April 2014 - Carmel Clay Schools

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INSIDE: SAVE THE DATE / THE ALTRUISM CLUB / MATHCOUNTS / CLAY
ATHLETICS / INDY STAR / ISTEP+ TESTING / MIDDLE SCHOOL SCHEDULING
INFORMATION / COUNSELORS AND STUDENT SERVICES COORDINATORS /
CARMEL HIGH SCHOOL SCHEDULING INFORMATION / NEW STUDENT SERVICES
COORDINATOR / TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SCHOLARS PROGRAM / GIRLS NIGHT
OUT / GUYS AND DOLLS JR
Clay Middle School | 5150 E 126 Street | Carmel, IN 46033 | P: 317.844.7251 | F: 317.571.4020 | www1.ccs.k12.in.us/clm/home | Mr. Todd Crosby, Principal
APRIL 2014
Dear Clay Nation,
I would like to first of all wish everyone a safe, restful, and relaxing
spring break (safe travels!) As spring arrives, it brings with a much
needed break and rest for our students and staff who have worked
very hard through an unusual winter with all the delays and
cancellations due to weather. As many of you know since March 6,
our school district came up with a solution to our school make up
days. The school day has been slightly altered at the beginning of the
day and end of the day and this will remain through the rest of the
school year to add the additional time necessary for our schools to
make up lost instructional time.
ISTEP+ Testing Update
On March 11-13, our students went through the first testing window
for ISTEP+ testing. Our next set of testing dates will be April 15-16
(practice test). The 2nd official testing window from April 28-May 2.
How Do We Build the Clay Culture?
CONGRATULATIONS to the entire Clay Math department and
Mrs. Jane Alt on receiving our GREATNESS Award for March.
Roller Coaster Hurricane Sandy Fundraiser (Science Department).
This past Wednesday, March 26, Clay had the pleasure of hosting a
luncheon to honor several 8th grade students and Mr. Simon and
Mrs. Fulp for all their efforts towards the Hurricane Sandy Relief
Project. The day had several distinguished guests that emphasized
the importance of service and how important this is in everyday life
and lessons that we can all learn from doing GREAT things for others.
Our student committees collected approximately a final total of
approximately $6,500 to support Hurricane Sandy victims and the
proceeds will be sent to Sandy Relief Fund/Robin Hood Foundation
in New York City, NY. All of our students and the teachers have
worked hard to bring science to life for our students and are paving
the way for true service learning and real world relevancy through
this wonderful project that started from a simple idea. Thank you for
“Finding Your Greatness”!
ISSMA Solo and Ensemble: Wind/Percussion/String Competition
ISSMA Solo Voice and Piano Competitions. February was a huge
performance month for all of our band, orchestra, and choir students
who received GOLD ratings as they competed at the ISSMA Wind/
Percussion/String Competition and the Solo Voice and Piano
Competition.
6th Grade Band Concert. On March 13 our 6th graders did an
incredible job performing in front of a packed house. Thank you to
Mrs. Pote and Mrs. Allen for all you hard work with our band students.
Academic Bowl. On March 25 our academic bowl team competed
at the Hamilton County Competition at Riverside Jr. High and made
Clay proud. Thank you Ms. Smiley for all your efforts.
Speech Team. Congratulations on a successful speech season and all
those who received awards at their March 23 awards program.
Spring Sports Are Underway! Our spring sports options are softball
(7, 8), baseball (7, 8), and track and field (6, 7, and 8). There was an
information night for all spring athletes and their parents this past
Wednesday March 26, 2014.
For more information please feel free to contact our Activities/Athletic
Director, Mr. John Corcoran at [email protected]
Thank You to our Winter Student Athletes. Thank you to all of our
students that competed this winter and finished their seasons over the
last 3 weeks. I have been proud as the principal to see our athletes and
teams compete in a very impressive manner. They have truly modeled
GREATNESS in both times of victory and defeat, and I know I can speak
for our staff when I say that we are all proud of them!
AdvancED Study. This is a repeat from last month, but I wanted our
school community to know of all the great work our School Improvement
Team and parents that devoted time and effort toward the completion
of this very extensive process. We have recently been informed that due
to all your hard work Clay Middle School has been chosen as one of the
buildings out of our 15 in Carmel Clay Schools to be visited in the month
of April by an outside AdvancEd committee. This is a super opportunity
for Clay to highlight all the great things happening at Clay.
As principal, I believe it is my position to help provide vision, leadership,
oversight, safety, and the best instruction to every student that attends
Clay Middle School. I truly realize that success cannot be accomplished
without an active school community to continue to take Clay Middle
School in the direction of continuous success and excellence. Have a
wonderful spring break everyone!
Sincerely, Todd A. Crosby, Principal
April Events
4/4-13....................................................................................................Spring Break
4/15..................................................6th Grade Leadership Breakfast, 7:00am
4/16......................... 8th Grade Baseball Home vs Noblesville MS, 5:00pm
4/17..................................................7th Grade Leadership Breakfast, 7:00am
4/17................................. 8th Grade Baseball Home vs Carmel MS, 5:00pm
4/17.................................... 7th Grade Softball Home vs Creekside, 5:00pm
4/17...........................................Track Home vs Fall Creek Valley MS, 5:00pm
4/17.............................................................................Frosh Rock for 8th graders
and parents at CHS auditorium, 7:00pm
4/18...........................................Baseball and Softball pictures, 3:30-4:30pm
4/21.......................... 8th Grade Softball Home vs Noblesville MS, 5:00pm
4/21......................................... 7th Grade Baseball vs Zionsville MS, 5:00pm
4/22..................................................8th Grade Leadership Breakfast, 7:00am
4/22.................. 8th Grade Baseball Home vs Mount Vernon MS, 5:00pm
4/22.......................... 7th Grade Softball Home vs Noblesville MS, 5:00pm
4/23.................................... 8th Grade Softball Home vs Belzer MS, 5:00pm
4/23......................... 7th Grade Baseball Home vs Noblesville MS, 5:00pm
Please welcome Mrs. Julie Medlin,
Front Office Secretary, and Mrs. Gina
Potter, Students Services Coordinator.
THE ALTRUISM CLUB
The Altruism Club is organizing a
fundraiser called “Lids for Kids”. All
proceeds will go to Peyton Manning
Children’s Hospital. The event will take
place on April 18. Students can pay $1 or more to wear
their hat of choice throughout the school day.
CLAY SPEECH AND DEBATE
AWARDS DINNER
The regular season speech team awards dinner was
held March 23 at Clay. Over 30 new members received
medals, and new NJFL members received certificates
and membership cards. NJFL 100 point club trophies
went to Zach Beeler, Bella Simons, Crystal Xue, and
Emily Worrell. Picket fence awards for straight ones in
competition went to Crystal Xue, Emily Worrell, Mallory
Roach, Emma Hedrick and Anja Reese. Team award
winners for the season were Zach Beeler, Most Valuable
Interpretive Speaker, Crystal Xue Most Valuable
Extemporaneous Speaker, and Emily Worrell, Most
Valuable Speaker.
The speech and debate team will compete in the National
Junior Forensic League Nationals in Kansas City in June.
M AT H C O U N T S
Clay’s MATHCOUNTS team competed in the State Mathcounts
competition at Rose-Hulman University on March 15, 2014. Clay
placed 7th in the state out of the top 45 schools in the state.
Congratulations to all students who competed including 8th
graders: Michael Hu, Justin Ren, and Crystal Xue; 7th graders:
Parker Jou, Satvik Kumar, Anthony Ou, and Sophie Wang; 6th
graders: Iris Yan, Jerry Wang, and Nicole Segaran.
OFF-SEASON WORKOUTS FOR GIRLS
CLAY ATHLETICS
Congratulations to our Wrestling team and
girls’ basketball teams on completing a
successful winter season.
The Hamilton County Wrestling tournament featured
8 Clay wrestlers who placed in the top 6 in their
weight class. 6th place finishers were Jace Loncharich
and Caleb Vahle. 5th place went to Jonathan Krueger
and Enzo Lundy. 4th place finishers were Jonathan
Vanzetta and Cameron Bacon. And 3rd place was
awarded to Ryan Campbell and Ben Batchelder.
Spring sports are in full swing as we look ahead to
their first home contests.
Track and Field – April 15th vs Fishers Jr. High
7th grade softball – April 17th vs Creekside
Starting on Tuesday, April 15, there will be
off-season workouts for any girl currently
attending a Carmel school in grades 6-11 who
is interested in trying out for a Carmel school
team next year. Workouts will be from 3:30-6:00
in the Carmel High School Field House. Middle
School girls are welcome to join us when they
can get there, but all Middle School students
must turn in a concussion and consent form
prior to being able to participate. Those forms
can be found at http://www1.ccs.k12.in.us/
uploads/attachments/0001/7969/P_C-Instr_
Forms_14-15.pdf. Workouts will be on Tuesdays
and Thursdays.
CCS ATHELTIC PHYSICAL DAY
CCS Atheltic Physical day will take place
on Monday, April 14th at CHS (5:30pm-8:30pm).
Please visit http://www1.ccs.k12.in.us/clm/
athletics/forms for more information about
this event.
8th grade softball – April 2nd vs Westfield
7th grade baseball – April 21st vs Zionsville
8th grade baseball – April 16th vs Noblesville East
Keep up with Clay’s spring sports on twitter: @
ClayMSAthletics.
Clay athletics has teamed up with City BBQ on April
2nd. Mention Clay middle school or Clay Athletics
while ordering and 25% of your order will be
donated back to Clay athletics. Online orders will be
accepted as well at www.citybbq.com.
Clay Middle School
The Clay Way
Be Responsible | Be Respectful
Be Ready to Learn | Be Full of Pride
Wednesday March 26th, 2014,
(left to right), students, Emma
Hendrick, Grace Rosebrough, and
Kara Arnold listen as speakers read
thank you notes from Sandy Victims.
community leaders and students
gathered at Clay Middle School, in
Carmel, to praise 8th grade physical
science students, who raised four
thousand dollars for victims of
Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey.
~Michelle Pemberton/The Star
These are all skills that our students
need and they move into the world
and become the next leaders of
tomorrow.
Congratulations to Clay
for Making the Cover
of the Indy Star
Yesterday's event is a reminder that you only need a vision people who
buy into a purpose to make a huge impact. I think we often times search
in education for ways to connect real world experiences to our classrooms.
Research has proven that students who take the time to REFLECT and actively
participate in service-learning experiences get more from their academic
experience.
When we all stop to take a minute to think about back to our middle school
experience, I think we all will agree that it truly was a unique time when many
of us began to find out who we are and what we are made of.
Through the Sandy Relief Project, we allowed our students (through the
guidance of their teachers, Mr. Simon and Mrs. Fulp) to
• Lead
• Solution finders
• Explore
• Become more engaged at a more active level
• See the relevancy of WHY they are doing what they are doing, and HOW
it does have purpose
• Realize that their actions are helping others - in this case, others that
they have never met or ever will meet
• Reach out and bridge a partnership with our community
• See the importance of starting something, working hard, and finishing
something to completion with full satisfaction that they gave it their all
I heard it said yesterday on more
than one occasion—"As adults we
have been empowered by all of you
to go out and make a difference". I
think this statement says it best
and summarizes that if you give our
kids a little, they will "drive it" to a
another level and it is through this
collaborative approach between
students (youth) and teachers
(adults) that we all learn things we
never knew—and most importantly,
we do to TOGETHER.
I am very proud of this group for
taking this challenge on and defining
what it means to be GREAT and
"Find Your Greatness". I will close
by posing a challenge to our staff
that as we move forward even into
next year to not be afraid to take
on that challenge or risk in your
subject, so that we all embrace more
opportunities for our students to
continue to engage in real world
experiences.
"The visionary starts with a clean sheet
of paper and re-imagines the world."
~Malcolm Gladwell
Huge success Clay!!! Thank you to
all of you that played a role from
the setup, to the program, to the
breakdown.
Sincerely, Todd A. Crosby, Principal
ISTEP+ TESTING
NEW STUDENT SERVICES COORDINATOR
Spring ISTEP+ testing has been broken
down into two segments including the
ISTEP+ Writing Assessment focusing on
open-ended response items and the
ISTEP+ Progress Assessment consisting
of multiple choice questions. Please
note that the second segment of ISTEP+
testing is scheduled for the week of
April 28-May 13. We expect results to be
available by early summer.
Hi, my name is Gina Potter. I am the new Student Services
Coordinator for Clay Middle School. I have always had a
strong passion for helping kids work through life’s stress
and making good choices. In 2010, I graduated from Purdue
University where I studied Psychology and Child
Development and Family Studies. I then went to IUPUI
and worked on my Master’s degree in Social Work. In this
program, my focus was on school social work. I love
connecting with students and families in the school setting,
it’s just awesome! After graduating I began working for Cummins Behavioral Health
as a school based therapist assisting students and families on social and emotional
issues, building relationships and personal growth. Through Cummins, I worked in
Decatur and Pike Township schools. Some other fun information about me:
Please visit the following link at the
Indiana Department of Education to
find answers to frequently answered
questions regarding the ISTEP+ test.
http://www.doe.in.gov/achievement/
assessment/istep-grades-3-8
• I am an outdoorsy person who loves taking walks with my dog.
• I enjoy having Pinterest craft parties with my friends and watching movies with
my husband.
• I come from a large family so spending time with those I love is very important
to me.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
SCHEDULING
INFORMATION
I am truly excited to begin my journey as a Student Services Coordinator here at Clay
Middle School. Please feel free to contact me with any challenges, concerns
and successes!
The deadline to make schedule change
requests is May 21, 2014. Students may
pick up and return a drop/add form in
the counseling office or you may contact
your counselor through email.
http://www1.ccs.k12.in.us/clm/
Counseling/scheduling
CARMEL HIGH
SCHOOL SCHEDULING
INFORMATION
If you have questions regarding your
child’s 9th grade schedule or wish
to make a change, please contact
the Carmel High School Freshman
Counseling Center at 571-4621.
NOT ATTENDING
CARMEL CLAY SCHOOLS
NEXT YEAR?
Please have your child stop in the
counseling office to pick up a form to be
completed indicating that he/she will
not be enrolled at either Clay Middle
School or Carmel High School during the
2014-2015 school year.
COUNSELORS AND STUDENT SERVICES COORDINATORS
Leigh Roan, Administrative Assistant
[email protected]
Erin Naas, Counselor
Lisa Bellamy, Student Services Coordinator
[email protected] [email protected]
All Grade 7
6th Grade Students Last Names Beginning A – K
Cathy Patane, Counselor
Gina Potter, Student Services Coordinator
[email protected]
[email protected]
All Grade 8
6th Grade Students Last Names Beginning L – Z
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SCHOLARS PROGRAM
It’s never too early to start planning for college and the Twenty-first Century Scholars Program may be able to help
your child if they meet the eligibility requirements and are willing to fulfill the Twenty-first Century Scholars Pledge
which is listed on the application. This program, created in 1990, is designed to encourage middle school students in
Indiana to begin planning for their future. The Twenty-First Century Scholars Program will provide up to four years of
college tuition to participants who attend an eligible public or private college, university, or proprietary institution in
the state of Indiana. If you qualify (see the income maximums listed below), the deadline for applying to the program
is June 30, 2014. This is especially important if your child will be completing the 8th grade this year. After the deadline,
they will no longer be eligible for this program since they will be entering high school in the fall.
Household Size
Maximum Annual Income
2$27,991
3$35,317
4$42,643
5$49,969
6$57,295
For each additional person in your household, add $7,326.
Applications must be filled out online at www.scholars.in.gov. If you have
any questions please contact Gina Potter, Clay Middle School Student
Services Coordinator, at 844-7251, ext. 6729.
Girls Night Out
Clay counselors hosted approximately eighty 6th grade moms
and daughters at a Girls Night Out event on Thursday, March 27.
We enjoyed pizza, a movie and open conversation focusing on
relationships among girls. The movie we viewed followed the story
of a young girl who tries to fit into a clique of middle school girls.
Through conversation we were able to relate the theme of this movie
to our real lives. Relational aggression is the use of relationships to
harm another person. Examples include starting rumors, spreading
gossip, teasing, creating or joining cliques and deliberately excluding
others. Developmentally tweens are embarking upon a new social era.
Developing problem solving skills and communication strategies can help
to resolve these kinds of troubles. We appreciate all of those who were able to attend and want to continue to work
cooperatively to define and correct social behaviors and teach coping skills!
How Can Parents Support their Daughters?
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Be available to listen and don’t downplay the importance of an incident.
Encourage your daughter to work things out on her own but be there for support. Remember, she owns the problem.
Teach kindness and model that behavior.
Talk about both sides of an issue. Girls may tell you about begin a target but not talk about being the aggressor themselves.
Hold your daughter accountable for her behavior.
Communicate and collaborate with the school.
Be aware of the social pressures placed on girls by culture and the media. (ie. appearance, clothing, etc.)
Monitor your daughter’s cell phone and use of social networking. It is not a matter of trust; it is a matter of safety.
Provide emotional support. Whether a girl is a victim, bystander or an aggressor, she may feel isolated and alone.
Promote positive self-esteem.
Help your daughter to develop coping skills such as listening to music, exercising, and keeping a journal.
Assist your daughter in establishing relationship boundaries. Discuss the characteristics of a true friend.
Make sure she has a variety of places to make friends.
Seek professional help when necessary.
Set in Damon Runyon's mythical New York City, GUYS AND DOLLS JR. introduces us
to colorful characters who have become legends in the musical theatre canon:
Sarah Brown, the upright but uptight "mission doll,"; Sky Masterson, the slick, high-rolling
gambler who woos her on a bet and ends up falling in love; Adelaide, a nightclub performer
whose chronic flu is brought on by the fact she's been engaged to the same man
for many years; and Nathan Detroit, her devoted fiancé,
desperate as always to find a spot for is infamous floating dice game.
April 25-26, 7pm | Understudy show 7pm April 24
Clay Middle School, 5150 E. 126th St. $3 students, $5 adults
(317) 844-7251, www.ccs.k12.in.us/clm