Partnering for Success

The California Department of Education has recently awarded San Diego State University and the Sweetwater Union High School District one of five $1.28 million California Mathematics Readiness Challenge Initiative (CMRCI) grants. The goal of the CMRCI program is to is to provide in-depth professional learning opportunities for collaborative teams of secondary educators, their school-site administrator, and faculty from their partner institution(s) of higher education to support the implementation and evaluation of grade 12 experiences that are designed to prepare pupils for placement into college-level courses in mathematics. San Diego State and Sweetwater are using the grant to design and implement a discrete mathematics course for high school seniors. The project builds on the existing infrastructure of the SDSU-Sweetwater Compact for Success, and this work provides a structure for faculty and teachers to collaborate around designing a course to better prepare prospective students. The new curriculum will be used in Sweetwater’s Discrete Math classes during the 2017-18 school year.

Principal Investigator, Dr. Osvaldo “Ovie” Soto, is a 17-year veteran high school teacher and a graduate of the SDSU-UCSD doctoral program in mathematics education. Soto also has an MS in Mathematics from SDSU. Since completing his doctoral studies, Dr. Soto has dedicated his career to the improvement of mathematics instruction in the San Diego region by mentoring over 50 secondary math teachers through Math for America San Diego’s Master Teacher Fellowship Program. Professors Randy Philipp (School of Teacher Education) and Bill Zahner (Mathematics and Statistics Department), of SDSU’s Center for Mathematics and Science Education, are the grant’s Co-PIs. Sweetwater’s Assistant Superintendent Ana Maria Alvarez is the grant’s Co-PI at the district, and she is assisted by Roman Del Rosario, the Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction. Professors Mike O’Sullivan (Mathematics and Statistics Dept. Chair) and Vadim Ponomarenko (Department of Mathematics), are supporting the grant’s teachers as consultants. This was made possible through the support of College of Sciences Dean Stanley Maloy and College of Education Dean Joe Johnson.