Middle school teachers and administrators from across the borough met at a conference Saturday to discuss how to protect the educations of their students.

The conference served as platform to brainstorm and share out-of-the-box concepts to inspire students. Participants say middle school-aged students can be hard to reach. Schools are also facing possible budget cuts.

"We just lose generations of kids," Ntiedo Etuk, C.E.O. of the educational gaming company Tabula Digita. "We want to catch kids and really appeal to them."

One unique idea program is a mathematics game designed to teach kids without them realizing it. Organizers say the program has been so successful that the Department of Education has pushed to make it available in more schools.