November 3, 2003
Volume 16, No. 6
Congratulations to Mr. Sam Havens, Dr. Ingrid Fotino, Ms. Cheryle Kapsak, Mr. Chris Kilgore, and Ms. Stephanie Weber on the classroom mini-grant awards they have received from the Foundation for Boulder Valley Schools. Each grant is for approximately $600 and teachers will use the funds to purchase much-needed classroom supplies that will benefit our students. The mini-grant awards also help Summit to s-t-r-e-t-c-h Tools for Learning funds to cover other important Summit needs.
Plans for the mini-grant funds include developing a history video library, buying flags for use in World History and World Geography classes, buying hand-held microscopes that students can take home to show their parents what they have discovered, and purchasing scientific calculators for use in geometry and Chem/Physics classes. A representative from the Foundation will present the grant awards at the Summit faculty meeting on November 4.
When you see these teachers, please give them a big thank you for their extra work on behalf of their students. And, to the teachers who applied but did not receive a grant this year, thank you for your hard work. We will try again next year!
An important informational meeting about enrolling your child in high school will be held for the parents of all 8th graders on Wednesday, November 19, at 7 p.m. in the Summit multipurpose room. Mrs. Bartley, Summit's counselor, will discuss how to choose a high school program and provide information about neighborhood high school enrollment and open enrollment procedures. In addition, parents will be given important information regarding the process of choosing and registering for appropriate courses at high schools in the Boulder Valley School District.
A high school counselor from the Boulder Valley School District will present information regarding the transition from middle school to high school and will be available to answer questions. This meeting is for parents only, as similar information will be provided to all 8th grade students during the week after Thanksgiving break. If you have questions regarding your child's enrollment in high school, this meeting is a must! Please join us.
Summit students took the TerraNova test in May 2003, one month later than usual owing to many incidents of illness during the spring semester.
Before CSAP was instituted in Colorado, Summit annually administered the complete TerraNova (CTBS) battery to all students in all grades. As CSAP has been rolled out to all grades (through grade 10) and subjects, Summit has continued to administer subsets of the TerraNova battery only in Vocabulary, Language Mechanics, Mathematics, Math Computation, and Spelling. To permit a year-to-year comparison through the most recent year available, only these subjects are reported in the table below. Diagonals in the table from upper right to lower left represent the change in student achievement as measured by the yearly progress of each cohort of students (one shaded example is shown).
Many Summit students top-out on the regular grade-level TerraNova. To assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of these students, and to measure their academic growth, Summit has administered one-grade-level-higher tests to all students since 1998-1999. Because the TerraNova tests are normed for a range of grades, the score reports for Summit students are valid and comparable, and students are not penalized for taking the more advanced tests.
Summit TerraNova Median Scores Expressed as National Percentiles
| Vocabulary | 2002-2003 | 2001-2002 | 2000-2001 | 1999-2000 | 1998-1999 | 1997-1998 | 1996-1997 |
| 6th Grade | 90.8 | 85.0 | 86.8 | 87.6 | 89.0 | 88.2 | 88.7 |
| 7th Grade | 84.4 | 86.6 | 84.8 | 87.2 | 86.4 | 87.0 | 90.6 |
| 8th Grade | 90.4 | 89.3 | 89.9 | 91.0 | 88.8 | 91.4 | 84.9 |
| Language Mechanics | 2002-2003 | 2001-2002 | 2000-2001 | 1999-2000 | 1998-1999 | 1997-1998 | 1996-1997 |
| 6th Grade | 83.1 | 83.0 | 77.5 | 81.1 | 86.2 | 81.5 | 78.5 |
| 7th Grade | 77.5 | 83.8 | 83.6 | 80.7 | 80.0 | 75.8 | 79.5 |
| 8th Grade | 81.0 | 86.5 | 89.0 | 87.3 | 84.4 | 80.7 | 73.5 |
| Mathematics | 2002-2003 | 2001-2002 | 2000-2001 | 1999-2000 | 1998-1999 | 1997-1998 | 1996-1997 |
| 6th Grade | 91.6 | 90.4 | 91.3 | 89.3 | 80.0 | 92.2 | 87.9 |
| 7th Grade | 92.5 | 91.5 | 88.7 | 85.8 | 90.3 | 84.9 | 87.1 |
| 8th Grade | 92.3 | 89.3 | 87.0 | 92.7 | 88.7 | 90.3 | 88.6 |
| Math Computation | 2002-2003 | 2001-2002 | 2000-2001 | 1999-2000 | 1998-1999 | 1997-1998 | 1996-1997 |
| 6th Grade | 93.7 | 91.8 | 90.7 | 91.0 | 84.4 | 74.0 | 64.6 |
| 7th Grade | 90.9 | 89.7 | 87.7 | 88.3 | 91.4 | 81.0 | 84.1 |
| 8th Grade | 91.2 | 89.0 | 85.0 | 88.5 | 85.5 | 88.5 | 81.2 |
| Spelling | 2002-2003 | 2001-2002 | 2000-2001 | 1999-2000 | 1998-1999 | 1997-1998 | 1996-1997 |
| 6th Grade | 77.7 | 78.8 | 72.5 | 75.5 | 69.4 | 80.2 | 83.3 |
| 7th Grade | 73.7 | 73.3 | 64.0 | 66.7 | 67.4 | 73.3 | 78.2 |
| 8th Grade | 91.3 | 88.0 | 89.3 | 88.7 | 88.9 | 72.8 | 72.0 |
On the whole, Summit’s students increase in national percentile score during their tenure at Summit, with an intervening dip in 7th grade in some subjects. The increase in national percentile score is seen also in Summit’s lowest-performing, 10th-local-percentile students (data not shown).
Another indicator of Summit’s effectiveness is its students' "anticipated difference" scores, the difference between actual achievement and anticipated performance based on cognitive skills. Each year, Summit students have had significantly positive anticipated-difference scores in most subjects in every grade.
This year, seven 6th graders, four 7th graders, and one 8th grader did not take the Test of Cognitive Skills (TCS). For those students who took both TerraNova and TCS, areas of exceptional relative strength in spring 2003 were the following, with anticipated differences shown in parentheses:
Areas of relative weakness in spring 2003 were:
Some of these areas of relative strength and weakness are apparent in the table of median national percentile scores based on a comparison of scores from prior years.
Two board meetings have been held in the Summit library since the last Summit News. On October 16, the board covered many items, with highlights including:
Another Summit Board meeting was held on October 30, with Principal David Finell absent because he was in Washington, DC, to pick up Summit's Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award. Highlights from this meeting include:
The next Board meeting will be held November 13. Meetings are held in Summit's library and begin at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. All regular Summit Board meetings are public. Any and all members of our Summit community are encouraged to attend.
All Summit families should have received a pledge packet in the mail last week for Tools for Learning, Summit Middle School's primary fundraising program. Funds raised through the campaign are essential to Summit's operations and emphasis to provide students with the tools necessary to achieve academic excellence.
This year's TFL campaign has two goals. The first is 100% participation: a donation from each and every Summit family. Every donation, regardless of the dollar amount, counts toward this participation goal. The second goal is to reach $100,000 (approximately $350 per Summit family on average) in total contributions. We know this is a difficult time for many of our families, but believe that if we each give what we can, we will meet this goal.
Importantly, many employers make matching contributions to charitable nonprofit organizations such as SOS. Take a look at the list below for area companies we know have corporate matching programs. If your employer is not on the list, inquire at your office to see if there is a corporate matching program available to enhance our fundraising efforts.
ACE INA; Aid Association for Lutherans; AT&T; Avaya Communications; Bell Communications Research (Bellcore); Berger Funds; The Boeing Company, Inc.; BP; Caterpillar, Inc.; Chambers Family Fund; Chicago Tribune Foundation; CIGNA Corporation; Citigroup; CNA Insurance Companies; Conseco Finance Corporation; Eaton Corporation; Equitable Life of Iowa; Exxon Mobil; First Data Corporation; Firemans' Fund Insurance Co.; Foley's (May Department Stores Foundation); Georgia Pacific Corporation; Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company; John Hancock Financial Services, Inc.; H.J. Heinz Company; IBM Corporation; Janus Funds; Kaiser Permanente; Kansas City Southern Industries, Inc.; Key Bank; Kinder Morgan, Inc.; Kmart Corporation; Landmark Graphics Corporation; Lexmark International; Eli Lilly & Company; Lord & Taylor (May); Lucent Technologies; McDonald's Corporation; McGraw-Hill Foundation, Inc.; Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; NCR Corporation; Newmont Mining Corporation; Northern Trust Co.; Oppenheimer Funds, Inc.; Oracle; Pan Energy Corporation; Pella Corporation; Pepsi Cola, Inc.; Phelps Dodge Corporation; Pitney Bowes; PPG Industries, Inc.; The Prudential; Radio Shack (Tandy Corporation); Safeco Insurance Co.; St. Paul Companies, Inc.; Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.; Shaklee Corporation; Sony Corporation of America; The Stanley Works; Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, Inc.; TRW, Inc.; United Parcel Service; U.S. Bank; Washington Mutual Inc.; Williams Companies, Inc.; Wynkoop Brewing Co.; and Xcel Energy, Inc.
If you did not receive a SOS pledge packet yet, please contact Dolly Dean at 303-473-9600. If you have received your packet, please return your pledge card as soon as possible. A quick response saves us follow-up mailings and keeps campaign costs down. In addition, if you return your pledge card now you can claim your 2003 tax deduction and help Summit meet important needs -- a win-win for Summit and for you! A key focus for fundraising this year is upgrading our computer lab, library and office computers.
Thanks again to the many families who are purchasing grocery certificates on a regular basis. Through October 15 we sold $16,750 worth of King Soopers and Safeway certificates and debit cards for a net profit of $750. This is a great start to the year!
In November, because of the extended Thanksgiving break, we will have only one parking lot sale, on November 14 during morning drop off from 7:40 to 8:15 a.m. If you need certificates at other times during November, please drop your check in the office by Wednesday of any week and your order will be filled and available for pick-up on Friday morning of the same week. Please remember that because Thanksgiving vacation is a full week, you will want to pick up your certificates on or before November 21 to have them over the long break.
Please call or e-mail Dolly Dean at 303-473-9600 or Dohdean[at]travelandsports.com if you have any questions.
Summit students did a great job helping with the Literacy project at the Longmont library on October 21, under the student direction of Hannah Kapsak. Thanks to the students who helped set up and sort books, thanks to parent drivers who picked up students, and especially thanks to Mrs. Smartt, who helped deliver students from Summit to Longmont.
Our fabulous first bake sale on October 28 sold out, under the direction of students Annie Smartt and Megan Kostanick. Many thanks to the Summit community for both baking and buying! Special thanks to parents who donated cakes for the cake raffle.
Student Matthew Eckstein has been developing our new History Club web site, which should be up and running soon. He has also been directing the collection of used Nintendo 64 E games and G movies for pediatric patients in the hospital. Thanks to all the students who have donated to this great cause.
Student Dominic Fuller-Rowell has been coordinating our 2nd annual Trick or Treat for UNICEF project. We are anxious to gather the funds for clean water around the world this year. Children are desperately in need. Thanks to all who are participating in this great cause. Special thanks to Mrs. Cowley for helping.
History Club painted baseboards and trim for our Habitat for Humanity house this past weekend, under the direction of Matthew Markham (and Rachel Baum, when soccer ends), Special thanks to Joe Markham, Matthew's dad, for helping us with this project.
Most of all, thanks to the History Leadership Round Table students who develop and run these projects. You are amazing and wonderful along with all the Summit students whose time, talents, and energy make the world better one kind act at a time. All students are welcome to come join a project any Tuesday at lunch in Mrs. Kapsak's room.
Students who are planning to travel to Spain during Spring Break 2004 must turn in an application and a deposit to Ms. Doyle by November 17. See Ms. Doyle if you need the information or have any questions. ¡Gracias!
It's been a fun month for the Spanish Club. On October 14, we had a club after-school trip to the Corn Maze to practice our directions and discover our escape skills in Spanish. On October 26, many members gathered at the entrance to the Boulder Reservoir to do our semi-annual Adopt-a-Road clean-up. The weather participated beautifully and the road is now spotless after collecting and disposing of many large bags of trash and finding several unusual items, including a fanny-pack with $1 in it, a check for $716 (returned to owner), and a snakeskin. It felt good to help clean up our community!
On November 14, the Spanish Club is sponsoring a visit by Baile Folklorico of Longmont. It is a traditional Latino dance troupe made up of youth from ages 6-18. They will perform in the multipurpose room during 7th period. We invite all interested parents to come enjoy the performance as well.
Last January NASA announced the new Educator Astronaut program, in which teachers with experience in space-related fields would join the Astronaut Corps, work as astronauts, and promote the space program in the educational community. Since I have five years' experience as a spacecraft systems engineer and have dreamed of working in space, I decided to apply. The application packet was extensive, including essays, references, and health history.
Early this fall, NASA asked me for further information on my teaching certification and on a couple of minor health issues, which I quickly provided. I was informed that mine was one of 197 applications forwarded to the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston, out of more than 1,600 completed packets that were received by NASA Headquarters. When they also told me that they would interview about 120 people, it appeared that my chances were pretty good of taking a trip to Houston, which would become my home if I were hired.
Unfortunately, I was recently informed that I do not "meet the medical standard" for the Astronaut Corps. I have some nerve irritation that flares up in my arms occasionally, interfering with my sleep. I treat this with ice and consider it merely an annoyance, but when I spoke with a physician in the Flight Medicine clinic, he said he viewed this as a potential problem as they could not guarantee the availability of ice in the austere environment of space.
Though I am disappointed, I knew this was a long shot, and I look forward to continuing my life and work here in Colorado -- especially as ski season approaches! I thank all of you who wrote references for me and gave me wonderful support and encouragement in pursuing this opportunity. Anyone interested in learning more about the Educator Astronaut Program should visit www.edspace.nasa.gov.
On November 14, Scott Fliegelman, the Bolder Boulder Middle School Challenge coordinator, will come to Summit to present our awards from the 2003 race. He will make a short speech and present the framed race poster with an engraved plaque heralding our 1st place finishes in both the participation and speed categories. Congratulations again to all Summit participants and their families! The ceremony will precede the performance of Baile Folklorico.
Summit offers a mix of interscholastic and intramural athletic activities for students throughout the year. To participate, students must turn in a BVSD interscholastic athletics parent permission form (available from Coach A, Ms. Dornbush, or the office), and a copy of a sports physical conducted no more that a year before the start date of the activity. Upcoming sports activities include:
The CU Wizards Program is an informal introduction to astronomy, chemistry, and physics, intended for students in grades 5 through 9. Programs are free and begin at 9:30 a.m. The next program is:
The Foundation for Boulder Valley Schools is accepting nominations through November 6 for its Impact Awards Program. This annual program honors five exemplary people who are making a difference for students in the Boulder Valley School District. Only individuals-such as teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, office personnel, service employees, or volunteers-are eligible for the award. Each winner receives $2,000 ($1,500 to benefit students and $500 as a personal award). Staff, students, and parents are encouraged to nominate someone who has made a difference at their school.
November 17 is the deadline for submitting applications for a Connect Grant. The Connect program is designed to assist parents in dealing with many adolescent and preadolescent issues. The Foundation's vision is to provide parents with the support they need to help address difficult parenting issues. The mission of the program is to fund the creation of proactive, school-based projects which seek to address student issues, build community, and encourage parental involvement in school activities through innovative and proven programs. The projects must be school-based and targeted towards a parent population. Applications must be signed by a school administrator.
For more information on either of these programs, contact Christina Suarez, Program Officer for the Foundation for Boulder Valley Schools, at 303-447-5132.
The Longmont Youth Symphony (LYS) was formed in the summer of 1996 to provide a resource for young musicians in the local area who wish to further develop their musical abilities under the guidance of professional musicians and members of the Longmont Symphony Orchestra.
The LYS offers weekly rehearsals, a fall weekend retreat, ensemble programs, and professional guidance. The LYS also hosts the Longmont Junior Youth Symphony, a string orchestra for elementary through middle school age students.
Auditions for mid-season entry into the LYS will be held in January 2004, with further auditions held in the summer. For more information, or to schedule an audition, please call 303-651-0167 or visit www.longmontyouthsymphony.org.
Open enrollment will begin December 1 and close on January 23 for the 2004-2005 school year. Summit holds school tours for prospective students and parents as well as two information evenings for prospective students and their parents (see below). The office has a large supply of informational brochures and open house flyers, if you are able to distribute some to interested parents.
Monthly Scheduled Tours -- Parents and students interested in Summit's program are invited to tour the school with a Summit administrator. At the end of the tour, there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. All tours begin at 8:45 a.m. and are by appointment. Please call the Summit office to schedule a tour, at 303-499-9511.
Student/Parent Information Nights -- Student/Parent Information Nights are an excellent opportunity to meet Summit staff and Board members and to learn more about Summit's program. Summit's mission, philosophy, and curriculum are discussed, textbooks and work samples are displayed, and presentations made by core subject and elective teachers. All prospective students and their families are encouraged to attend one of these evening programs, offered twice during the year.
Student Visitation Days -- Students who have been notified of acceptance at Summit are eligible to attend a student visitation day. This program is designed for students who feel they need to visit the school to make a final decision before open enrollment to Summit. On the day they visit, students shadow a Student Ambassador (current 6th grader) for a half-day. Dates and sign-up procedures for student visitation days will be sent with letters of acceptance, which are mailed in January in coordination with the BVSD open enrollment timeline.
The calendar of events for prospective students and parents is:
As a general policy, Summit teachers will not give credit for homework that has been faxed or e-mailed to the Summit office. Thank you for your cooperation.
School cancellation announcements due to weather are made on the following radio and TV stations:
Closures are also posted on the BVSD web site under "Cancellations" at www.bvsd.k12.co.us.
Summit News is distributed electronically. Printed copies are available in the Summit office and newsletter issues, current and past, are also posted on the Summit web site at www.summitmiddleschool.org. To update your email address, drop a note by the office or email jaime.simpson[at]bvsd.k12.co.us.
Summit News is distributed on the 1st and 16th of the month during the academic year. Please e-mail news or announcements to newsletter editor Patrick Hyde at pat.hyde[at]comcast.net.
To see the current or back issues of Summit News, information about Summit, links to other charter schools, and related educational information, refer to Summit's web site via: http://www.summitmiddleschool.org.