Dear CST Family,

The week was short but we packed it in. Nice job to our football teams on their seasons. Both 7th and 8th spent the year working hard and finished with a seeded game against MT (7th) and IT (8th). Our 8th grade won and took 3rd place in the city while our 7th grade lost the championship game at Mission Trail. The boys worked hard all year and have many positive memories to show for it.

Of course, last week was conference week and we had a return of our arena style conferences for the first time since February of 2020. Zoom is fine but nothing beats in person conferences. If you were unable to schedule a time to visit about your child, please reach out to your child's teacher for a time to conference.

This week our girls' basketball teams begin their season with home games against Mission Trail on Tuesday and Prairie Trail on Thursday. These games started after a short turnaround from tryouts to first game with only a handful of practices in-between...the season will move fast and furious! Come out and support your wildcats!

Finally, be sure to check out the CST book fair this week. The store is open daily with later hours on Wednesday. This is a great way to support the CST library and get an early start on holiday shopping!

Have a nice long weekend and enjoy this beautiful fall weather!

Rick

(week at a glance in section below)

To: OPS Families From: Principals Date: Oct. 15-22

During the week of Oct. 18-22, Chisholm Trail is proud to celebrate National School Bus Safety Week. Held during the third full week of October each year, National School Bus Safety Week is a time for parents, students, teachers, motorists, school bus operators, school administrators, and more to join forces and address the importance of school bus safety and honor the men and women who help provide our students safe transportation to and from school each day. In Olathe Public Schools, we are proud to partner with DS Bus Lines and Assisted Transportation to provide students transportation.

Throughout the week, families are encouraged to take a photo with their child’s bus driver and share on social media using the hashtags #OPSMomentsThatMatter, #OPSLovesDS and #OPSLovesAT. Thanks for joining us as we celebrate this important group of employees!

The Counseling Department would like to take a moment to share a resource from Children’s Mercy Hospital with you. Please use this link https://www.childrensmercy.org/departments-and-clinics/developmental-and-behavioral-health/prepped-and-ready/ to access information about Prepped and Ready: Parenting into the Teen Years. This is set up as a short video series that you can watch as your schedule permits. There is no cost, and if you complete a short survey at the end, Children’s Mercy will send you a great safety kit.

Topics include eating disorder prevention, home safety (including storage of firearms, medications, etc.), screen time, self-care, substance use (including vaping), and suicide prevention.

This resource will only be available for a short time, so please don’t wait!

Contact your child's counselor with questions.

If your family is interested in receiving weekend snacks to go home in their student's backpacks on Friday, please email rjiuli@olatheschools.org or amrodden@olatheschools.org.

Rachel Iuli & Ashley Rodden

School Counselors
Olathe Public Schools

Chisholm Trail Middle School

913-780-7240

• While seated on the bench during games players should be masked
• Coaches and managers should be masked at all times
• While playing, players are not required to mask

Cheer

• While cheering on the sideline or performing a routine on the floor, cheerleaders do not need to mask
• All other times (sitting on the bleachers, entering and leaving the gym, meeting with coach) cheerleaders should be masked.
• Coaches should be masked at all times

Dance Team

• While performing a routine on the floor, dancers do not need to mask
• All other times (sitting on the bleachers, entering and leaving the gym, meeting with coach) dancers should be masked.
• Coaches should be masked at all times

All spectators

• Students, parents, visitors, workers, staff all need to be masked at all times while attending a game

Parents,

As our students are well underway with their WIN time choice boards, we are going to reward students for their hard work! Teachers will nominate hard working students who'll then be entered into a drawing for a prize. Below is a link if you'd like to contribute toward our prizes for students. If you have any questions please reach out to assistant principal, Krista Dueringer at kdueringercst@olatheschools.org.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F044CAAA62CAAFC1-wintime

In the weeks ahead, we'll begin providing literacy intervention for students identified through our MAP testing and reading fluency assessments in the building. This intervention will be provided during our WIN class period (8:44-9:18) and students will work in groups of 5 or less with CST teachers. All students will still be eligible for the WIN prizes described above, but may spend WIN time with one of our building literacy interventionists (one of 13 CST teachers) while they receive literacy intervention targeting any of the identified literacy gaps. This intervention time is being utilized in our Olathe Schools and achieves the state literacy mandate.

In addition, beginning Monday, all CST students will begin to receive daily phonics lessons for the first 5 minutes of their science class. This, too, is part of a district wide effort to help close any gaps that may have occurred through any of our kids' schooling. Daily phonics lessons will be fulfilled by your child's social studies teacher beginning in January.

A nationwide trend has recently made its way into local schools. Unfortunately, CST has not been exempt from this trend, nor have the other Olathe middle schools and high schools. The trend has been credited to TikTok and involves vandalizing schools and posting the video evidence on the social media platform. This has resulted in various acts of vandalism in Olathe including broken bathroom stall doors, mirrors pulled down from walls, soap dispensers ripped from walls, trash cans turned upside down, etc. Some have been caught as a result of their posted video making rounds. Of course, these actions can result in both school and legal consequences. The first story below features Olathe North principal, Jason Herman, who was interviewed by the KC Star.

The other articles are informational, but recent, and deal more with the mental health impact social media can have. Even working in schools as an administrator, I was not aware of some of the information below. As more focus and attention is given to the mental health of our children, the various social media platforms and their influence on the developing teenage brain is an important part of the conversation. My hope is that the links below will provide awareness of current trends and more about outside influences on our kids. Even better if these promote discussion at home.

Johnson County school has bathroom doors and toilet seats stolen, following TikTok trend (featuring Olathe principal) (9/15/2021)

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/education/article254240178.html

TikTokers Are Stealing From Their Schools in a New Trend (9/10/2021)

5 Things Parents Need to Know about Tik-Tok (Updated 2021)

https://kidmatterscounseling.com/blog/5-things-parents-need-to-know-about-tik-tok/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/09/14/facebook-knew-instagram-could-bad-teens-mental-health/8340578002/

The links below require a Wall Street Journal subscription but may be found in summary on other social media awareness sites.

How TikTok Serves Up Sex and Drug Videos to Minors (9/8/2021)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-algorithm-sex-drugs-minors-11631052944

Inside TikTok’s Algorithm: A WSJ Video Investigation(7/21/2021)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-algorithm-video-investigation-11626877477

Our CST library app has been fixed! Students may use the CST Library app (from Classlink) to access tutorials to get ebooks and audiobooks from Destiny and/or Axis360, browse book trailers and booktalks, use databases for school research, etc...

Also, bookfairs are returning!! Our fall bookfair will be the week of October 18th and the Spring bookfair will be the week of February 14th. Both of these weeks are the week after conferences and the fairs will be in the library. This year we will be using Scholastic Book Fairs. More details to come as we get closer...

https://sites.google.com/students.olatheschools.com/cstlibrary

Receptionist: Chrissy Walters

Assistant Principal's Secretary: Angie Peterson

Attendance Secretary: Connie Bray

Bookkeeper/Principal's Secretary: Sara Harris

Data Operator: Melynda Marquardt

School Nurse: Jennifer Ross

Please keep info updated (email, phone number, medical, etc.). Contact the office at 913-780-7240 if you are concerned you may be missing communication or need to update your family's information.