News from the Southern 2 Region
Paul Gray, Southern 2 Regional Director
Fall 2017

Greetings, NCSM colleagues from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennnessee! The 2017-18 school year has started with quite the bang in the Southern 2 Region. Solar eclipses, hurricanes, and floods of Biblical proportions. These natural phenomena provide excellent opportunities to make meaningful connections to science, social studies, and current events in your mathematics classroom. How can you take one of them and turn it into a Great Task or a Three-Act Task?

NCSM Needs You…to Volunteer!

NCSM is a volunteer organization and we need our members to volunteer! Currently, we need volunteers for many of the following areas:

  • Review Journal Articles
  • Write journal articles
  • Review conference proposals
  • Assist Nominations/Elections Committee
  • Assist Membership Committee
  • Assist Awards Committee
  • Assist with Coaching Committee
  • Assist with Social Media

If you are interested, please use our online volunteer form. You may also email me at any time,

Let’s Network at an Upcoming Conference

I was fortunate enough to be the hosting regional director for the 2017 NCSM Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Many of my Texas colleagues attended the NCSM Annual Meeting for the first time. Without exception, we were all like kids in a candy store. The powerful learning opportunities were ripe for the picking.

During the fall, many state and local organizations have their own annual meetings. Here is where you can learn more about mathematics education in your own state and I would encourage each of you to attend your state meeting/conference if at all possible. At a glance, here’s what’s going on this fall in (or near!) our region.

September 29-30 Tennessee MTA Annual Conference Madison, TN
October 13-14 Mississippi CTM Annual Conference Madison, MS
October 16-17 Texas (TASM) Fall Meeting Austin, TX
October 18-20 NCTM Regional Conference Orlando, FL
November 1 Arkansas (AAML) Annual Conference Little Rock, AR
November 2-3 Arkansas Curriculum Conference Little Rock, AR
November 2-3 Alabama CTM Fall Forum Conference Birmingham, AL
November 3 Mississippi Math Specialist Conference Oxford, MS
November 6-8 Louisiana Joint LATM/LSTA Conference Baton Rouge, LA
November 29 NCSM Fall Seminar Chicago, IL
November 29 – December 1 NCTM Regional Conference Chicago, IL

For more information about each conference, check out the NCSM Calendar of Events.

Don’t Be a Stranger

If there is anything that I can do as your regional director for NCSM, please don’t hesitate to contact me. As well, if there is something that you want NCSM to know about what’s going on in your state or area, I can carry that information forward. Email me at or follow/direct message me on Twitter, @texmathguy