Ocean State Academy, a private school for students with disabilities, has won a Rhode Island State Championship in the Prodigy State Challenge, billed as the world’s largest math competition, and went on to place near the top of the national field.
The school said 98 percent of its elementary and middle school students took part, making the competition a school-wide effort. The Prodigy State Challenge is a free, game-based national contest open to U.S. schools that use Prodigy Math, a curriculum-aligned online learning platform. Running from September through May, it pits first- through eighth-grade students against peers nationwide, with every correctly answered math question counting toward a school’s monthly total. The school answering the most questions correctly in a given month is named state champion for that month.
Competing against more than 1,400 schools, Ocean State Academy students answered 7,374 questions correctly in the opening round last September, enough to claim the Rhode Island title and secure a berth in the Prodigy National Cup finals in May. In that finale, the school’s students answered 10,019 questions correctly, ranking in the top 7.4 percent of competing schools.
“We are incredibly proud of our students for representing Ocean State Academy with excellence,” said Academic Coordinator Djinia Itetia. “This achievement reflects their hard work, determination, and commitment to learning.”
Principal Robert Picard said students answered a combined total of more than 17,000 questions correctly across both rounds, calling it a testament to the school’s culture of perseverance and academic excellence.
The school said more than 6 million students from nearly 78,000 schools nationwide took part this year. Ocean State Academy is a Rhode Island Department of Education-approved private special education school serving K-12 students ages 5 to 21, including students with autism, emotional and behavioral disorders, and specific learning disabilities.
