BLANCHESTER — Fifth- through 11th-grade students enrolled in advanced math classes at Blanchester Local Schools recently competed in MathCON, an online math competition that poses grade-level, specific timed tests of 40 multiple-choice questions in 40 minutes to students in fifth through 12th grades.

The online assessment competition requires ingenuity and insight and includes problems of varying degree of difficulty that enables all students to be equally challenged.

Students learning in public, private, online, and or home school programs are eligible to participate in the MathCON event.

Over 44, 000 students from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota competed in this year’s initial round of competition held at participating schools throughout January, February, and March.

And, after earning a regional ranking of 51st out of all participating eighth-grade students, for the third year in a row, Blanchester eighth-grader Alex Fischer has qualified to advance to the second round of competition. Alex participated in the 2016 national competition where he earned a bronze medal.

Also advancing to round two of the MathCON competition is Blanchester fifth-grader Kimberly Hurst, who earned a regional ranking of 26th out of all participating fifth-grade students.

Both Fischer and Hurst will compete in the on-site final round of competition scheduled to take place at the University of Illinois in Chicago on Saturday, April 22.

Fischer and Hurst are among the top 576 students out of 49,485 contestants nationwide.

In addition, four students have been named to the reserve team in the event that Fischer or Hurst is unable to attend the nationals in Chicago. Those students include ninth-grader Matthew Oneill, eighth-grader Carter Stevens, sixth-grader Josh Elliott and fifth-grader Aubrey Stevens.

Blanchester Middle School math teacher Angelyn Cortes and Southern Ohio ESC Gifted Intervention Specialist Shelly Wellman worked to coordinate the Blanchester MathCON competition.

According to Curt Bradshaw, Southern Ohio ESC Gifted Services Coordinator, this year’s competition was made possible by the sponsorship of the Blanchester Lions Club.

“We are so pleased that so many students at Blanchester had the opportunity to participate in the MathCON competition this year,” said Bradshaw.

“And, we are so grateful for the willingness of the Lions Club to sponsor Blanchester Local Schools in this year’s competition. We sincerely appreciate the organization’s steadfast commitment in serving and supporting Blanchester youth.”

Information for this article was provided by Diana Miller, who coordinates communications for several area schools.