SPRINGFIELD—Following news that machines had resolved hundreds of open problems in mathematics, the Springfield School Board voted 6–1 Wednesday to keep teaching long division, describing it as "one of the last kinds of math humans are still in charge of."

"We've seen the headlines," said board president Carol Dunleavy. "Number theory, algebraic geometry, all of it. Fine. But nobody is taking remainders from us."

The resolution designates long division a protected heritage skill, alongside cursive and folding a road map. Teachers will be asked to present it with the reverence once reserved for state capitals.

The lone dissenting member asked whether the district could instead teach people how to read the machines' proofs. The motion was tabled after nobody on the board could.

The board also approved a curriculum unit titled "Showing Your Work," which administrators said would now mainly serve as a reminder that work was, at one time, done.

The district's calculator policy was left unchanged. Officials noted it was written in 1987 and had held up better than most of the board.

"If a machine comes for long division, we'll fall back to counting on fingers," said Dunleavy. "We have a lot of those."

At press time, the board had been unable to split the cost of the new long-division textbooks evenly among its seven members, and had asked a computer.