Long hours of complicated equations, numbers you’ve never seen before, fast paced courses, and so much more are the problems that students have been facing with mathematics for as long as the subject has been taught. This leaves many students scratching their head and struggling to make sense of what’s in front of them. However, in the wake of these struggles South’s mathematics department has developed a help center that will allow students to take a breath of relief.

It’s called the Math Center and is expected to be a helpful hub for mathematics students starting this year. “[The center is] kind of modeled off what you would find in a university setting where you have open hours that students can come and receive help in math,” explained Stephanie Woldum, a mathematics teacher at South and founder of the Math Center.

The concept for the center arose about two years ago when Woldum sat down with a separate teacher in her department, Morgan Fierst, to expand on the ongoing discussion in the math department about how they can help support their students.

The past options for students have been to take co-taught courses with two teachers assigned for one class or year long support classes, both of which seemed too rigid to Woldum and left students without any temporary help options.“The one thing we thought was lacking in supporting students was a flexible model where a student wouldn’t necessarily have to be in a support class all year long, maybe they just had trouble during second quarter and really needed that extra support. So this model [will] serve for that sort of flexibility.”

The new addition to our school offers a variety of resources and designated help to any need from tutoring in individual subjects, helping students with missed assignments who need to catch up, and inviting teachers and their classes into the center for a lesson or workshop.

“Most students will understand it as similar to the Writing Center,” said Woldum. She compared the new development in the math department to last year’s addition in South’s English program. The Writing Center was created by English teacher Corinth Matera, who spent multiple years developing the concept and following through with the process, resulting in the thriving english themed help center that can currently be found in the Media Center.

Similar to the writing incarnation, the Math Center provides help for students with scheduled appointments or accepts walk in visits. Tutors will be waiting to provide whatever assistance necessary.

Currently the center doesn’t have any volunteered students tutors, which can be explained by the delayed opening. “Unfortunately we had a math teacher that resigned two weeks before the start of school, so we’re filling in for the position until the new teacher gets here. And then once that happens the math center starts operations and our first goal will be to get student leaders to help out,” said Rob Rumppe, a math teacher who has dedicated time to center. During an interview he mentioned that a goal of the center is get every student ready for college and offering students the ability to lead and teach is a great way of accomplishing this.

It was predicted by Woldum that the center would mainly be used for Advanced Algebra and under. However, after speaking to the advanced placement and calculus teachers, the organizers of the center discovered that teachers also predicted their students would use the space to form study groups to work on course work.

The Math Center is due to open any day to provide needed and helpful support from the teachers and their peers. Students can rest assured that a support center is arriving to tend to their many needs regarding math. Woldum wrapped up the essence of the center by saying, “instead of having to sit in the lunch room or be shushed in the media center, they can actually come and have dialogues about math.”