December 2015 Newsletter

This edition of our newsletter includes news on extracurricular activities, classroom events, school news, the IPF buget and fundraising, and a calendar of upcoming events.

Extracurricular Activity News

Basketball Update

Our season started with a disappointing 44-23 loss against Falls Lake Academy but our team came roaring back for three straight wins!  We beat St Raphael 34-32, then Thales-Rolesville 33-26, and then Thales-Apex 53-22.  The next game is December 8 against Light House Home School in Wake Forest and then we have a rematch for our first game in January against Falls Lake Academy.  A very special thanks to the Andersons for allowing the team to use their van to get to our home court at the Wendell Community Center and to IA parents Sami and Marylou Hanna who own S&H Transportation for the use of their luxury passenger vans to go to our away games.  Below is a very brief highlight clip of the outstanding play of the Swordsmen at the St Raphael game. 

Wrestling Update

From Coach Mitchell:  "Iron Academy is thrilled to introduce the sport of wrestling to its athletic opportunities! The spirit of competition in a one on one battle, emphasizing sportsmanship and discipline fit in perfectly with the young men here at Iron Academy. We've enlisted former college wrestlers who share our passion for the Lord and in building young men. Coach Nick Watson and Stan Chambers are joining me in leading the charge on the mat. As a club team, the young Swordsmen are learning the basics of the sport, including basic moves, movement, strategies, conditioning, and nutrition. The wrestling club members are: David Anderson, Stephen Anderson, Garrett Anderson, Jaedon Olmstead, Robbie Jones, Tate Meredith, Gage Meredith, David Hagerty, Dylan Hector, and Jonah Moscati. The wrestlers will compete in local open tournaments against other club teams through February. The Swordsmen wrestlers are still accepting members. Practices are in the gym on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6:00-7:30."

Debate Team Update
Congratulations to the students who were selected to be on the debate team: Casher Collier, Elijah Jordan, Daniel High, Ian Taylor, Brendan Hanna, Caleb Stroup, Noah Kirby, and Ethan Manning. We are pleased to have a new debate coach this year, Nathan Wilson, who is a nationally ranked debater in high school and college. Mr. Wilson's goals for the debate team members are "...to work with each student to turn him into the most excellent communicator that he can be, providing him with the confidence to speak up no matter the situation and defend his personal values and views. Our world is becoming increasingly hostile toward the Bible and a Christian worldview. As such, being able to explain and defend your beliefs in a manner that is both clear and attractive to those who disagree with you is a valuable skill for all believers."
The team will have its first tournament on December 7 against Prestonwood Christian Academy from Richardson, Texas. To debate the Texan team, the teams will have the use of Cisco System's cutting edge Telepresence Technology at their headquarters in RTP and it will be the first ever moderated academic debate to be held using this new invention! The resolution they will debate is "Resolved: In response to the current crisis, a government should prioritize the humanitarian needs of refugees above its own national interests." The students will need to prepare a pro and con side of the argument and be prepared to persuasively argue whichever side they are assigned during the debate.
 

Classroom Activity News

Snippets of some educational experiences in our classrooms:  As always, our students have a lot of fun with their historical re-enactments with Ms. Bowen.  This past month the 7th graders learned about espionage techniques of the Minutemen and eating Johnnycakes.  The 6th graders had gladiator fights and dressed as Roman soldiers.  Many thanks to parent Denise Hanna for helping to create these fun activities!  In 8th grade science class, the students learned about the human reproduction system and benefitted from very wise words from Mr. Mack on dating and marriage.  In the 8th grade literature class, they are memorizing passages from Romeo and Juliet.  The 8th and 9th grade Spanish classes recently took a field trip to a Hispanic grocery store to compare and contrast the food and atmosphere with a more familiar store.  In 9th grade biology, the students have recently learned in great detail about the "ingress" and "egress" of the digestive system.  Ninth grade literature is studying short stories and poems. 

Left: 6th grade Roman soldiers and gladiator fights.  Right: Decoding techniques of the Minutemen

School News

 Accreditation Update

We plan to pursue accreditation through Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) and receive dual accreditation with AdvancEd.  To be eligible to apply for accreditation, schools must be in existence for at least two years.  Now that we have passed that mark, we have a Steering Committee that has examined the standards for accreditation and we are working this academic year to document how we meet the standards and write our self-study report.  The planned timeline is to apply for accreditation in Fall 2016 and we will be visited by an accrediting team.  We should receive accreditation by Spring 2017, long before any of our students begin the college application process.  Once accredited, our curricular choices, rigorous academic environment, strategic planning for college admissions, and intensive development of gentleman scholars will prepare our young men to be strong candidates for the universities of their choice.


Prospective Family Information Sessions
We have our first prospective Family Information Session on Tuesday, Dec 8 at 6:30.  The list of dates for all of our information sessions are on our website in the admissions area.  Please encourage any young men and their families who would be good candidates for admission to attend.  And recall that Mr. Hahn has offered $500 tuition vouchers if someone that you recommend enrolls at Iron.  See Mr. Hahn for further details.

 

Exam Schedule

Throughout exam week, parents may pick up their sons for early dismissal at lunch time at 11:30, but students can stay for study hall time each afternoon until their regular pick up time at 3:15.  There will be afterschool care on Monday to Thursday only until 6:00.  On Friday Dec 18, we will have a school cookout at lunch time and all students must be picked up by 12:30.  A sign-up will go out soon for bringing in some items for the cookout.  Parents and siblings are invited to the cookout.  From Tuesday to Friday, the students will have two exams each morning, one from 8:00-9:30 and one from 10:00-11:30.  The exam schedule for each grade is:

 

6th grade:

Tuesday: Bible A group or PE B group and Study Skills time

Wednesday: Bible B group or PE A group and Spanish

Thursday: Math and science

Friday: Literature and History

 

7th grade (Need to know if your son is in the A class or B class)

Tuesday: Bible A group or PE B group and Study Skills A group or Math B group

Wednesday: Bible B group or PE A group and Math A group or Study Skills B group

Thursday: Literature A group or Science B group and History (all 7th graders)

Friday: Science A group or Spanish B group and Spanish A group or Literature B group

 

8th grade:

Tuesday: Science and Bible

Wednesday: Literature and PE

Thursday: History and Spanish

Friday: Study Skills time and Math

 

9th grade:

Tuesday: History and PE

Wednesday: Greek/philosophy and Bible

Thursday: Spanish and Literature

Friday: Math and Science

   

 Iron Parent Fellowship Budget Update

We have recently been able to bless the school with the $150 purchase of a durable Shark vacuum cleaner for the students to use each afternoon in chore time; we paid $2000 for the JV soccer uniforms; and we paid the $2800 cafeteria bill from Crucible Camp (Camp Rockmont) that is billed from Aramark and charged separately from the Rockmont lodging and activity fees. 



Fundraising Update:

Toy Exchange:  Thank you to everyone who donated items for us to sell at the Toy Exchange/Kids Exchange.  We earned $230! 


Wreaths:  We have orders for 46 wreaths and our sales will earn $600 in proceeds to us!  The wreaths will be delivered to Iron for pick-up on Monday, Dec 7.


Coffee:  For gifts for coffee drinkers, remember that you can order weekly from Red Rooster Coffee Company and the school receives 50% of your purchase price. 

Autobell:  We placed our first order for 130 Autobell full service car wash tickets and have 36 tickets on hand for sale right now. We can place our second and last order on December 11 in order to get our tickets printed with our name on them and available to hand out by Dec 18.  If you plan to buy some tickets or are able to sell some to your neighbors or coworkers, we will request those quantities on the "Autobell SignUpGenius" that will be out very soon. The single ticket price is $15.99, the same as Autobell charges, but we also have bundled prices of 10 for $144 (buy 9 get 1 free) or 20 for $256 (buy 16 get 4 free).

Make War Spiritwear:  A SignUpGenius has been sent out if anyone wants to purchase our Make War clothing designed by Beckie Kiker.  Only clothing that is ordered by Saturday Dec 5 will be printed and delivered to you the week of Dec 14. 

When submitting checks to pay for fundraising merchandise, please do put the name of the item you are buying in the memo line.  All checks are written to Iron Academy.  These payments are not tax deductible charitable contributions.  You can submit cash or check payments to Anne York or Heather Mauzy and do let us know if you are turning in a payment in the mail dropbox by the school's front door.    

Calendar of Upcoming Events

Arts of the Swordsmen Showcase will be held in May.  Our AOTS event this year will also include recognition of our outstanding scholars and outstanding athletes.  Travis Kiker will hold a planning session in January for parents and students interested in performing in or helping with AOTS.

Parents Night Out!  For the past two years, we have had a parent Christmas party, but with all the busyness of the holiday season, the IPF Executive Committee decided to plan a Parents Night Out social evening for January or February.  If your neighborhood has a clubhouse that we could rent or if you know of another facility for us to have potluck dinner and socialize, please contact Anne York.  It has always been fun to get to know the other parents and create stronger bonds with parents who are taking a stand for biblical manhood with their sons.  

Friday Dec 4th: Blade Maintenance Plan Report is due.  See the email message sent by Mr. Hahn on Nov 26 with a document for your son to fill in the first page with a statement of strategy for how he plans to address each of the 4 areas of his personal BMP.  Or click here to access this document.  (This links works best in the Chrome browser.)

Tuesday Dec 8th:

-Kamado Grille Spirit Night 5:30-8:30

-Family Information Session 6:30-8:00

-Basketball team at Light House Home School 7:00-8:00  
    

Wednesday Dec 9:  Father's Breakfast 7:30-8:30


Wednesday Dec 16: Teacher Appreciation Luncheon - a SignUp will be sent soon.


Friday, Dec 18:  School cookout for lunch - a SignUp will be sent soon.

Every Wednesday morning at 7:50-8:30: Parent Prayer Meeting

Saturday, Jan 9:  Lab Day at Neuse Christian Academy

Tuesday, Jan 12:

-Kamado Grille Spirit Night 5:30-8:30

-Family Information Session 6:30-8:00 

      

November 2015 Newsletter

Warrior Challenge Results

Our Warrior Challenge results are now tallied.  The students raised $8,099.45!  With our sponsorships, the total raised from this event was $10,519.45!!  Congratulations to the top 3 student fundraisers:  Casher ($985), Braden ($561.95) and Landon ($474) and they will be treated to lunch with Mr. Hahn at a restaurant of their choice.  The winning tribe is Eleazar and they will get a trip to Defy Gravity this week.  The students in Eleazar are Stephen, Casher, Shiloh, Kenan, Matthew, Kyle, Luke, Graham, Jonah, Ashton, Landon, DeAngelo, Will, Zach W, Braden, and Logan.  Thank you to the parents for your generosity and continuing to be generous when your son did way more push-ups, sit-ups or squats than you were planning to sponsor!  Please let all of your son's donors know how appreciative we are of their support of our school.  Thank you too to our business sponsors who helped to underwrite the prizes and expenses of this event.  Our public thanks to you will be on Iron Academy's website very soon.

Student Dietary Needs

We often have student class activities that feature food.  So that students with special dietary needs may be included, parent Christi Gram has generously offered to bring in equivalent foods that meet the needs of our students.  If your son has any food allergies or dietary restrictions, please tell those to Anne York as soon as possible and we'll be sure that your son's food needs are included in our class activities.   

Christmas Sales Fundraising

The IPF has four fundraising projects that seek to direct some Christmas spending our way.  Please let your coworkers, friends, and family members know about these ways to save money by shopping with us and 50% of their purchase supports our school.  We hope that both parents and sons can reach out to those who would be interested in buying these items.  Here are brief descriptions but download the flyers below for more details.

1) Autobell car wash tickets.  We are selling the full service car wash tickets for $15.99, which is the same as Autobell charges but we are also doing bulk discount purchases of 10 tickets for $144 (equivalent to buying 9 and getting 1 free) or 20 tickets for $256 (equivalent to buying 16 and getting 4 free).  We are selling these until December 12. 

2) Live Christmas wreaths.  Large  beautiful wreaths for $25.  The last day to order and pay is December 1 and the wreaths will be at IA for you to distribute to your buyers on December 7.    

3) Red Rooster Coffee.  Iron's Meredith family has a microroasting business and they are partnering with us to fundraise by selling a choice of El Salvador Dark Roast beans (full-bodied, almond) or Organic Fair Trade Timor Maubesse Medium Roast beans (smooth, cocoa with hint of cinnamon).  Price is $11.99 for a 12 ounce bag.  We will have a website to order and pay online to Red Rooster.  Customers can order weekly through December 18 and the coffee bags will be given to you each Monday at school for you to distribute to your customers. 

FLYERS:  Here is a flyer in Word or PDF version that describes these products and is an easy way for you to add your name and copy and distribute to your friends, family, and coworkers. 

ORDER SHEET:  Here is an order sheet to help keep track of which product your customers are buying, when the payment is made, and when the product is delivered.  This order sheet also has instructions and deadlines for selling these items.

4) Our fourth fundraising opportunity is with the Christmas Toy Exchange through the Kids Exchange at the state fairgrounds.  We are gathering specific items by November 19 to donate to Iron Academy that will be sold at this event with IA receiving the funds of the sale.  Please see the tab above for more details about this fundraising opportunity.  Please ask your family and friends if they have items they can donate to us too.

It will be a tremendous blessing to our school if we could raise at least $10,000 from these activities.  Also remember to ask your friends and family if they will support us through our retail programs that have no additional cost to them.  See the "Retail Fundraising" tab above for the list of our retail opportunities and please consider using the free Shoparoo phone app in which you simply take photos of any store receipt and Iron can earn money and entries in $1000 per month sweepstakes.  On the second Tuesday of every month, Iron Academy is the featured school at Kamado Grille.  We get 10% of all purchases from 5:30 to 8:30, so please invite others to go out for a delicious dinner and support our efforts to build gentleman scholars.   

School News

Will receiving his Challenge Coin

Signing the Challenge Coin Contract

Challenge Coin Ceremony:  Iron Academy students who have been to Crucible Camp and have declared themselves worthy and have been deemed worthy of practicing and modeling the Honor Code will be entrusted with a responsibility that none of their peers outside of Iron Academy has experienced: as a member of the Iron Academy Round Table they will have the responsibility and burden to sharpen their Iron Academy brothers and to hold them accountable to the Honor Code (Proverbs 27:17.)  As a symbol of their lifelong commitment and responsibility, these students will be issued their Honor Code Challenge Coin.  The Challenge Coin is to be protected and passed along to their sons, grandsons, or great-grandsons.  It is to be shared with his future wife, to remind her that he knows who he is in Christ and that he has been honed for true biblical manhood.  It is a constant reminder of who they are designed to be by the Creator of the Universe.  On October 30, the Challenge Coin Ceremony was held for a few new students to receive their Challenge Coin and for a few returning students to have their coins returned to them after forfeiting the coins due to Honor Code violations.  Congratulations to our students who are deemed worthy to possess the Challenge Coin! 
  

Blade Maintenance Plans:  The Blade Maintenance Plans will be distributed in the coming week in the carpool line.  The plans are organized in a new format this year with its model from the description of Jesus in Luke 2:52 "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." 

Casual Dinners by Grade Level:  Mr. Hahn is meeting with the parents of each grade to discuss the fall campaign to bring more people into the Iron Academy movement.  The 9th graders already had their dinner and we have dinners scheduled for the 6th grade on Wed Nov 4, the 8th graders on Sat Nov 7, and two choices for the 7th graders of Fri Nov 6 or Wed Nov 11.  Sign-up Genius messages have been sent out.  If you're not able to make it on the night for your son's grade, contact Jenni Jordan about joining the meal for another evening. 

Athletics:  Our soccer season has completed with our middle school team finishing strong for a 3-2 record by winning the final two games.  Highlights of the season include a thrilling comeback after trailing St. Raphael 0-2 at halftime by making 3 goals in the first 10 minutes of the second half to secure their victory and carrying that momentum to playing their best game by dominating the play against a talented team from Raleigh Christian Academy.  The high school JV soccer team had some strong games but unfortunately did not have a winning season with the higher level of competition.  Our middle school basketball tryouts have been completed and the members of the basketball team are: Stone, Jackson, Byron, Ashton, Logan, Matt, Braden, Bryson, DeAngelo, Jon, Zac L, Elijah, and Landon.  The home court for basketball is at Wendell Community Center since the gym floor at Radiant is not equipped for game play.  The games are listed on the events calendar with the first home game on Nov 10.  We also have started the Wrestling Club for all students at 6:00-7:30 on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Please contact our 6th-7th grade PE coach, Jon Mitchell, if your son is interested in learning how to wrestle.

Javaun and Brock with an
edible Parthenon

Classroom Activities:  The Intensive Weeks are always an enjoyable break in the school schedule.  The 9th graders had a week of guest speakers on the college application process and a visit to UNC.  The 8th graders did robotics and service projects for the Tri-Area Food Pantry and landscaping work for Radiant Church.  The 7th graders did Art History and had their own art exhibit.  The 6th graders learned about orienteering and robotics.  Here is a folder of photos of some of these Intensive Week activities.  

Our 6th graders recently enjoyed making replicas of the Greek Parthenon from graham crackers and marshmallows!  Upcoming activities this quarter include: Re-enacting the meals and espionage activities of the Minutemen for 7th grade, making potato canons and meals of the Revolutionary War soldiers for 8th grade, acting out scenes from Julius Caesar with plastic swords in 6th grade, student created videos in Spanish, learning the sports of rugby, ultimate Frisbee, and tennis polo as well as their strength and conditioning training in 8th and 9th grade PE, and learning about human reproduction, cell growth, and chemistry in middle school science. 

READING:  While it is well known that girls on average do not do as well as boys in math and science, a fact that is less publicized is that boys on average lag behind girls in reading and writing.  Part of building gentleman scholars is creating a culture of reading for IA students.  We are rapidly building our middle and high school libraries and Ms. Vacher would like more of our students to check out books more often.  Please work with your son to check out our library books which are specifically chosen for their interests.  Every student is to read at least one book per quarter that is not required to be read for class ("outside reading").

November Events

The school events calendar can be found on the tab above and on Iron's website at http://www.ironacademy.org/events-calendar/. Our upcoming events include:

• Every Wednesday morning: parent prayer meetings at 7:45-8:30.
• Wed 4th: 6th grade dinner at Winstead's home at 7:00 pm
• Fri 6th: NO CLASSES - Teacher Work Day
• Fri 6th: 7th grade dinner at Jordan's home at 7:00 pm
• Sat 7th: 8th grade dinner at Doster's home at 7:00 pm
• Tues 10th: Home basketball game at 4:30 pm
• Tues 10th:  Kamado Grille Spirit Night (wear IA spirit shirts!)
• Wed 11th: FATHER'S BREAKFAST at 7:30 am
• Wed 11th: 7th grade dinner at Denise Hanna's house at 7:00 pm
• Fri 13th: Basketball game at St. Raphael at 4:15
• Tues 17th: Home basketball game at 4:30 pm
• Thurs 19th:  Basketball game at Thales-Apex at 4:30
• 23rd to 27th: NO CLASSES - Thanksgiving Break          

October 2015 Newsletter

The IPF checking account has been very busy with blessing our school!  We used funds left over from last year to make recent purchases, which include:


LOCKERS!  God placed IA parent Beckie Kiker at the Raleigh Habitat for Humanity on just the right day to find that they just received a shipment of several sets of lockers that were donated by NCSU.  These lockers ended up selling out at all Habitat locations in less than a day!  It would have been $1600 for the 88 lockers we bought but Habitat negotiated with us and we paid only $1400 as well as saving nearly $100 because as a nonprofit we do not have to pay sales tax.  Many thanks to Darrell Taylor and Travis Kiker for transporting all of these lockers from Habitat to Iron.  The lockers need to be stabilized in their location in the gym and will available to use soon.

LUNCH TABLES!  To protect the carpets throughout the building, our students are only allowed to eat lunch outside or in the gym.  Our students prefer to eat lunch outside whenever the weather permits and there are tables and chairs to use on the outdoor patio.  But in rainy or very cold weather, they would sit on the floor in the gym to eat.  Many thanks to IA Parents Denise Hanna and Rebekah Anderson for leading the effort to solve the indoor cafeteria tables dilemma.  We purchased 6-foot folding tables on sale from KMart and they gave us a 10% discount. We paid around $400 for 10 tables.  We also bought some removable indoor/outdoor carpet for $160 from Lowe's to protect the flooring under the tables from food and drink spills.  Radiant Church let us borrow their folding chairs to complete our cafeteria!

LIBRARY BOOKS AND CLASSROOM SUPPLIES! The Dollar Book Exchange is a warehouse in Raleigh open only one weekend per month and sells used books for $1 each.  We have gone there a couple of times so far to purchase books for our expanding library holdings.  If anyone is ever available on the first weekend of each month, please join us in searching through their thousands of books for appropriate books for our students.  We have also purchased some books and art supplies for Ms. Bowen from Amazon (using our fundyourpta.org link!).  We have spent about $300 on books and supplies so far.  

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES!  For the family picnic at Falls Lake in August, we spent $95 for the rental of the picnic shelter and $250 for hamburger meat from BJ's.  We collected $80 of donations for the food as well as families bringing the rest of the food and drinks to share.  For the IPF General Meeting on Sep 3, we paid $60 for snacks and drinks.  For the Teacher Appreciation Day, we paid $25 for the buckets, tissue paper, and cards from the Dollar Store to use with the snacks and flowers that we each brought in.  

USED CLOTHING SALE!  But we have also brought in some revenue from the used clothing sale!  Thank you to everyone who donated clothing for us to sell and who bought our spiritwear - we had net proceeds of $822!  Going forward, we will modify how we sell the clothes with the IPF getting a commission on the sales of clothes that aren't donated but are sold through our "store."   We'll finalize the new plans for how we will sell clothes before we ramp up with a big sale again next summer.  Nearly everything we had was sold except for some youth medium polo shirts if anyone needs those.  We'll accept donated clothes at any time if you need to weed out the clothes your son has outgrown.  

IPF CHECKING ACCOUNT BALANCE:  We made a recent large deposit of funds from Warrior Challenge sponsorships and as of October 5, we have a checking account balance of around $2,800.  At the IPF General Meeting on Sep 3, we voted to pass a budget that blesses the school, teachers, and students by paying for about $23,000 of expenses from the funds we raise.  With the Warrior Challenge and selling AutoBell car wash tickets, Christmas wreaths, and Red Rooster Coffee (more details coming soon about the coffee), we are doing a good bit of fundraising now to take advantage of Christmas shopping and to be able to have funds to use for the rest of the school year.  As you can see from the purchases above, we are also trying to get good deals on whatever we buy.  If we can meet our fundraising goals by December, then we won't need to actively sell anything for the rest of the school year.  

Warrior Challenge update:  Please click the tab at the top of the page for more information about the Warrior Challenge. The event occurs on Tuesday, October 13 from noon to 3:00.  We have a goal of raising $15,000.  We could use several volunteers.  Please let Anne York know if you can volunteer.  Our sons have already committed to their physical challenge and some examples are: 250 squats!  175 sit-ups!  One mile in 6 minutes! 

The link to send to your son's potential donors to give online is: http://www.ironacademy.org/2015-warrior-challenge/ and this page helps to explain what the Warrior Challenge is and directs them to the page to give.  Or the web page to go directly to the online donation site is: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000FuvAiEAJ

Thank you so very much to our Warrior Challenge business sponsors!!  Finicky Pig Baking and Catering (Tracy Bright), Forever Changed (sponsored by the Ferguson family), ECLS Inc (Darrell Taylor), Medalist Capital (Scott Mauzy), Graebe, Hanna, and Sullivan PLLC (Doug Hanna), Little Squirrels (Travis Kiker), National Youth Football Organization and Kids Exchange (Bob and Amy Winstead), Creative Visions (Allin Foulkrod), Olmstead Homesteads (Christian Olmstead), Red Rooster Coffee and Hope Farm Labradoodles (Steve and Debby Meredith), Neighbor to Neighbor (sponsored by the Clark and Jordan families).  

Canned Food and Winter Coat Drive:  Our 8th grade students are doing a service project during their Intensive Week and working with the Raleigh Dream Center.  To help support the work of the Dream Center which helps to meet basic human needs in the areas of hunger, poverty, homelessness, and human trafficking, we will collect canned goods, toiletries, and winter coats during October.  A flyer will be sent out soon with more details.

Retailer Fundraising Update:  Please click on the tab at the top of the page for links to our retailer fundraising opportunities.  From the tallies we can watch as they accumulate, we have:

• Harris Teeter: 20 linked cards and $18.12 since Aug 1 (last year we had 31 links)
• Fundyourpta.org (Amazon and Groupon) $41.26 since May 1

 All of the funds we get from the retailers do not add any additional cost to purchasing the items.  Please spread the word to relatives or friends or coworkers who could link their buying habits to help Iron Academy.  

OCTOBER IS BOXTOPS COLLECTION MONTH!  We have a deadline to send in our BoxTops to the BoxTops people by the end of October.  We'll have ziploc bags pinned to the bulletin board in every classroom for your son to place his BoxTops.  

We also have TWO NEW ways to raise funds at no cost to the shopper: 

•  SHOPAROO is an app for your Apple or Android phone that you use to take photos of your store receipts.  For any receipt from a store that sells groceries, we earn points that translate to dollars that are paid out each August.  For every 500 points, we get $1.  The greater the dollar amount of the receipt, the more points we get.  For any other receipt such as from a restaurant or clothing store, we get one entry that goes into a monthly $1000 sweepstakes and there is a $15,000 annual sweepstakes.  Anne York has been playing with this app for the past month and it is super easy to use.  Nearly all of the schools around us are enrolled in this.  Use referral code vent4893 to enroll with Iron Academy or search for us using zip code 27604 in the app.  Visit Shoparoo's website for more information: http://shoparoo.com/.  We do get points just for getting more parents to sign up!  The Shoparoo people claim that if 50 parents are enrolled and actively scanning receipts for a year, the school could earn around $1000.  Please download this app and help us earn at least several hundred dollars!
• ZIGGEDY is an online shopping tool meant for teachers to raise money when shoppers use a Ziggedy link before visiting any of 3,500 online retailers.  We have set up an account for the teacher "Mr. I. Academy."  Ziggedy also has coupons and promotions that you can use through their site.  You can sign up to use Ziggedy at http://www.ziggedy.com/IronIAcademy/signup and visit their website to learn more about this program at http://www.ziggedy.com/.  Between Ziggedy and Fundyourpta.org, please be sure that Iron has some benefit from any online shopping that Iron supporters do.             

Yearbook Special

Click the tab above for the "Yearbook" to check out a special offer of 10% off the $39.93 price if you order by October 31.  

Upcoming Events in October

Iron's Events Calendar can be accessed from the tab above.  Key October events are:

• Tuesday Oct 6: Iron Academy will be attending a High School Fair hosted by St. Timothy's School.  Please be in prayer that we would make connections with students who would be our ideal candidates.  
• Tuesday Oct 13: WARRIOR CHALLENGE!  All donations need to be collected by October 23.  
• Tuesday Oct 13: Restaurant Spirit Night with Kamado Grille.  More details are coming.
• Wednesday Oct 14: Father's Breakfast at 7:30 am.  See a Sign-Up Genius invitation that was emailed.  
• Thursday Oct 15: End of the first quarter
• No classes:  Oct 9, 12, 16
• Intensives Week: October 19 to 23.  Intensive week classes by grade:
• 9th grade: College application planning 
• 8th grade: Robotics III, M, T, W (site visit) & Service Days Th, F 
• 7th grade: Art History II 
• 6th grade: Orienteering and Outdoor Skills M, T, W & Robotics I (Th, F)
•  Monday Oct 19 at 3:15: Meeting for students who are interested in trying out for basketball
• October 22, College Planning Night for Parents at Iron. 
•  Saturday Oct 24:  Science Lab Day at Neuse Christian Academy - more details coming
• Middle School and JV Soccer have several games in October.  Please check the calendar for game times and locations.
• Monday Oct 26 and Tuesday Oct 27: Middle school basketball tryouts after school 
• Monday Oct 26: IPF Executive Officers meeting, 7:00 pm, location to be determined

Thank you for reading all of this information!  Please do subscribe to the blog and save the link to get to it.