Paola Middle School Newsletter

March 4th: NO SCHOOL/ Parent Teacher Conferences 4:00- 8:00 p.m.

March 5th: Scholars Bowl at Prairie View

March 5th: Track Begins- 8th Grade Only

March 6th: Track Begins- 7th Grade Only

March 7th: Choir Concert- 7:00 p.m.

March 8th: No SCHOOL/ Teacher Inservice

March 9th-17th: SPRING BREAK

March 18th: School Resumes

March 21st: Scholars Bowl @ Santa Fe Trail

March 25th-27th: 6th grade Leadership Food Drive

March 28th: Scholars Bowl @ Paola Middle School

8th grade promotion cap and gown order forms were due on March 4th. Due to snow day cancellations, we will continue to collect orders until March 8th. Please contact the office if you have questions or concerns.

A food/rally drive between Middle School and High School buildings will be held the week of March 25th-March 29th at Paola Middle School and Paola High School. The drive will benefit Harvester's and PACA. There will be one winning class and a winning building. Points will be tabulated on a daily basis with points doubled on Wednesday:

Canned Goods/Food = 1 point

Boxed Goods/Food = 2 points

Personal Hygeine Items = 5 points

Sponsored by the high school Developmental Leadership class and 6th grade Leadership class.

RooBuilder's Competition is a competition put together through UMKC. The object of the competition is to see who can design, construct, and test the most efficient bridge using only balsa wood, wood glue and cardstock. Paola Middle School teams began meeting in October researching ideas to create a design plan for their bridge. The Paola Middle School teams were led by Shari Hudgeons.

In November they travelled to UMKC to work with the engineering students to create a computer model of their bridge so they could analyze the design. This helped them to determine if they needed to do any modifications before beginning the building process. The actual competition was held on Saturday, February 9 at UMKC Pierson Auditorium. Teams submitted a video of their design and construction process prior to the competition.

Results:

Emma Haley and Mitchell Ball - 1st place and Rising Star Award - bridge held 28.1 lbs. before breaking

Gus Cook, Ian Drummond, and Kendra Bannon - 2nd place - bridge held 13 lbs before breaking

The Kansas Assessments will be happening the end of March and beginning of April. Students will be measured in Math and Reading. PLEASE encourage students to do their very best. This important assessment will not only measure each student, but also our school.

Sixth-grade science teams participated in a national contest held by National Geographic recently called GeoChallenge. The contest challenged students to devise a plan to solve the environmental issue of widespread plastics in our waterways. They were required to create a solution for cleaning up existing plastic pollution, plastic alternatives, or public awareness of plastic pollution. The teams were to select a specific location to focus their project on as well and create a map. Although all teams did a great job, The Xylenes were chosen to advance to the regional level of the contest. Those students are Lila Davidson, Rex Chayer, Carter Kauk, Garrett Weers, and Xander Meinig.

Kidwind Challenge is a competition where HS and MS students compete in an ultimate energy and wind learning experience. This year's competition had a new format from previous years. The competition was spit up into 4 regional competitions and the top 2 teams from both the high school and the 4th-8th grade division are invited to the State Competition.

Friday, March 1. three teams of students competed in the Kid Wind Energy Challenge in the 4-8 grade division and 1 High School Team competed in the High School Division at Burlington Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant Education Building. For this competition, teams were to design, build, present, and test a functional wind turbine.

Teams were judged in the following categories:

-Turbine Performance Testing

-Knowledge Quiz

-Presentation and Judges Panel

Middle School Teams

Team 1- Aaron Koechner (8th) and Sam Johnson (7th) -2nd place

Team 2 - Mitchell Ball (8th), Mady Robertson (8th), and Kyla Moorandy-Cooper 4th place

Team 3 - Emma Haley (7th), James Haley (5th), Hazel Downum (7th), John Klingele (8th), and Lily Avila (6th) - 3rd place

High School Team

Westside -Rowan West (11th) and Spencer Ryals (11th) - Judges Choice Award and 2nd place

Westside was one of the first teams that competed in the KidWind Challenge for Paola Middle School when they were 8th graders and went on to compete at the National Competition in New Orleans in 2016.

Both Westside and PMS Team 1 are invited to compete in the State Competition on March 30 in Topeka.

STUCO will be hosting a BINGO night on April 18th! Mark your calendars for this family fun night!!!!

Please bring your "charged" Chromebooks to school every day. Preparation is the key to success.

Mrs. Wright

By Ashley Winterschied & Evie Jackson

7th grade Journalism Students

Lets just going to start off by saying that Mrs. Wright is an extremely nice and kind person. When she was little, she didn’t see herself as a vice principal, she thought she wanted to be a horse trainer or a jockey. She always loved horses, even though she didn’t own any at the time. Even today her favorite animal is a horse. She currently owns 3 horses. She also has 4 dogs and multiple cats.

Mrs. Wright graduated from Seaman Topeka High School in North Topeka. When she was in school, both middle school and high school, she played basketball, softball, cross country, volleyball, and did track and gymnastics. Her favorite school subjects were English and history.

Mrs. Wright has been married for almost 17 years. She has 2 kids, her daughter, Delaney, is a freshman and her son, Mathias, is in 3rd grade. She is the oldest of 4 kids. She has 2 younger sisters and 1 younger brother. Some of her favorite things to do are being outside and watching her kids do their activities, which is definitely her favorite. When she was younger she enjoyed reading and playing sports, the competition was one of her favorite things. Her role model is her mom, and her favorite music genre is country and old rock.

Email: amy_wright@usd368.org
Website: www.usd368.org
Location: 405 North Hospital Drive, Paola, KS, USA
Phone: (913)294-8030