Amy Chang is in a computer science masters program at Stanford University. But she might be doing something different today if not for a math club at her public middle school in San Francisco.
Chang, who says she was a precocious child, remembers being bored in math at Herbert Hoover, near West Portal, in the mid-2010s. It was right after the San Francisco Unified School District removed algebra as an eighth-grade math option.
“It felt like the curriculum was either too slow or things that I already understood,” Chang says. Her “relatively low-income family” couldn’t pay for tutors or afterschool courses, but Hoover had another option: a free, afterschool club called Mathcounts. According to Chang, it made all the difference.
It’s not just Chang. Every year, Mathcounts clubs at Hoover, Presidio, and a few other SF middle schools send kids to math competitions — and they have trophies in the hallways to show for it.
Now that algebra is back in eighth grade, the clubs are getting extra attention and could be part of a new formula in the district’s struggle to improve academic scores. In 2022, SFUSD set five-year goals to boost math, reading, and college and career readiness. Last month, acknowledging how off-track it was, the district tacked on an extra year to the deadline and said the goals will also likely need to change.
With outside funding, SFUSD hopes next year to add free math clubs to perhaps twice as many middle schools. The clubs could support its new curriculum, but there’s another factor at play.
Officials say extra academic opportunities are needed to reverse the departure of families from the district. Only a few years ago SFUSD had more than 52,000 students and nearly 60,000 a generation ago. It’s now under 49,000. The declining enrollment is a major contributor to its financial woes, and one reason school closures remain on the table.
During a recent webinar about SFUSD’s funding crisis, Superintendent Maria Su underscored the importance of math and reading to families: “Kids have got to read, write, and do math. We’ve got to do everything we can to improve academics, and then prove to families that we are their first choice.”
‘Simply insane’ competition
On an early morning in March, nearly 200 Northern California middle schoolers crowded into a school gym in San Jose for the 2026 Mathcounts state competition. The students were nearly silent, but the room hummed with excitement and the scratch of pencils on paper as they worked in teams to solve complex equations.
“We don’t really want other people to know our answer, so we have to talk pretty quietly,” says Arjun Rajaram, an eighth grader at Presidio Middle School, recounting his team’s work.
To get to the state level, the Hoover and Presidio teams practiced several times a week before and after school and bested more than 20 other Bay Area schools. Three of the city’s private schools also advanced to the state level.
The two SFUSD teams didn’t advance to nationals. But Rajaram says that, despite the “simply insane” level of other kids’ skills — “before I could finish reading the question they’re done” — the experience was “really, really, really fun.”
Mathcounts clubs attract kids who are passionate about math and want more of a challenge. “Math in school was really easy for me,” says Presidio seventh grader Hayzen Chan. “Joining made me realize there’s much harder math problems, and that feels good.”
But anyone can join, says Hoover coach and seventh grade teacher Anna Flores: “You don’t have to get a good score on a test.”
The low barrier to entry is important if the clubs are to help support SFUSD’s push for better math scores. A district official involved in math curriculum says the goal is not just to have enthusiasts sign up, but also to have them “bring their friend who’s maybe not really good at math, and then that student grows too.”
The problem is, free clubs still require funding. SFUSD is still righting its financial ship, but more math club money seems to be on the horizon.
Dollars for math
Even schools with a long history of Mathcounts have had trouble funding it. Hoover math teacher Chris Robison, who coached the club before Flores, used GoFundMe drives to offset the cost of materials, snacks, and his labor: “Up until the last few years, it’s mostly been teachers [paying] out of pocket.”
But in November, Spark SF Public Schools, a fundraising group that works on behalf of SFUSD, landed a $220,000 grant from the local Crankstart Foundation to cover math club costs for this school year, including a stipend for coaches.
Crankstart also gave $15,000 to each team that went to the state competition to pay for future resources like calculators, software, or more competitions. “Crankstart approached us and said, ‘This is a great way to make it fun and get kids more engaged,’” says Spark SF president Ginny Fang.
An application for more funding is in the pipeline, and Fang is hopeful Crankstart will not only reup for next year but pay for a citywide expansion.
SFUSD is also preparing for the expansion. “We actually started recruitment discussions last month, thinking ahead to how to basically try to increase participation overall and maybe even double [the number of participating schools],” the district’s curriculum official tells The Frisc. (The official agreed to be quoted only if their name was not included.)
Eight of the district’s 22 middle or K-8 schools have Mathcounts clubs this year.
Some clubs like Hoover’s go back decades and have served as a kind of launchpad for math-loving kids like Amy Chang — especially when, for a decade, there wasn’t a chance to move ahead in the classroom.
The geography of math
In 2014, the San Francisco school board removed algebra from middle school, saying it forced schools to “track” or sort kids by aptitude at an early age, resulting in racial segregation. But Stanford research showed that effort failed. The board reversed the move in 2024.
During that decade, the clubs helped middle schoolers who wanted more of a challenge, according to Robison. “That’s one of the ways we presented it to the parents,” he says. “‘You’re not getting algebra in the regular curriculum, but you’re going to get it in Mathcounts.’”
But not all schools had the clubs. Of the eight Mathcounts clubs today, five are on the west side, and they often benefit from parent support — financial and otherwise.
At Rooftop School on Twin Peaks, the PTA hired their Mathcounts coach. In the Sunset, A.P. Giannini Middle School’s coach is a parent volunteer, according to local Mathcounts coordinator Julia Gee. And when the Presidio coach, eighth grade teacher Monalee Gandhi, had jury duty for three weeks, a parent stepped in.
Scores in six of the Mathcounts schools are above district average. SFUSD officials underscore that math clubs aren’t the main strategy for meeting academic goals, but there’s plenty of enthusiasm to expand them.
“It’s important … for kids that want to stretch, regardless of their background,” says Fang, an SFUSD employee whose salary is entirely paid by Spark SF. “Kids of all backgrounds like math.”
Receding goals
SFUSD should “operate from a place of reality rather than a place of delusion.”
That was AJ Crabill, a consultant who works with the district on governance practices, at the April 14 board meeting. He was speaking about SFUSD’s chance of reaching the academic goals it set back in 2022. Math scores would have to jump more than 20 points in the next year, according to district staff.
If the math instruction in the classroom is not strong, it doesn’t matter what’s happening with the club.
GINNY FANG, Spark SF Public Schools PRESIDENT
At the same meeting, Su urged the board to extend the deadline to October 2028. “When the board originally adopted these targets, we didn’t have all the information,” said Su, who became superintendent in October 2024. Average scores for most districts only grow about 1 to 2 percent a year, she said.
The board agreed to the extension, but it didn’t change the goal itself (65 percent of eighth graders proficient in math), even though everyone acknowledged it’s unlikely. The board said it would revisit the target at a later date.
In addition to the return of eighth grade algebra, SFUSD is overhauling all its math programs. In middle schools, the curriculum is called Amplify Desmos Math, and the three-year rollout began last fall.
It hasn’t improved test scores yet. The curriculum official who spoke with The Frisc cautions that results take time — “we wouldn’t expect in the first year to see a big jump” – and says it’s encouraging that scores are stable instead of dropping, as often happens the first year with new material.
“Year one is just about learning the materials,” says Spark SF’s Fang, who works closely with the district’s curriculum and instruction team. Year two is when teachers become more committed, according to a national teaching institute.
“If the math instruction in the classroom is not strong, it doesn’t matter what’s happening with the club,” says Fang.
Better marketing
Schools need strong teaching to boost academics, and as Superintendent Su has noted, the district needs strong academics to draw and keep families.
There’s another layer: the district also needs stability. “We’re thinking about how we can make school enrollment more predictable,” Su said during the recent webinar.
Just last week, SFUSD promised for the third time this decade to redo its enrollment lottery. The system mainly affects families starting elementary school, but it will likely play a role in middle school assignments too. If families end up with fewer choices, strong academics across more middle schools will be a key to keep families from leaving after elementary school.
Perhaps one solution is better marketing. “I wish there was a way we could get the word out to incoming fifth graders,” says Robison. “We do have this fabulous math program at Hoover.”
The kids are the best marketers for the clubs. Even if they didn’t make it past the state competition this year, they loved the experience.
“I thought other schools like the Proof School would destroy us,” says Presidio eighth grader Rajaram, referring to a private school that specializes in math. “It was challenging, but it was really fun. And I feel like more people should be able to do it.”
Correction, 5/5/26: This story initially listed the wrong grade levels for student Arjun Rajaram and teacher Monalee Gandhi.
