May 2016 Newsletter

We have an exciting month as we close out this school year! Please save these dates:

Thursday May 5: Lacrosse Game

Our lacrosse club will play against St. Raphael at 4:15.  Our team is coming together well with novice and advanced players.  They played their first game on April 27 against an experienced St. David's team, which also has 3 times the number of players as our team has, and we lost 12-1.  

Thursday May 5:  Debate Tournament
Our UNDEFEATED debate team is holding a tournament with Prestonwood Christian Academy in Texas using the telepresence system at Cisco in RTP.  Our teams are Zachary Wald with David Anderson and Jordan Chaulk with Jon Anderson.  Their resolution is "Resolved: In the United States, students should be guaranteed two years of free tuition to a community or technical college."  

Friday May 6: Arts of the Swordsmen

Doors open at 6:30 with a full coffee bar, chocolate fountain, and other goodies await you. Performances start at 7:00.  Tickets are $5 with a $20 per family maximum.  IA students, Playbill sponsors, and prospective families have free admission.  Don't miss this exciting event - please invite your friends and relatives to share this fun evening!  

There is a SignUpGenius that is requesting some items for AOTS.  Please visit this SignUp to see if anything else is needed.     

Saturday May 7 to Wednesday May 18:  Online Book Fair
As we are a school that promotes a culture of reading with our young men, we are partnering with ChildrensBookstore.com to hold an online book fair!  For books that are purchased between May 7 and May 18 from our IA website with Childrensbookstore, our school will receive a donation of 30% of the purchase price!  ChildrensBookstore has over 200,000 titles from babies to young adult, fiction and nonfiction, and many genres, as shown by this list of categories.  The code to use when checking out to be sure that we receive credit for the purchase is IRON.  We'll email a link to everyone on Saturday morning and ask that you share this link with as many others as possible to purchase their summer reading materials.  We will use the proceeds from the book fair to purchase library books and classroom materials as well as award prizes for our Iron Summer Reading Challenge - more details about this student challenge will come at the end of May.       

Tuesday May 10 and Tuesday May 17:  TerraNova Standardized Testing
IA uses TerraNova, a nationally normed standardized test, to assess our students.  You can find more information about TerraNova's tests here.  For students on which we have two years of data, we saw an average increase of 6 percentile points in their scores in the second year.  For a previously "average" student, that would translate to an SAT score of 40 points higher on reading and math after one year.  Should we continue with even modest annual gains from this trend throughout their IA years, the Targeted Learning of the IA curriculum should result in improvements of about 160 SAT points in math and reading.  Please be sure that your son is well-fed and well-rested on these two days and encourage him to give his maximum performance on these test days. 

Tuesday May 10:  Family Information Session for Prospective Students
Please invite interested families to come to our final Information Session for the school year at 6:30 pm.  We are gaining several high quality applicants and some grades are full or nearly full.  The grade with the most open spots is next year's 6th grade.  Remember that we have a referral program in which Iron families of currently enrolled students can earn a $500 tuition credit per referred student who enrolls.  A generous donor has also made some scholarships available specifically for newly enrolled students if you know of young men who would be a great fit for the IA experience.  

Tuesday May 10:  Kamado Grille Spirit Night
Thank you to everyone who has been enjoying the wonderful food of Kamado Grille!  IA receives a 10% donation of ALL meals purchased between 5:30 and 8:30. 

Wednesday May 11: Father's Breakfast
Iron dads and guests are invited to hear Dr. Archie Bost, founder and executive director of CrossLife Ministries, speak on the topics of biblical manhood, including marriage and parenting.  Dr. Bost has over 20 years of experience in counseling and discipling individuals and families.  Our fathers find this time to be of great encouragement as they share experiences and lean on scripture to be the men that God intends for them to be.  Feel free to bring a friend, relative or coworker!     

Friday May 13: Revised due date: Friday May 20 Blade Maintenance Plan Biblical Manhood Video Due
The faculty are excited to see the creativity of the videos that the students are submitting for their Blade Maintenance Plans.  The videos are to be 3 to 5 minutes and explain the specifics of the student's growth as a disciple of Christ and as a gentleman scholar.  Students will meet with tribes to discuss the video requirements.  To submit the video, you can upload it directly from your phone's camera roll to YouTube (sign into your YouTube account) and choose the setting of UNLISTED so that the video can be shared by emailing the link to it but will not be visible to the public on YouTube.  Alternatively you can submit the video on a flash drive. The links to the videos or flash drives are to be emailed/given to Mr. Meredith at smeredith@ironacademy.org.  There is a tab above for information about the Blade Plans.     

Tuesday May 17:  Teacher/Staff Appreciation Day
To thank our teachers and staff who are also such dedicated mentors to our sons, we will celebrate them with a Teacher/Staff Appreciation Luncheon!  A SignUpGenius will go out next week for food items to bring in on the 17th and we will gladly accept monetary gifts to buy gift cards.  Many thanks to parents Nancy Hector and Paula Brewington for organizing this event.

Thursday May 19:  IPF General Meeting for Parents
Please plan to attend this important meeting at 6:30 in an IA classroom in which we will:

• Have an update on the IPF budget
• Briefly discuss plans for next year's IPF activities
• Elect a slate of officers for 2016-2017:  Anne York (Chair); Morgan Wood (Vice Chair of Fundraising); Lisa Wald and Wendy Collier (Co-Vice Chairs of Family and Social Activities); Heather Mauzy (Treasurer); Denise Lake (Secretary)
• Hear updates from Mr. Hahn on the new student leadership initiative and plans to expand it next year; bus transportation plan; honors courses and implementation of innovation curriculum; administrative structure; accreditation update; and all current faculty are returning next year and we will learn about the additional new faculty

Every Friday Morning:  Parent Prayer Meeting

Please come whenever you are available to the Parent Prayer Meeting at 7:50 am.  It is a refreshing time of praise and talking to God about the needs of our students, families, faculty, and school.  God does answer prayer!  A very hearty thanks goes to Natalie Taylor and Paula Brewington for their dedicated service to seeking out our young men each week to pray for their specific needs and sending each one a card to let him know he was prayed over.  

Friday May 27:  Lunch Cookout, Field Day, and Classroom Cleanup

Last day of school!  Please do remember to bring in any IA materials, textbooks, and library books that your son has at home by the last school day.  We'll celebrate with a family cookout for lunch, field day fun for the students, and take some time to clean up our classrooms before they close down for the summer.  A SignUpGenius will go out near the end of May for contributions.    

2016-2017 School Year Update 
August 8-12:  9th grade Forging Camp at Mountain Shepherd Wilderness Survival School
August 15-18: Crucible Camp at Camp Rockmont for all new students and returning students who came to IA after the start of the school year (students only go to Crucible Camp one time unless invited to return as a Squire or Leader)  
Monday August 22: First Day of Classes

Reminders: Yearbook and BoxTops
Remember to view the tab above for "Yearbook" to find out how to place your yearbook order.  We will also collect BoxTops through the end of May so we can send in a batch before any of them potentially expire.  Our next BoxTops collection will be in October.     

April 2016 Newsletter

Intensive Week Fun
Our students as always had fun and great learning experiences during our last intensive week.  Congratulations to the 8th grade students who gave presentations to the parents to explain and showcase their innovative ideas.

IPF Officer Nominations

Much thanks to the officers who are serving this year: Anne York, Chairperson; Jim Ferguson, Vice Chair of Fundraising; Jenn Vinkler, Vice Chair of Family and Social Activities; Heather Mauzy and Darrell Taylor as co-treasurers, and Amy Clark as Secretary. While some current officers may continue to serve next year, we do want to open the nominations for all officer positions to all parents who are interested in serving.  Our Nominations Committee is chaired by Anne York along with parents Rebekah Anderson and Jenni Jordan.  If you are interested in serving or want to recommend someone for a nomination, please talk to Rebekah or Jenni before April 30.  We will have an IPF General Meeting in May to vote on the new officers who will serve next year.

All parents of currently enrolled students are members of the Iron Parent Fellowship.  The mission of the IPF is to:      

• Pray for Iron Academy in its role to assist parents as they train their sons in biblical manhood and in becoming gentlemen scholars.
• Provide funding and volunteer time to support academic, athletic, and extracurricular activities.
• Cultivate a welcoming and friendly culture among enrolled families, prospective families, and faculty and staff. 

To be eligible to serve as an officer of the Executive Committee, the nominee must meet these criteria: should be an eligible member as described in Article III (a parent of a currently enrolled student), must be current in paying tuition invoices, has given consent to serve if elected, has the qualities of spiritual maturity, has demonstrated support for the success of Iron Academy, is in agreement with the philosophy, doctrine, and administrative structure of Iron Academy, and has paid the re-enrollment fee by the deadline established by school administration.

We do hope that fathers would be willing to serve as officers.  The Executive Committee meetings are held at most once per quarter and in the evening at a time that fits everyone's schedule.  We are also able to hold online meetings.  We understand that everyone has a full plate with juggling work and family, but we do hope that several parents would be willing to take on these leadership roles that are so vital to providing extra funds and activities for our students.  The IPF Committee tab above has the full Committee Guidelines that established and guides the actions of the IPF and includes descriptions of each officer position.  We operate under the umbrella of IA's nonprofit status and we are a Committee under the Board of Governors.  

Golf Update
The JV team played in a tournament on March 24.  Congratulations to Caleb Stroup who was a co-medalist as he tied for first individually and to the IA team as they finished 3rd out of 4 teams in our first ever tournament!  

Golf team coaches and players Noah Kirby, Kyle Hector and Caleb Stroup

Debate Team Update
Congratulations to the team of Ian Taylor and Jordan Chaulk who won the intramural tournament in March!

Lacrosse Team Update
Many thanks to parent Tod Manning for coaching our young men!  Starting on April 12, practices will be from 3:30-5:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

News from Mr. Hahn
As I recently shared by email, we are excited to start implementing a new student-directed Honor Code Hierarchy that will take full effect next year.  This new system will place most of the responsibility for building upon our Honor Code culture on the young men - where it should be.  We were inspired by an example at St. Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey that was featured on 60 Minutes.  The student-directed leadership structure will build our students into better leaders, more self-disciplined young men, and disciples better equipped to serve others.  Students will be placed in leadership positions over their chore teams, tribal teams, and school teams.  As with St. Benedict's young men, iron will sharpen iron, brother will build brother, and the feeling of "what hurts my brother, hurts me" will permeate Iron Academy.

Arts of the Swordsmen Update
IA Parent and our AOTS Director, Travis Kiker, is very pleased with the efforts and talents of the students who are performing this year.  As with last year, it will be an exciting night of fun on May 6!  We will also recognize our outstanding scholars and athletes that evening.  There are a lot of items to purchase to put on this production and to help offset that, we do want to sell ads in the Playbill.  See an email message that was sent on March 30 for the details on the benefits that the sponsor receives.  Please send an email to IPF@ironacademy.org if you would like to advertise your business or can recommend a business for us to contact.  Tickets for the event will be $5 per person.

Yearbook Order
We are using a new yearbook company this year, Treering.  You order your yearbook and pay online to them.  The price of the yearbook is $39.93. One benefit of using Treering is that each student is also able to have TWO PERSONALIZED PAGES that will only appear in his yearbook.  What a great way to also remember other family events that took place during the school year or personal photos of school activities!  Click on the YEARBOOK tab above, under the page banner, for more details on how to order the yearbook. So that photos and activities of the entire school year can be in the yearbook, we will work on finishing page layouts and photo selection during June, submit the yearbook for publishing in July, and it will be shipped in bulk to the school in August and distributed to our students on the first day of classes.

Sword Photos

Last call if you would like to order a photo of your son with the IA sword!  Contact Mr. Anderson if you need another order form and directions to view your son's photos.  The last order date is April 22. We are so privileged to have Mr. Anderson's photography skills to create these majestic photos to commemorate our son's noble journey in pursuit of biblical manhood. The majority of your purchase amount will be donated to the school.  Photos are in color or can be adjusted for black and white.  

New Blog for Biblical Manhood
A blog about biblical manhood has been started on the IA website and is being managed by parent Rob Wald.  The first post is now available http://www.ironacademy.org/i-am-iron-blog/.  Various authors will post twice per month.  Keep an eye on this blog for interesting information to share about biblical manhood.  

Upcoming Events in April
Every Friday from 7:50-8:30 am - Parent Prayer meeting.  Please join us whenever you are available!
5th: Golf tournament 
12th: Golf tournament
12th: Kamado Grille Spirit Night
13th: Father's Breakfast at 7:30 am
19th: Please pray for our Stakeholder Celebration Fundraising Event at 7:00 pm!  Please contact Jenni Jordan or Natalie Taylor if you know of individuals who who be interested in aligning with IA to support our school or if you would be able to volunteer at the event. 
21st: Golf tournament 
Reminder:  Monday May 2 is a Staff Planning Day - No school for students but a dress rehearsal day for AOTS.             
     

February 2016 Newsletter

RE-ENROLLMENT

Re-enrollment plays an important role in planning for the next school year.  It is important to make your plans known soon to help the school administration determine how many new students and new staff members to bring into the Iron Family.  If you have not yet re-enrolled, you can do so by:

• Log into RenWeb.com on your computer
• Select Logins from the menu bar and ParentsWeb Login from the drop-down menu
• Type in your username and password.  If you have forgotten your username or password, please click on the link provided.
• After logging in, click on the Family Information button on the left menu
• Click on the Enrollment/Re-enrollment button and follow the instructions from there.

The Re-Enrollment fee is $750 and is due in full by April 1, 2016.  You may also choose to pay 3 monthly installments of $250 on Feb 1, March 1, and April 1.  If you have questions about the re-enrollment process, please contact Mr. Meredith at smeredith@ironacademy.org.  Tuition rates will remain unchanged for 2016-2017.  

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES UPDATE

Debate Team:  Three new members have joined the debate team for the spring semester: Chance Tschirret, Zach Wald, and Jordan Chaulk.  Our team will host a debate tournament at Iron Academy on Saturday March 5 and spectators are welcome!  The resolution they are currently working on is "Resolved: Committing United States ground troops to fighting ISIL is in the best interests of the United States."  To prepare to debate, each student must be ready to argue both the pro and con side to the resolution.  At the tournament, there is a last minute selection process to determine which side each team will debate.  The Iron Debaters have won every tournament for the past two years.  Congratulations and keep up the good work!

Basketball:  The basketball team is playing together very well with a 6 to 3 winning record!  The team plays its final two home games on Feb 2 and Feb 4 at 4:30 at the Wendell Community Center at 601 W. 3rd Street in Wendell.  They have a final away game on Feb 9 with the Eastern NC School for the Deaf.  The season will end with the team hosting a tournament with 3 other local schools on Feb 13.  Come support our team as they wrap up a great season!

Yearbook Club:  Our yearbook club had its first meeting with Kyle Hector, Caleb Stroup, David Anderson, Noah Kirby, and Casher Collier volunteering to help put together this year's yearbook.  If your son has any photos of school activities, please ask him to send the photos to one of these students.  Our yearbook this year will be published by treering.com and every student's yearbook will have the option of adding two pages of individually chosen photos that the family can add of school events or anything else to commemorate the school year. The yearbook price is $39.93.  We will finish editing the yearbook over the summer in order to incorporate photos and events from the entire school year.  More information will come soon on how to place an order for those who have not already done so.  

Arts of the Swordsmen: We're in the planning stage for the performances that the students will do.  If your son is interested in showcasing his artistic talent of any type, then contact IA Parent Travis Kiker.  All of the students likely know Mr. Kiker and he is planning to visit often during lunch to talk to our young men about the opportunities to perform.  If you or someone you know is able to volunteer to help put together this event, also contact Travis Kiker.  

OTHER SCHOOL NEWS

Prospective Family Information Meeting:   Our next information session for prospective families will be at 6:30 on Feb 16.  If you know of any families who are interested in learning more about IA, they can send an RSVP to attend the information session to ironacademyadmissions@gmail.com.  

IPF Budget Update:  We were able to bless Ms. Bowen by purchasing about $100 of books for a unit on the Middle Ages for the 6th graders.  The books included interesting titles such as "Archers, Alchemists and 98 Other Medieval Jobs You Might Have Loved or Loathed."  The books helped to create lessons to develop the students' critical thinking skills.  The IPF checking account currently has a balance around $8200.

UPCOMING EVENTS FOR MARCH

We have an events calendar on Iron's website under the Welcome tab and through this link:  http://www.ironacademy.org/events-calendar/.  And you can access the calendar from this newsletter website in a tab above. 

Every Friday: Parent Prayer Meeting 7:50-8:30 am.  Please drop in whenever you can!
Tues 2nd: Home basketball game at 4:30
Thurs 4th:  Home basketball game at 4:30
Tues 9th: KAMADO GRILLE SPIRIT NIGHT 5:30 to 8:30 and away basketball game
Wed 10th:  FATHER'S BREAKFAST at 7:30
Sat 13th:  Basketball tournament
Mon 15th:  NO CLASSES - STAFF PLANNING DAY
Tues 16th:  Prospective Family Information Session at 6:30
        

January 2016 Newsletter - Update (Jan 10)

Arts of the Swordsmen (AOTS) Planning Meeting: On Thursday, January 21, we will have two information and planning meetings about AOTS: at 4:00 and again at 6:00 to allow as many families as possible to come at whichever time best fits their schedule.  We do want to showcase any artistic talents that your son has, but we will also create opportunities for him to participate, such as last year we trained students who never before did a STOMP performance and they put on a fantastic show! Here is a video of that STOMP performance:

Here is a link to a YouTube playlist that has videoclips of each act from last year's AOTS.

The agenda for this meeting on Jan 21 is to share information about the goals of AOTS and get a first estimate of the types of talents our students want to showcase.  We would also want to know if any of our families have any talents on-stage or behind-the-stage that they can share or know of others outside of IA who would be willing to help us. 

We will also need to form an organizing committee whose subtasks will include helping to monitor or lead student rehearsals, organizing volunteers for the night of the performance, and assisting with fundraising such as finding donated items to raffle off and selling ads in the Playbill.  Can you help? 

During the AOTS event, we will also recognize students with high academic achievements (honor roll) and athletic achievements (such as MVPs for each sport). We are planning to have the AOTS in early May and can confirm its date soon after we get final approval from the venue.     

Please take a moment to let us know which of the two AOTS planning meetings you can attend by clicking the SignUpGenius button below or if you can't make the meeting but do have a way to help, then also use the comment section on the SignUp to let us know that.



Much thanks to Travis and Beckie Kiker for leading our young men to boldly express their God-given talents!

Kids Exchange:  This is the last week to donate any items that the IPF will sell at the Kids Exchange.  A good idea is to give your son a bag and tell him to put in it at least two items that are in good condition that he no longer needs: clothing, toys, video games, books, room furnishings.  With a lot of participation, we could collect at least $500!  All clothing we bring to the sale has to be on wire hangers, so if you have any of those at your home, please do donate them to us. 

We will work on tagging the items during the Work Day on Saturday morning, Jan 16.  Please indicate on the SignUpGenius for the Work Day if you can help do that.   

Yearbook Club Planning Meeting:  We are going to start a Yearbook Club so that our young men can develop a yearbook that best shows their experiences as IA students.  For the past two years, it has been a couple of mothers who mostly completed the yearbook and certainly middle-aged women can't do justice to explaining the academic and spiritual experience of our young men! (So say these middle-aged mothers.) 

We need young men who are interested in photography or writing to work together to choose the photos that will go into the yearbook and write descriptions of the IA experiences. We already have a lot of photos from the first semester that need to be sorted.  We will have a planning meeting to start the Yearbook Club during lunch time on Thursday, Jan 14.  Students who are interested in the Yearbook Club should let Mr. Anderson know of their interest.  Please talk to your son about this exciting opportunity.  We are using a yearbook vendor, treering.com, that has training materials for students to develop their yearbooks.  Any parents with project management, photo or scrap booking experience, or who enjoy writing are also invited to help our students.

Spring sports: The Iron Academy Events Calendar (see tab above) has the dates for middle school and JV golf.  The spring sports season begins Feb 15.  Our Athletic Director, Coach Jon Mitchell, can answer any questions about our spring sports.       

Science Lab Photos:  Want a peek at the exciting learning experiences our young men had at Saturday's science lab?  

Here is a folder of photos from the day and a brief video below.  The science lab activities included looking at living and nonliving cell structures in a microscope; rates of diffusion and osmosis by cell size; biodiversity and how species interact with each other, such as how species help and hurt each other; how scientists measure different substances in a lab setting; and rate of osmosis through a semipermeable membrane.