for BPS families with children entering Pre-K, Kindergarten, First, Second, and Third grade in the upcoming school year, at no cost. Full attendance for all 24 days is required in order to participate. The Summer Early Focus program builds on children's school-year learning through highly engaging and child-driven academic activites.

For any questions on Summer Early Focus, contact Solange Marsan at smarsan@bostonpublicschools.org.

Family Information - About the Program

Important Dates

Locations

Curley K-8 School
Address: 40 Pershing Rd, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Grades: K0, K1, K2, 1, 2
Time: 8:30 AM-2:30 PM

East Boston EEC
Address: 135 Gove St, East Boston, MA 02128
Grades: K0, K1, K2, 1, 2
Time: 8:30 AM-2:30 PM

Ellison Parks
Address: 108 Babson St, Mattapan, MA 02126
Grades: K0, K1, K2, 1, 2
Time: 8:30 AM-2:30 PM

Higginson
Address: 160 Harrishof Street, Roxbury, MA 02119
Grades: K0, K1, K2, 1, 2
Time: 8:30 AM-2:30 PM

Roosevelt
Address: 30 Millstone Rd, Hyde Park, MA 02136
Grades: K0, K1, K2, 1, 2
Time: 8:30 AM-2:30 PM

Who Can Participate?

Summer Early Focus is open to all Boston Public School students entering pre-k (K0 and K1) through third grade in the upcoming school year.

BPS Summer Programming is available only to Boston Public Schools (BPS) students who:

Attend school in a BPS school building, OR
Have been assigned a BPS seat and received a BPS ID number for September 2026 through Round 1 (January) registration.
Have turned 3 before September 2025 to be eligible for K0

Important for Boston Pre-K Families: Students in Boston Pre-K Community Programs may not be eligible unless they have an active BPS ID number. The registration system requires this ID to complete enrollment.

How to Register

Registration Begins on April 1, 2026.

Register on Avela for BPS Summer 2026 — **Scan to Register**

View video on How To Register

(Translations available in Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Somali, Spanish, Vietnamese)

*Please note that submitting registration does NOT guarantee a seat.

Lottery, Assignment, Waitlist, & Enrollment

A lottery will be held to assign seats on May 1, 2026

Students selected in the lottery will receive placement offers.
Families must accept their placement by the deadline provided.
If a placement is not accepted:
- The seat is offered to the next student on the waitlist based on the Office of Data and Accountability (ODA) waitlist order.
Waitlist Eligibility
- Students must have received a K2 seat during Round 1 admissions at a BPS school to participate in the 5th Quarter program.

Program Details

Summer Early Focus helps children develop critical thinking, creativity, social awareness, relationships, teamwork, and self-regulation skills—all while having fun!
Students engage in high-quality instructional practices, and enjoy both structured and unstructured play opportunities. Some of the activities children will participate in are:
- Neighborhood walking field trips
- On-site visits from organizations such as the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance (NECWA) and the Discovery Museum.
- Physical education classes
- Dance lessons
- Art lessons
Each classroom typically has two BPS teachers supporting up to 20 students with our Summer Early Focus curriculum. Additionally, each site will have an ESL teacher to support ELL students.

Curriculum

Rising third grade students explore bicycles, thinking about the different functions of a bike, how a bike works, and bicycle safety. For a final project, children envision a more bicycle-friendly neighborhood.
Rising second grade students think critically about food, through the exploration of food from various cultures and how food gets from a farm to people who cook and eat it. For a final project, children create a way for community members to have increased access to fresh, local food.
Rising first graders learn about insects, through observation, reading, exploring, and playing about bees, butterflies, and beetles. This study offers new and continued learning related to the school year Focus on K2 curriculum. Children consider what insects are, what they need to survive, and their own relationships with them. To finish the summer session, children plan and set up exhibits in an Insect Museum.
Incoming kindergarten students explore ocean and seashore animals native to Massachusetts. This curriculum helps prepare children for kindergarten in the fall through exposure to the structure of the day, literacy, math, and center-based activities.
Incoming Pre-K children explore how plants and animals grow, using a selection of the new Focus on 3s curriculum adapted for the summer program. Children raise live butterflies, plant seeds, and investigate flowers as they think about what living things need and how humans can care for plants and animals. This curriculum helps prepare children for kindergarten in the fall through exposure to the structure of the day, literacy, math, and center-based activities.