Raleigh Charter High School

IMPORTANT DATES
NEWS AND NOTES
ARTS APLENTY THIS WEEK
PHOENIX QUIZ BOWL TEAM FLIES VERY HIGH IN COMPETITION
GATHERINGS AND CELEBRATIONS
MIDTERM EXAMS
NO PHOENIX NEWS FOR HOLIDAYS
ADMISSIONS INFORMATION FOR 2009-2010
CAN YOU HELP?
FUNDS CUT; PASTA POT PARAMOUNT
TRY TO TOP THIS!
2,279 AND COUNTING
THE SPORTS PAGE
PHOENIX SWIM TEAM VALIANT IN THE ATTEMPT
PHOENIX BASKETBALL UPCOMING GAMES
PHOENIXWEAR FOR THE HOLIDAYS
WEEKLY ATHLETIC CALENDAR
LINKS OF INTEREST
PUBLICATION INFORMATION

IMPORTANT DATES
DECEMBER
12 Strings Winter Concert, 7:30 p.m., Kenan Recital Hall, Peace College
13 How the Grinch Stole Christmas reading, 10:30 a.m., Room 309
15-18 Midterm exams
17 Welcome Home Coffee for alumni, 2-3:30 p.m., Room 309
19 Exam makeup day
End of third grading period
22 Winter break begins

JANUARY
6 Classes resume after winter break
8 PASTA Board of Directors meeting, 8:30 a.m., Room 305
12 RCHS Board of Directors meeting, 5:30 p.m., Room 300
16 Interdisciplinary Flex Day
19 Martin Luther King holiday
27 First Open House for prospective students (snow date Jan. 29)
29-30 Ex Days

NEWS AND NOTES

ARTS APLENTY THIS WEEK
MUSIC TO SOOTHE
The Music Department cordially invites you to attend the Strings Winter Concert tonight, Dec. 12, at Kenan Recital Hall at Peace College at 7:30 p.m.
Dr. Cynthia Clark Brown, Chair of Fine Arts Department
cbrown@raleighcharterhs.org

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS READING
The RCHS Community Workdays Children's Theatre Co. will present a staged reading of How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 13 at 10:30 a.m. in Room 309. We will hold a company "naming" contest on Saturday after the FREE performance. The CWDCTC is a new performance ensemble developed as part of the Raleigh Charter Citizenship Program. The ensemble will be performing material based on children's literature again in the spring of 2009. Please contact me for more information.
Maggie Rasnick, Drama Teacher
mrasnick@raleighcharterhs.org

PHOENIX QUIZ BOWL TEAM FLIES VERY HIGH IN COMPETITION
The RCHS Quiz Bowl team competed on Wednesday, Dec. 6, in The Knowledge Master Open, a national competition.

In this competition, the group works all together as a team to answer really tough multiple choice questions that are projected on a screen. They get extra points for how quickly they can choose the correct answer. Picture having about 30 teenagers in a room trying to answer very challenging questions on topics ranging from geology to elements of rhetoric and having to work together to come to a consensus. If they are on top of things, they do this in less than seven seconds. It's not easy, but it's fun to hear them reason together or just have flashes of insight when they figure out the right answer. Our team was led by captain P. Schultz who had the challenging task of listening to the group's discussion and picking which answer to enter into the computer.

Out of 695 high school teams competing this year, our team came in ninth in the nation!RCHS also placed first in North Carolina. Other NC schools competing included NCSSM which came in 10th. Hoggard was 21st, Grimsley was 78th and Enloe was 100th. Congratulations to everyone on the team who came out for the competition. For more information on how individual schools placed and their scores, see:
http://greatauk.com/kmoh.pdf

The RCHS Quiz Bowl team also competed in a 30-team tournament at Robinson High School in Concord, N.C. on Saturday, Dec. 6. The A, B, and D teams went on to the semi-final playoff rounds, and the RCHS A Team of A. Doyle, G. Sanka, P. Schultz, and J. Vandezande won the first place trophy. Congratulations also to P. Schultz who won the best overall player of the tournament.

Our last tournament of 2008 will be in Cave Spring, Va. on Saturday, Dec. 13.
Betsy Newmark, Quiz Bowl Coach and History Teacher
bnewmark@raleighcharterhs.org
Eric Grunden, Quiz Bowl Coach
egrunden@raleighcharterhs.org

GATHERINGS AND CELEBRATIONS
The RCHS Alumni Office is excited about two upcoming events:

"Welcome Home Coffee" on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2:00-3:30 p.m., Room 309
For our alumni who return for the holidays and often stroll the halls looking for their former teachers, we are happy to have a time for teachers and former students to catch up with each other. The invitation has been sent out to alumni via a RCHS Facebook group, but since this is our first such gathering, please help us spread the word.

First RCHS Reunion on June 6, 2009, RCHS Campus
A group of 10 alumni gathered just before Thanksgiving to help plan this exciting event. We'll get back to you with more details in the new year!
Carolyn Jackson, RCHS Alumni Office
cjackson@raleighcharterhs.org
Shayne Klein, Academic Dean and History Teacher
sklein@raleighcharterhs.org

MIDTERM EXAMS
Monday, Dec. 15
9:00 – 12:05 Half day for regular classes (students go home for lunch)
12:30 – 2:25 7th period exam

Tuesday, Dec. 16
9:00 – 10:55 1st period exam
11:00 – 11:25 Break
11:30 – 1:30 6th period exam (with 5-minute clean-up time)

Wednesday, Dec. 17
9:00 – 10:55 2nd period exam
11:00 – 11:25 Break
11:30 – 1:30 5th period exam (with 5-minute clean-up time)

Thursday, Dec. 18
9:00 – 10:55 3rd period exam
11:00 – 11:25 Break
11:30 – 1:30 4th period exam (with 5 minute clean-up time)

Friday, Dec. 19, is makeup exam day. Students should attend that day only if they were absent during one or more of the exam days. Makeup exams begin at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, in Room 204.
Shayne Klein, Academic Dean and History Teacher
sklein@raleighcharterhs.org

NO PHOENIX NEWS FOR HOLIDAYS
The last Phoenix News of 2008 will be the Dec. 19 edition. The deadline for articles in that issue is noon on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Publication will resume after the winter break on Friday, Jan. 9.
Robin Morris and Karen Gamble, Phoenix News Co-Editors
phoenixnewseditor@yahoo.com

ADMISSIONS INFORMATION FOR 2009-2010
Current RCHS parents are reminded that although qualified siblings receive preference in the lottery, applications for siblings must be filled out completely and submitted during the application window. Applications will be available at our Open Houses. They will also be available on the school's website beginning Jan. 27.

Applications to RCHS must be postmarked between Jan. 27 and Feb. 25, 2009. We will hold a public admissions lottery on Saturday, March 14, 2009.

Qualified siblings will be accepted prior to the lottery. To be qualified, siblings must have submitted an on-time, completed application including a math recommendation form indicating readiness for Algebra I or a higher math course.

We will hold Open Houses with student and parent information sessions for prospective students on:
Tuesday, Jan. 27 (snow date Jan. 29)
and
Thursday, Feb. 5 (snow date Feb. 10)

OPEN HOUSE SESSIONS
Due to our limited facility here at RCHS (remember we are a school of only 520 students), we have difficulty accommodating simultaneously all of the families who are interested in learning about our school. We have developed a ticketing system that allows all interested families to attend our Open House sessions AND to be guaranteed an opportunity to learn about the school and visit our facility.

When you attend an Open House, you should attend an Information Session AND you should tour our facility and visit with our teachers. When you arrive, you will stop in front of the building and receive a map and a ticket for one of the information sessions. The student will receive a ticket for an information session run by students, and parents will receive a ticket for an information session conducted by school administrators. These color-coded tickets will ensure you a seat in a session at a specific time and will ensure that you and your student(s) will be able to attend different sessions at the same time. Sessions will be held:
5:30 – 5:50
6:00 – 6:20
6:30 – 6:50
7:00 – 7:20
If all of these sessions are filled, we will hold an additional session at 7:30 p.m. We want all interested families to have the opportunity to attend one of these sessions. Before and after your information session, we encourage you to visit with our faculty (located in rooms around the school) and to tour our school.

Tickets for sessions will be distributed beginning at 5:15 p.m. (and no earlier). However, if you arrive later in the evening, you may not have to wait for a ticket and you may get into a session closer to the time when you arrive. Last year there was a line outside the school at 4:45 p.m., BUT we had plenty of room in the 7:30 session. In the past we have also had a smaller crowd at the second Open House night. There is no advantage to coming to the earlier night, and the application can be downloaded to be completed by hand.

We appreciate so much your interest in Raleigh Charter High School. Although our Open House nights are often crowded, we do look forward to meeting you and thank you in advance for your patience during these important events.
Shayne Klein, Academic Dean and History Teacher
sklein@raleighcharterhs.org

CAN YOU HELP?

FUNDS CUT; PASTA POT PARAMOUNT
As many of you are aware, all North Carolina's public schools have had their state funding reduced. The impact to RCHS is a reduction in funding of $20,645; all school systems and charter schools had to return to the state 0.75 percent of previously allotted monies.

PASTA makes an annual appeal to our community members for contributions to the PASTA Pot. Your contributions are used mostly to supplement the operating budget for RCHS. In light of the income reduction from the state, it is even more important for our families to contribute.

Many families have already donated generously, and we thank you for your support. We also know that in this current financial climate, funds are limited. However, if you have not already made a donation, we hope you will help us meet this new funding challenge with a contribution appropriate to your resources.

Thank you for considering our request. If you wish to contribute, please send your tax-deductible donation to RCHS PASTA, 1111 Haynes Street, Raleigh, NC 27604.
Checks should be made out to RCHS PASTA Pot.

Sincerely,
Tom Humble, Principal
thumble@raleighcharterhs.org
Dana Barrow, PASTA President
barrow204@bellsouth.net

TRY TO TOP THIS!
October's Box-Top Hero of the Month was Ms. Carroll's advisory, which collected over 300 General Mills box tops! In total, almost 2,000 box tops were collected, and Partnership Elementary was thrilled to receive them.

Thank you to everyone who brought in box tops, and please keep it up! To anyone who has not done so yet, you still can! The competition for the months of November and December is nearing the end. Don't miss a chance to help a local elementary school and win doughnuts for your advisory while you're at it.
J. Moran, SGA's Community Service Committee

2,279 AND COUNTING
The Raleigh Charter Ideas Festival Committee is having a book drive in order to help support the school that we sponsor in Uganda through the Invisible Children organization. Our goal is to raise 10,000 books by the middle of January. So far our efforts, both in our school and in the surrounding community, have led us to collect 2,279 books!

Invisible Children Inc. is a nonprofit organization that works to build schools in Northern Uganda, an area which has been ravaged by civil war for the past 20 years. The school that we sponsor is in desperate need of books, as it currently has only one textbook per 40 students, so the Invisible Children organization is partnering with Better World Books to gather books of all kinds. All of the books that the school in Uganda can use will be sent directly to the school, and the rest of the books will be sold through Better World Books to raise money that will then be sent to the school.

We need books of all kinds! Novels, cookbooks, children's books, biographies, textbooks, etc.: as long as it has an ISBN number on the back, we can use it!

Collection bins have been set up in the 200 hall at school. Thank you for any and all contributions that have been made. If you have not donated books yet and would still like to, there is still time!
M. Khater, Ideas Festival Committee Member

THE SPORTS PAGE

PHOENIX SWIM TEAM VALIANT IN THE ATTEMPT
Cardinal Gibbons hosted Raleigh Charter men's and women's swim teams at the state of the art Triangle Aquatic Center on Wednesday, Dec. 10. Both the men's and women's teams showed great improvement, with several individuals and relay teams dropping seconds off their prior bests. While Cardinal Gibbons was victorious, many of our swimmers inched closer to automatic qualifying times for the state championship. The men's' 200 freestyle relay recorded a 1:41, blowing past the automatic qualifying time of 1:47! Our swimmers will get another chance to best Cardinal Gibbons. Their next match-up is Wednesday, Jan. 7 at 6:00 p.m.
Dave Rucker, Swim Team Parent
drucker@improvepartner.com

PHOENIX BASKETBALL UPCOMING GAMES
The next home games will be on Jan. 2 (Cary Academy),and Jan. 13 (Cary Academy). Keep up the good work. Come on out and cheer for your school!
Steve Efird, Athletic Director and Men's Basketball Coach
sefird@raleighcharterhs.org

PHOENIXWEAR FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Looking for the perfect holiday gift? How about a pair of flannel Phoenixwear pajama pants? An order of flannel pj pants, capri sweats, and hoodies is scheduled to arrive early next week. The flannel and capri pants are navy with "PHOENIX" down the leg. The hoodies are the heavyweight variety, in navy, with the 2-inch RCHS emblem screened on the left chest. Sizes are limited.

Prices:
Hoodies - $25.00
Flannel PJs - $24.00
Capri Sweats - $22.00

Email me if you are interested in purchasing any items. I will be at school on Friday afternoon, Dec. 12, with items available for purchase. Checks should be payable to "RCHS Booster Club."
Pam Huck, Phoenix Sports Booster Club
pamhuck@nc.rr.com

WEEKLY ATHLETIC CALENDAR
Friday, 12/12
6:00/7:30 Basketball at Cummings

For directions to events, see https://www.raleighcharterhs.org/athletics/Sports_Directions.pdf

LINKS OF INTEREST
The following are quick links:
The Phoenix News at http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/pasta/news.asp
PASTA Fund-Raising at http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/pasta/simplefund.asp
Join PASTA at http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/pasta/membership.asp
PASTA Alumni at http://www.rchspasta.org/alumni/alumni.php
Lunch Vendors at https://www.raleighcharterhs.org/studentlife/lunch.asp
RCHS College Counseling Naviance at http://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=raleighcharter
Calendar at http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/pasta
Helpful Hints at https://www.raleighcharterhs.org/Pasta/hints.asp
The Flame at http://flame.raleighcharterhs.org
Helpful hints at http://www.raleighcharterhs.org/pasta/hints.htm
Extracurricular opportunities at http://rchspasta.org/extracurriculars.htm

PUBLICATION INFORMATION
The Raleigh Charter High School newsletter, the Phoenix News, is published each Friday of the school year as a service of Raleigh Charter High School's Parent, Administrator, Student, and Teacher Association (PASTA) and is distributed via an electronic news group. The Phoenix News is also available on the RCHS website at https://www.raleighcharterhs.org/pasta/news.asp

Parents, students and faculty are invited to share school-related news, recognize accomplishments and solicit volunteer needs via the Phoenix News.

**The deadline for submitting articles is every Tuesday at noon for publication the following Friday. Please send articles to phoenixnewseditor@yahoo.com

If you would like to receive the Phoenix News automatically each week, please subscribe to the RCHS Yahoo! news group by sending an email to RaleighCharterHS-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Please indicate your student's name in the subject line so the moderator can verify that you are a member of the RCHS community.
Membership is monitored and available only to RCHS parents, students and personnel.

To unsubscribe from this group, send a blank email to RaleighCharterHS-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com