Starting in the 2026-27 school year, PAUSD will be offering a new senior-only honors math course, Intro to Proofs, in an effort to increase access to advanced math opportunities.

The course is designed to provide rigorous math content while avoiding the competitive pressure associated with multivariable calculus, a similar advanced math course that has sparked debate recently.

“[Intro to Proofs] doesn’t force you to go faster,” said Daniel Hahn, the Gunn High School math instructional lead and one of the course developers. “That’s the main difference. The team consulted with Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon professors and collected feedback from current students to shape the curriculum.

The year-long course is structured to balance foundational and advanced concepts. The first three quarters will focus on mathematical proofs, while the final quarter will introduce multivariable calculus, timed to ensure Advanced Placement Calculus BC students have learned the bulk of calculus before supplementing with Intro to Proofs’ more advanced content.

“The [Multi-variable calculus] is positioned in a place [that] helps us avoid that funneling issue [of] kids having to take [MVC] early,” Hahn said.

Intro to Proofs is an honors-weighted course, reflecting its intention of preparing students for college-level math while also giving students a foretaste of the breadth that math beyond high school has to offer.

“[In high school], you don’t really know what you want to do,” Hahn said. “We’re trying to educate you well rather than send you down the road to engineering.”