ARLINGTON – Middle schoolers who needed math help recently visited the high school where calculus students provided it.

“This is the first time we’ve done anything like this,” Stillaguamish Valley Learning Center assistant principal intern Karrie Marsh said. “We were brainstorming ideas to access math skills in different ways.”

The nearly 30 middle schoolers worked one-on-one or in smalls groups with Arlington High School students. The younger students said they were excited to work with someone near their own age. And the high schoolers were glad to help.

“Learning these skills can be tough at first until you get it,” AHS senior Jonathan Schroeder said. “It’s fun to help people since we’ve all struggled at some point in our lives.”

SVLC assistant principal Andrea Dixon said the goal is for all the students to show grade-level proficiency in math by June. The middle schoolers received handwritten notes from the calculus students after they met. The high schoolers encouraged the middle schoolers to keep up the good work.

“This is a creative, targeted intervention for our students,” SVLC math teacher Margaret Jones said. “The goal is to really help them shore up their math skills, and this seems to be an effective way to help with that.”