December 30 Update

Happy New Year Iron Families!  

As we start the new year, our school needs some refreshing too! In our first week back, we ask if you could bring in these items:

• Middle school families bring in boxes of tissues (Kleenex brand has Boxtops)
• High school families bring in large packages of toilet paper (Scott brand has Boxtops) 
• For any one who wants to, the teachers also ask for loose leaf paper (college ruled), pencils, and white board markers (these can be purchased in bulk at smile.amazon.com).  Review your son's own stock of school supplies to also be sure he has enough notebooks, pens/pencils, and paper to start the new semester.

Your son can give these supplies to Ms. Becker in the office.  

And as previously announced, we are having a Work Day on Saturday Jan 6 to spruce up our school and to redesign one of our rooms.  Please see our sign-up on SignUpGenius for the list of projects and more details about that day.  We will start at the school at 10:00 am except for one group who will meet at our storage unit on Durant Rd at 9:00.  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0449a4a629abf85-family

Reminders about January events:

• Lunch orders can now be submitted weekly by Saturday night for the following week through our new website ironacademy.myfooddays.com.  Lunch information is available on the Lunch tab on our parent website ironparentfellowship.blogspot.com.
• Parent prayer meetings every Friday morning at 7:45.  Join us any time that you are available!
• Wednesday, Jan 3: return to school
• Friday, Jan 5: all students on field trip to NC History Museum for WWI Exhibit; HAVE YOUR SON BRING MONEY TO BUY LUNCH while they are downtown
• Wednesday, Jan 10:  All payments or returned books due from our GOPLAYSAVE fundraiser.  
• Monday, Jan 15: no class for Martin Luther King Jr holiday
• Tuesday, Jan 16: Family Information Meeting for prospective families at 6:30 - please invite anyone whose son you think would be a good fit for IA or whose daughter would be a good fit for Academy 31
• Thursday, Jan 18: Parent meeting at 6:00 to discuss results of the cognitive testing that will be given the week of Jan 8 (sign-up for this testing was due Dec 19)
• Friday, Jan 19: MOTHER-SON GAME NIGHT at 6:30
• Friday, Feb 2: No class for Teacher Work Day
• Lots of basketball games and a middle school wrestling tournament to attend!  See the school's Events Calendar on our website under the Welcome tab for the dates and locations of sports activities.

Update: GoPlaySave Fundraiser Information

Deadline:  Return any $30 book payments and/or unsold books by WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10.  The books must be in new condition to be returned.

Who to write the checks to?  All checks need to be written to IRON ACADEMY.  Payments can also be made online through our virtual store at https://www.goplaysavetriangle.com/store/ia2018.   

Prizes provided by GoPlaySave:

• Sell 5 books, get 1 book FREE!  Sell 10 books, get 2 books FREE!
• For the top 3 book sellers, each one will have a choice of a $25 gift card from Brixx Wood Fired Pizza or Moe's Southwest Grill.

Fundraising Goal:  If each student sells just 2 books, we earn over $1000.  If we average 3 books per student, we can earn $1800.  
 

December and January Update

Our semester is winding down but we have many announcements and upcoming student and family activities!

 

Teacher Appreciation Luncheon on Wednesday, Dec 13 and collection for voluntary contribution toward Visa gift cards on Dec 7, 8, and 11

The message below is from our Teacher Appreciation Committee:
  

Dear Iron Academy Parents,

We trust you have all enjoyed the Thanksgiving break with friends and family. We have so much to be thankful for.  Speaking of thanks... Christmas is only 21 days away!

The Teacher Appreciation Committee would like to present the eight full time and five part time faculty and staff of Iron Academy with Visa gift cards for Christmas.  We want to thank them for their hard work and dedication to our young men.  No other school asks so much of its teachers to be mentors and positive role models to their students!  They help our sons develop their critical thinking skills and hold them accountable to being gentleman scholars.  

The Visa gift cards will be given to the faculty and staff on December 13th during a Christmas Luncheon we are planning for them. Please click HERE for the signup of food items to bring for the luncheon. 

Any contributions towards the gift cards are strictly voluntary and choosing to contribute any amount, or none at all, would be fine.  No individual names will be on the cards.  The gift will be from the entire school regardless of contribution.  A guideline might be $5.00 per teacher that your son has. 

If you would like to contribute, write a check payable to Anne York (this contribution does not count as a charitable donation to the school and must be given as a private gift).  We will have volunteers at all bus stops, and morning and afternoon carpool holding a big green envelope on the following dates: Thursday December 7th, Friday December 8th and Monday December 11th. 

Thank you in advance for your generosity!  Blessings to you and your family this Christmas season.

The Iron Academy Teacher Appreciation Committee

Parent and Faculty/Staff Christmas Party on Friday evening, Dec 15

Who are these other parents who have the same educational and spiritual vision for their sons?  Come meet them at our Parent/Faculty/Staff Christmas party!  Thank you to the Seemann family for opening up their lovely home for our casual, drop-in party from 7:00-10:00 pm.  Their address is 1419 Lutz Ave, Raleigh, 27609 near downtown Raleigh.  We have created an evite for you to RSVP and to offer to bring appetizers and desserts. 
Click this link to RSVP to the evite by Thursday Dec 14: http://evite.me/11K3cUm3Ms     

GOPLAYSAVE Coupon book fundraiser

We are making arrangements with GoPlaySave to sell their coupon books from mid-December to mid-January.  The books sell for $30 and if each student sells just 3 books, we could make $1800 profit!  Do you have a business that could set out some books to sell?  We can sell these for Christmas presents or sell them in January when people may want to start saving money.  The coupons start on Dec 1 2017 through Nov 30 2018. We'll have more details soon when we confirm the delivery of the books. 

RETAIL REMINDERS to support IA with your shopping:  

• For your Christmas shopping, please use smile.amazon.com rather than amazon.com and choose Iron Academy as the charity you are supporting.  Amazon will then make a donation to IA of 0.5% of your purchase.  Your prime membership and all prices are the same.  
• Have you signed up your Harris Teeter and Kroger cards to support IA?  
• Be sure to save your BoxTops for our next collection date at the end of February.  
• Can you help us raise money for IA by simply taking photos any store receipt with your phone?  Please download the Shoparoo app on your phone and connect to Iron Academy.  Here is more information about Shoparoo and how it works: https://shoparoo.com  
• Also our spiritwear makes a great gift for all family members!  We have sizes from youth small to adult XXXL and for girls and women!  All of our NEW spiritwear is now listed on our signup with all of our clothing for sale.  Contact Anne York if you have questions on what a particular item looks like.   

Operation Gratitude Cents 4 Service Update

Thank you to our young men who raised $512.64 in quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies in early November for Operation Gratitude, a nonprofit organization that sends care packages to deployed military.  The Shammah tribe raised the most.  Well done!

Swordsmen Sports: Basketball and Wrestling Update

Our JV basketball team is off to a strong start with 3 wins and 2 losses.  We have a talented team led by starting players DeAngelo Ross, Eden Ondachi, Jon Anderson, Heath Mann, and Logan York along with Casher Collier, Chad Lilly, Bryce Von Seemann, Forest Southwick, AJ Kloehn, Jackson Welch.  Our middle school team is winless so far but our players are developing their skills quickly.  The middle school team is Garrett Anderson, Javaun Tatum, Will Curran, Dylan Hector, Brock Winstead, Leo Dean, Isaiah Wilson, and Clayton Baynes.  

Our basketball players would love for their classmates to come to the games and cheer them on!  We have upcoming games this week not far from the school:  At Thales-Apex (1300 North Salem St, Apex) on Tuesday Dec 5 at 5:30 for MS team and at 7:00 for JV team.  At North Raleigh Christian Academy (7300 Perry Creek Rd) on Thursday Dec 7 at 4:30 for JV team.  See the school's events calendar for our game schedule.  

Participants in our wrestling club are Drew Atwell, Deacon Rock, Kendall Moragne, Carter McMurray, Jackson McMurray, Stephen Anderson, Stone Kiker, and Brayant Sanchez.  Practices have started and they are preparing for tournaments in January.  

Fall Semester Exam Schedule 

Click HERE for the spreadsheet sent by Mr. Anderson for the final exam schedule on Dec 15, 18, and 19. On Tuesday, Dec 19, we will also have a little Christmas party and fun time during the extended lunch time for the students.  We'll send out a sign-up soon of some items to bring.    

NEW LUNCH ORDERING SYSTEM STARTING IN JANUARY

Instead of using Signupgenius to manage our lunch ordering program, we are switching to MyFoodDays.com.  MyFoodDays.com offers better credit card processing and website management fees that will allow us to lower the prices of the lunch menu.  You will also be able to order more frequently rather than for the entire month at a time.  Be on the lookout in your email for instructions in the next week or two on how to sign up to use MyFoodDays.com.  

All Student Field Trip to NC History Museum on Friday, January 5

All of our students will go on a field trip to see the exhibit "North Carolina and World War I" at the NC History Museum.  Students will leave campus at 8:00 am and will eat lunch during their visit.  There will be no lunch ordering that day.  More details coming soon! 

Work/Clean Up Day on Saturday, January 6

As we start the new year and new semester, we need a work day to move around and throw out some items that are not needed (some left by the previous school who used this facility) and to do a deeper cleaning of the floors and walls and dust the furniture.  We'll ask for RSVPs as we get closer to that date.    

Mother and Son Game Night on Friday, January 19

Save the date for our second annual mother and son game night on Friday, January 19 at 6:30 pm at the school.  We'll have pizza and snacks and loads of fun games!  Watch for a signup to RSVP and for items to bring.    

LOST AND FOUND IS OVERFLOWING

We've got a lot of shirts, pants, and shorts and a lunch box in our Lost and Found bin.  Photos of each item are shown HERE to help your son claim what belongs to him.  Any items left at the school on Dec 19 will be claimed to be resold, donated, or thrown away. Please write your son's name in his clothes to help him get any lost clothes returned to him.

November 5 Update

Upcoming IPF Activities:

Monday Nov 13, 7:00 PM:  One night only showing of Genesis: Paradise Lost at the North Hills Cinema and other local theaters. Click HERE to watch the movie trailer. Thank you to Parent Dionne Moragne who set up an invitation to purchase tickets if anyone would like to go to the North Hills Cinema. A description of the movie is: "Cutting-edge cinematography meets proven science and biblical accuracy to deliver GENESIS: PARADISE LOST, bringing the first book of the Bible to life in both 2D and 3D formats on the big screen. Stunning visual effects and field research invite audiences to explore the much-studied and debated opening chapters of the Bible. This highly-anticipated movie event will show in cinemas nationwide on Monday, November 13 at 7:00 p.m. local time."

Wednesday Dec 13, 11:15 AM: Teacher Appreciation Luncheon.  We will have a signupgenius go out after Thanksgiving to request food items to bring.  

Friday, Dec 15, 7:00-9:00 PM: Parent and Faculty/Staff Christmas Party at the home of Michelle and Shea Lilly, parents of Chad in 10th grade.  You can find their address in the Renweb directory.  We will have potluck items to sign up to bring.   

Friday, Jan 19, 6:30-8:30 PM: Mother-son game night at the school! We are planning a father-son activity in April. 

Reminder to send in the Parental Mentor Information Sheet to Mr. Mack as soon as possible. Mr. Mack sent this in an email message to all families on Oct 17.  He is offering a lunch of grilled bratwurst to the tribe that gets all of their forms turned in first. 

 
Information from Mr. Hahn as we start the second quarter

Information included in the attached pdf (click here) goes from Navy SEALs to 6^th graders making fire to college :

• 6^th orienteering and outdoor skills intensive
• 9^th college application planning intensive
• $100,000 Matching Donation!
• Online Application open
• Accreditation. We’re ACSI members!
• CPR certifications
• Cross Country
• Blade Maintenance
• Warrior Challenge
• Veterans’ Day program
• Important upcoming dates

September 17 - Warrior Challenge Sponsorships

We are just 4 weeks away until our Warrior Challenge Student Fundraising event!  I'm reaching out to our parents to ask if your business or employer would like to sponsor this event.  Click this link for a handout that explains our contribution levels and the promotional opportunities that your business will receive.  To see what we have previously done to promote and thank our sponsors, click this link for last year's event:  http://www.ironacademy.org/2015-warrior-challenge/ We will also set up a web page to receive online donations this year and your business will be listed there too.  If you are interested in being a sponsor, please reply back to this message no later than Friday, Sept 22.  As explained below, IA has a matching grant to raise $100,000 by this December 31 and your sponsorship can help the school reach that goal!


What is the Warrior Challenge?  In short, it is a student fun-run type of event but instead of students asking for donations for the number of times they walk/run around a track, our students will ask for donations for how many sit-ups, push-ups, or big tire flips they can do or for how FAST they can run one mile.  I will give a handout to our students this week with more details about it.  Students compete individually on how much funds they raise and we have a tribe competition to earn the title of the "Mightiest Tribe" for the year, as determined by the tribe's academic performance, fundraising, and strength they show at the event.


How will your sponsorship contribution be used?  Your contribution underwrites the costs of our events but also will contribute toward academic and extracurricular spending.  The Iron Parent Fellowship (our version of a PTA) has recently spent $850 for 4 microscopes and about $2000 toward school furniture (desks, chairs, bookcases, carpets), photos to decorate our hallways, library materials, and painting.  The IPF checking account currently has a balance of around $4000 and we like to keep a minimum balance of $3000 for emergency funds.  This year our spending plans include buying more science equipment (stereoscopes, additional microscopes, dissection supplies); continue to support the library with purchases of newer, recently written books (nearly all of our library books are older used books); PE equipment; and recreational items for the students to play during lunch or afterschool care such as board games, corn hole, magnetic darts, etc. (If you do happen to have any board games in good condition that your family no longer uses, we'd be glad to accept that donation!)  


$100,000 matching grant:  The school has a matching grant opportunity of up to $100,000 with a Dec 31 deadline!  But this matching grant only applies toward new donations or donations higher than what has previously been given.  That is, if your business has not previously sponsored an IA event, then we can apply 100% of your sponsorship toward the matching grant! If you sponsored the Warrior Challenge last year, we can apply the amount above last year's sponsorship rate toward the matching grant. The IPF is under the school's 501c3 designation as a nonprofit organization.

September 4, 2017 Update

Update from Mr. Hahn:
 
We love our students! It is a privilege to partner with your family in helping your son become a gentleman scholar and mighty man of God. Thank you for choosing Iron Academy. We had two amazing weeks at camp, and are pleased to see great potential in the students attending Iron this year. The new students are adapting well, and this year promises to be a landmark year for Iron Academy. We have a lot of information to pass on about upcoming events.

Mid-term grades will come out in September. In the meantime, homework assignments and grades are posted daily for your son on RenWeb. RenWeb also hosts an Iron family directory, in case you’d like to contact other Iron families. New families, please be sure our emails are not hiding in your spam folder. Most information will come via email, and we want you to stay in the loop. One of our focal points this year is to make sure we are communicating better with you. That starts today.  Link to document for RenWeb login tutorial.

At the end of our first quarter, 6th and 9th grades will have one week of intensives. All other grades will continue classes as usual. In October, 6th grade will participate in orienteering and outdoor skills. We have a former Navy SEAL fly in from Kansas to teach our young men about orienteering (map and compass work) and other outdoor skills. 9th grade will focus on college application and resume planning. This class has been tremendously valuable for our 9th-grade students. It will be even better this year with the addition of our college counselor, Bethany Benson, arranging visitors and visiting monthly with our high school students. We’ll also have a night for parents to come in and learn about what you can and should be doing now. College, after all, is not far away. 7th, 8th, and 10th will not have a fall intensive.

We will be hosting a work day on campus on an upcoming Saturday. Summit Church may be coming in with a small army of volunteers to help us with several things: painting, removing coat rails/hooks, making cross country trails, etc. As we are trying to plan with them and in accordance with the volunteers, an announcement may come out within a very short time of the actual date.

We do have some volunteer opportunities if you are interested now.

• We need a volunteer team to pick up a refrigerator in Holly Springs and deliver/install it at school.
• We also need a father/son team with some easy technical work with a PC and speakers.
• We have some Bose speakers donated for use in the Study Skills room. We need an old-school receiver/stereo setup to power them. If you would like to procure an inexpensive used system (widely available on Craigslist) and install the system and speakers, we’d love to hear the Bose 401s in action.
• Becky Visser continues to lead a team of students and parents in making the school a beautiful place. Thank you, Becky! I know they will do wonders with any cash and time donations.

Our first tribe day will be September 25th. Attendance is mandatory for students. Students will start Blade Maintenance Plans this day, which will help hold him accountable to the honor code.

Fall sports awards will be September 26th at 7 pm, so mark your calendars if your son is participating in Fall sports. Basketball tryouts will be in October for middle and high school teams. Coach Mitchell will publish more about that.

In looking ahead, 10th graders will be taking the PSAT on Saturday, October 14th. Please put that on your calendar so your 10th grader can participate.

August 2017 Newsletter

Welcome Back to School!

Welcome back for the 2017-2018 school year at our new location on Edwards Mill Rd! Our school year has started out with its own unique experiences of Forging Camp and Crucible Camp.  Below are photos of our young men at the end of each journey!  

Please do bookmark this website.  We will use it continually throughout the year to keep you updated! 

  

January 2017 Newsletter

Arts of the Swordsmen - May 12 - SAVE THE DATE!

Our third Arts of the Swordsmen (AOTS) event will be held on Friday evening, May 12! This event is a fun way for our sons to develop and showcase their artistic talents:  drama, dance, singing, musical instruments, and once again, a STOMP show!  No previous artistic experience is required!  Please do show your son this video from last year's STOMP performance:

Parent Travis Kiker of 9th grader Stone will organize our events. Travis will meet with the students at school soon and we will start rehearsals in early March.  We do also have some fundraising aspects with this event.  Areas of HELP NEEDED FROM PARENTS are:

• Are you able to mentor students to develop an artistic talent?  
• Can you connect us to people who would be good mentors for our students to develop and showcase their talents?
• Asking businesses to donate door prizes for us to give away during the event, such as gift cards to grocery stores?
• Asking businesses for donated merchandise that we can raffle or auction off?
• Do you have a business or know of one who would want to buy an ad in our Playbill and be recognized as an event sponsor?  We will have very reasonable advertising rates - more information coming soon. 

If you are able to help in any of these areas, please send an email to IPF@ironacademy.org soon.  We are looking forward to another amazing display of the talents of our young men!

IPF Budget Update

Thank you all for the fundraising you have helped us with so far this year!

• Net Fundraising Proceeds since July 1: $10,118

Major spending we have done to support school activities:

• Athletics: $2734 (including $1000 for basketball referees for home games, $569 for JV basketball uniforms, $200 for soccer, $560 for cross country uniforms) 
• Educational: $5600 (including $2200 to support trip to St. Benedict's in New Jersey to learn about their student leadership model, $2500 to support salaries of instructors hired for the October Intensive Week, $220 for Honor Code t-shirts for students who went to Crucible Camp, $180 for dissection kits for science class, $350 to buy the student school planners given to all students)
• Social Activities: $400 (Teacher Appreciation luncheon, snacks for family events, Christmas party for students)

No Fuss Fundraisers in February

We have two opportunities for raising more funds in February:

1. Selling donated merchandise at the Kids Exchange.  Do you have any of these kids items (babies to teens) that are in good condition to donate to IA for us to sell: books, sports equipment, dolls, video games, old video game systems, kid and family movies on DVD, children's furniture, bikes, back packs, puzzles, board games, shoes, Nerf guns, toys, etc?  Do your relatives and friends have kids items they are willing to donate to us?  If so, please contact Anne York at IPF@ironacademy.org to arrange to deliver your items no later than Friday, Feb 3.
2. Time to collect BOXTOPS!  The BoxTops people have a deadline of submitting them by the end of February.  We will have bags pinned to the bulletin board in each classroom for your sons to submit their BoxTops - please bring them to school by Friday, Feb 24. This is the last time to submit BoxTops this school year - please feel free to scour your pantry and clip them off food you haven't eaten yet! :)   

And our retail fundraising continues - please click or scroll to the tab above to see how to support IA when you shop at Amazon, Groupon, Harris-Teeter, Kroger and help us by simply scanning copies of your grocery store receipts with the Shoparoo app. 

Extracurricular Updates

Wrestling: Our wrestlers had their first tournament on Jan 17.  While we lost the tournament, several of our students won their matches.  Please come to cheer on our wrestlers in the IA gym at our next tournament on Thursday, Jan 26 at 5:30.   

Basketball: The middle school basketball team has a record so far of 4 wins and 6 losses.  The JV basketball team has an 0 and 3 record so far against more experienced high school teams.  Both teams have several more games to play in the next three weeks.  The list of games to come watch is on our events calendar.  

Spring sports:  Our spring sports of baseball and golf will begin in late February.  Please have your son talk to Coach Mitchell soon if he is interested in baseball or golf.

  

Prospective Family Information Sessions for Iron Academy and Academy 31

Both schools are now enrolling for grades 6 to 10 for the 2017-2018 school year!  There will be information sessions from February to April at Providence Baptist, Crossroads Fellowship, Colonial Baptist in Cary, and RFA (Raleigh First Assembly).  Please send this webpage with the dates for the information sessions to anyone with sons or daughters who would be good fits for IA and A31: http://www.ironacademy.org/admissions/the-admissions-process/.

    

IPF Officer Meeting

The IPF officers will have a meeting on Saturday, Jan 28 at 9:30 am to work on plans for our family and student events and activities for the spring semester.  If you have any ideas, please share them at IPF@ironacademy.org.