Kaiser High math team counts moral victory
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — Call it an equation for integrity.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
The official results of Math Bowl XXIV show that Kaiser High School finished third — but it was beyond the calculations, formulas and probabilities where the team achieved its greatest success.
From left, Kaiser High School seniors Vallent Lee, Shinyoung Oh, Claire Tsutsumi could have walked away winners.
Kaiser's team — seniors Vallent Lee, Shinyoung Oh and Claire Tsutsumi — had been declared winners of the statewide mathematics championship Saturday at Brigham Young University's Hawai'i Campus in La'ie.
The three received the praise, the accolades, the congratulations. They and the rest of the 165 competitors had begun eating lunch, and the trophies were about to be awarded.
Then Oh asked to see the test papers, said adviser Dan Richardson, Kaiser's math department chairman. Richardson said the students are always reviewing their answers.
Oh discovered that on the sixth round of eight, they had gotten a problem wrong but had received credit for a correct answer.
The students were sad, Oh said, but they knew what they had to do.
Along with Richardson, they notified David Furuto, State Math Bowl chairman and a math professor at BYUH.
The Kaiser students could have walked away the victors and no one would have known, Furuto said. Two referees already had checked the papers, he said.
"If we believe that honesty, integrity, character, trust and respect are important virtues that all people should seek, then clearly Kaiser has manifested all those virtues, because they could have walked," Furuto said. "No one would have known."
The results were recalculated and Iolani was declared winner of the AA division, for schools with 1,000 or more students.
A face-off was conducted between King Kekaulike and Kaiser, who were tied for second. King Kekaulike ultimately took second and Kaiser settled for third.
In Division A, for smaller schools, Mid-Pacific took first, Maryknoll second and Hanalani third.
The purpose of the statewide competition is to promote mathematics education and give outstanding students the opportunity to compete in solving challenging problems, Furuto said.
Students are allowed to use calculators to solve the 14 problems spread over eight rounds, in time limits from 15 minutes down to five.
Problems range from algebra and trigonometry to analytical geometry and probability and statistics.
"It was a geometry probability question that we missed," Lee said. "According to the paper, the answer was marked incorrect, but credit was given for a correct answer in the score.
"Whoever was checking didn't catch it," Lee said. "I was checking because we were wondering if maybe we had put the correct answer somewhere on the paper."
The students say they're content with their decision.
"We're disappointed we lost," Lee said. "But it was the right thing to do."
Kaiser principal Gayle Sugita and Richardson said they couldn't be prouder of their students.
"It was a wonderful learning lesson," Sugita said.
"In the Olympics, sometimes you don't always remember the winners, but you always remember those that faced adversity and the most arduous trial."
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
