You are cordially invited to the Odle Middle School SHOWCASE on Thursday, January 19^th from 6:30 to 8:15!  Odle Showcase is an evening where you and your student can learn about all the amazing programs at Odle and meet Odle's terrific teachers!  Showcase is for ALL families - General Education, Special Education and Prism.  Everyone is welcome!

This year, you and your student will have the option of going on a guided tour and learning about all our programs OR doing your own self-guided visitation.  You might choose the guided tour if this is your first child in middle school or if you are unfamiliar with Odle.  You might choose the self-guided visitation if you have had children already go through middle school or if you are already familiar with Odle.

Again, we invite all families to the Odle Showcase on Thursday, January 19^th from 6:30 to 8:15!

Sincerely,

Eric McDowell, Principal

FOOM (Friends of Odle Music), ASB and the PTSA have been actively fundraising to support our excellent music programs at Odle. Following is a summary of recent events, as well as future plans.

The band and orchestra CD sale was a huge success! Thanks to all the students who sold the CD's and to the large number of parents who turned out to put together the CD's and distribute them. Special thanks to FOOM president Vicki Liao who has put in countless hours coordinating and making this project happen. In total, the band received $1286.11 and the orchestra received $1386.01. Great job everyone!

The PTSA has made several grants to the music programs at Odle. The choir received a $500 grant to purchase new music and the band and orchestra received $1500 to pay for music coaching. The Bellevue School Foundation also made a $500 grant to help fund the Honors Orchestra.

The bake sale held at the last band concert raised $376. Thank you to all who brought treats to share and all who bought them.

Finally, please SAVE THE DATE for the Odle Spring Fundraiser which will be held on Friday, March 23! A percentage of the money raised will help fund the music programs. Last year, $3500 raised at the event went to the band, orchestra, and choir and paid for instrument purchase and repair and sheet music. Please plan to attend if you can, and make a donation if you can't be there!

The next Friends of Odle Music meeting will be held on Thursday February 2 at 7 pm in the Odle library. We would love to have more parents attend - all are welcome!

AMC-8 was held at Odle onsite on 11/15/2011. AMC-8 is a nationwide middle school students math competition and more than 150,000 students participate it. We had 83 mathletes from Odle participated and they had a superb performance! Once again, Odle made onto the School Honor Roll. We had 7 students gaining perfect scores (25) which is very impressive (only 11 students in Washington State and 89 students in US scored perfectly). We had 24 mathletes scored 22 or above (approximately the top 1%) and they are recognized with Distinguished Honor Roll!

The students who had perfect score:

The students who scored between 22-24:

Sammamish Showcase will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2012 from 6:30 - 9:00 pm.  This event invites current 8th graders to view Sammamish High School and its programs.  The event begins in the Performing Arts Center.  Sports and Clubs will also be featured in the cafeteria.  This is an excellent opportunity to:

• Take a tour of the school and hear brief staff presentations
• Excellent opportunity to ask questions about our $5 million dollar STEM grant and how Sammamish students benefit
• Counselors, staff and students will also be on hand to answer questions
• Learn why Sammamish is named Washington State Innovative High School

Now that we are back to school, we would love to have more parents sign up on the "success" calendar at the PTSA homepage: http://www.odlemiddleschool.org. The Odle staff report that they could really use more help in the work completion and study zones after school.  It is a short period of time and a very easy job-- so please consider signing up even if it's just once a month.    Having a parent or two there helps keep kids on task!   Just click the spot on the calendar that you would like, and type in your name.  Then sign in at the main office and report to the library on the day you selected.  Thanks in advance!

PTSA would like to thank the following parents who have helped coach and organize math club activities and contests!  We appreciate all of you for the many volunteer hours you have spent with the students.  We can see from the recent competition performances that all of this excellent teaching has had superb results.  Thanks for your time and dedication to math learning.   Also a very big thank you to Li Jiang for being the math club chair this year.  Li is doing a great job guiding all of these efforts!

8th grade:

Coach:  Li Jiang

Parent helpers:  Vivian Chang and Vicki Yu

7th grade:

Coach:  Dobromir Dimitrov

Parent helpers:  Huizhen Ji and Jennifer Huang

6th grade:

Coaches:  Qi Lu, Wenlong Dong, Qun Li, Xian-Zhong Guo

Parent helper:  Yan Gu

We would also like to thank all of the other parents who have come to help in the classroom on individual sessions!

Are there any parents out there who would be interested in running a chess club along the same lines as math club?  If so, contact odelptsa@hotmail.com.