I hope everyone has had a wonderful week - it was great to see the sunshine finally come through. As we continually monitor the COVID cases using our school's matrix (click here to see our ALA Dashboard). At this time, we are expecting to come back to blended on January 25.

As a reminder, there will be NO SCHOOL on Monday and Tuesday of this week as we observe the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday on Monday and Teacher Workday on Tuesday. We will continue with remote learning on Wednesday.

I encourage you to review the below information to find out all of the events scheduled and happenings occurring at ALA Middle School. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly.

Thanks for your continued support.

Jeff Whitt

jwhitt@alaschoolsnc.org

919-842-5411 x 102

The ALA Middle Esports Team finished their Fall Season in December. They achieved tremendous results, competing in their first season as a team. The Rocket League team, captained by 8th Grader Justus Turner, finished with an overall record of 6-2, placing them 6th out of 187 teams in the nation.

8th Grader Ava Wright achieved great individual results in Super Smash Bros. She finished her season ranked 11th out of 366 players, losing a close match in the Playoff Rounds of the Fall Season to a highly ranked competitor.

Also, the ALA Middle Fortnite Team captained by Julian Rivas did a tremendous job by competing and placing highly in the weekly tournaments. 8th grader Rhys Beck placed 1st in two tournaments. Julian Rivas (8th), Cameron Pedley (8th), Julian Correia (8th), and Grayson Reese (8th) consistently placed in the top 30 players.

Congrats a great fall season! Esports matches will resume in the Spring. You can read more about the ALA Middle Esports team on their newsletter - https://sites.google.com/alaschoolsnc.org/january-15th-2020

Sincerely,

Michael Markofski

8th Grade Digital Media Teacher

Ascend Leadership Academy

Take a look at the upcoming projects and see which ones you would like to participate it. Sign-Up Links under each project is there for you to volunteer in some capacity. We are looking forward to working together to make these events a HUGE success.

We will be holding a LIVE Virtual Silent Auction of many different kinds of items which we are looking to be donated by our ALA Families and local businesses. ALL of the proceeds from this Auction will be used for our Random Acts of Kindness Program where our teachers will partner with students and their families to different areas of Lee and Harnett Counties to provide different acts of generosity for our community.

These include picking up someone's gas tab, Starbucks order, Walmart purchase - all random and all given with love and a card from our ALA Middle School. We are truly hoping for a good amount of items for this event so please click on the link below to serve as a participate on the day of our kindness reach out or to help provide an item (or have donated) from local businesses or homemade items.

Random Acts of Kindness will be held on Saturday, March 20.

We are excited to invite our families to our 1st Annual Father/Daughter & Mother/Son Dance which will be conducted under the starry skies of Sanford. Join us as our LIVE DJ provides music for everyone to dance to and create some memories for each of our families. Light refreshments will be provided. More details to come - but reserve the date for a magical night.

(COVID restrictions will be in place for the safety of everyone participating)