STALLIONApril, 2009

8TH GRADERS EXEMPLARY ON READING TAKSThe results once again put the Stallions in the top tier of all Middle Schools in the District

Early this year, Mr. Ferguson challenged each of the students to surpass the achievements of last year. Last month, Stallion eighth-graders sharpened their pencils and took the

Reading TAKS. The results of their efforts took the school to new levels as 99% passed the test. Stallions didn’t just stop there;57% received commended status and thirty-five students notched perfect scores!

“I am so very proud of the students and faculty for their hard

work and performance. They did an outstanding job in exceeding last year’s results,” said principal Mitchell Ferguson.

Under the administration’s direction, the faculty and staff have used a combination of strategies and programs, unique to the Slider campus, to prepare the students and give them every

opportunity to succeed. Eighth grade students took advantage of after-school and Saturday tutoring, Read To Succeed, and silent reading during the advisory period each Friday. Accelerated Reading Tests also encouraged students to read books in and out of class and to increase their reading levels and

comprehension.Of course, the students couldn’t have accomplished these

scores without the help of amazing reading teachers like Mrs. Reyes, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Schwartz and Mrs. Ramsey. As a

Read 180 teacher, Mrs. Ramsey is responsible for students who did not pass the previous year's TAKS. "I am very proud of my students because coming into the school year, they were at a bit

of a disadvantage; they worked really hard by having class everyday, coming to after-school tutoring, and even on Saturdays to Read to Succeed. Not only did they pass the reading TAKS on the first try, some were even commended."

Commended student Chris Garcia summed up his take on

the preparation for the TAKS this way, "After not doing so well on the seventh grade TAKS, I knew I had to put in some extra effort in class and read some more difficult books. Mrs. Schwartz told us we had the knowledge and strategies to do great.”

The results, announced during Spring Break, once again put

the Stallions in the top tier of all Middle Schools in the District. “The results are the product of the efforts begun the very first

day of school and raises the bar even higher than before.” Mrs. Reyes concluded.

P R I D E

T H E

Volume 2, Issue 9

By Edgar Diaz

Students prepared

with mock tests

Proud students who passed their

Reading TAKS

Let the spring games begin! The First Annual James Butler Spring Games, formerly known as the Special Olympics, was a huge success. Students from elementary, middle and high schools from throughout the district met at the Socorro Activities Center last month to compete and reconnect with friends and teachers.

This year, the competition consisted of 50-meter, 100-meter, and 200-meter wheelchair races as well as bike races. Slider’s Oswaldo Martinez was thrilled to win first place in the bike race, “He was so enthusiastic about the crowd and the Starlets cheering. That’s what motivated him to win,” said Special Education teacher Mrs. Rosales of his victory.

Juan Torres got second in the 50 meter wheelchai r race, Corbin Buntyn got second place in the 100 meter race, Christopher Martinez won second place in the 200 meter race and Denysse Rangel was awarded third in the 50-meter wheelchair race. Former Stallion Milissa Carrasco now attends Montwood High School but enjoyed seeing all her old friends and teachers from Slider. “It made me happy that so many people were there for us, cheering us on!”

The James Butler Spring Games are a sporting event emulating the International Specia l Olympics compet i t ion, in which handicapped athletes compete. The event was renamed in honor of James Butler, a dedicated adaptive P.E. Coach who recently passed away. The Socorro Independent School District’s Special Education Department organizes the event of which Slider has been a part since 1998. Special Education teacher Ms. Overton summed up the attitude of students, parents and teachers alike, “We strive to do our best and nothing will hold us back.”

Juan Torres

By Osvaldo Carrasco

JAMES BUTLER SPRING GAMESStallions shine at first annual sporting event

The Slider Jazz Band won a First Division trophy at the Hanks Jazz Festival when they competed against districts from throughout the El Paso area in March.

Band Director Ms. Hernandez explained, “First division is a superior rating where the judges give an excellent critique on their performance. The performance is judged by how they perform, the attitude of the band, and the tone of each instrument in the band.”

Before they performed, Ms. Hernandez and Ms. Valles told the students that the judging would be tough because the judges were from all over the country and their critiques would be very advanced. “They

played all the songs great, but the one that they the played the best was El Taco Rocko,” said band director Ms. Valles, “That one song has been their favorite song, and when you

play your favorite song you want it to sound good so you try your hardest.” Ms. Hernandez and Ms. Valles chose the pieces, El Ta c o R o c k o , S p r i n g s A w a k e n i n g , a n d B a d Attitude. “We had chosen

different songs to see which ones felt right,” says Ms. Valles, “It was a

trial and error process.”The competition came just as the

band was singled out in District competition earlier last month. The band will compete in their final contest in mid-April and expects to continue to add to the awards they previously won.

JAZZ BAND RANKED SUPERIOR DURING HIGH SCHOOL CONTESTBy Rebeca Chavez

The Advance Boys Choir achieved a

score of Outstanding in the recent Choral

and Sight Reading Contest held at Socorro

High School. Choir Director, Mrs. Labrado

led the boys to score a two on a scale of

one to four during the competition. Their

award winning performance included Old

Joe Clark arranged by Roger Emerson,

Hi-o arranged by Thomas Juneau and

Aura Lee arranged by Emily Crocker. In

the sight reading portion of the contest,

they duplicated their score from the choral

performance.

A sight reading contest involves

entering a room where the judges provide a

sheet of music that the competitors have

not seen before. The contestants have only

eight minutes to study and are then judged

on their performance of that music.

“I was scared to go on stage and

perform, but once I was up on stage, I just

sang the songs as best I could,” revealed

seventh-grader Elijah Martinez. Mrs.

Labrado said of the boys effort, “They really

prepared well and I was very proud of the

way they represented themselves and the

school.”

The beginning choir also competed

with schools in the district. They performed

Going Down to Cairo by Mark A.

Williams, Goodnight arranged by Doreen

Kao, and Above the Plain arranged by

Kirby Shaw. They scored a two in the choral

portion of the contest and a three in the

sight reading portion. Choir competitions

will continue later this month as the Varsity

Treble Girls Choir will compete later this

month.

Corbin Buntyn

ADVANCED BOYS’ CHOIR SCORES OUTSTANDINGBy Jonathan Galvez & Christopher Garcia

Slider Jazz Band

Four students from Slider recently won The Team Quest Triple Crown. They achieved first place in the school, district, and regional levels of Team Quest.

Team Quest is a competition where teams of gifted and talented students participate in various challenges. Slider’s winning team consists of Morgan Newton, Paige Pelletier, Hollie Wilson, and Aidan Martinez.

The school competition included twenty-five teams. They were put to the test with intellectual challenges based on a Crime Scene Investigation theme, where challenges led to solving a mystery crime. Some challenges included recreating the crime scene in a three dimensional model, and recovering evidence to prove who was guilty. Each challenge had three categories including engineering, creativity, and trivia.

This team worked hard and defeated all other teams from Slider where they next took on the best twenty teams in t h e D i s t r i c t . T h i s competition continued the CSI theme, but also added the new twist of a court trial against the suspects. The Slider team continued their winning ways advancing to the West Texas Regional Championships.

T h e r e g i o n a l competition was held in early March at the My V.I.P. Party center here in El Paso. The theme was “A Night at the Oscars”, so challenges included Oscar trivia where students completed a quiz about various movies. They also had to engineer devices to move popcorn from chutes into a bucket. The Slider team did this by constructing sturdy structures to hold the chutes and a device to push the popcorn down.

“Our team was very tired after trying our best at every challenge that day,” noted Morgan Newton. “We were also anxious and excited when the time came for the awards. We did not expect to win, so it was a big surprise,” added Paige Pelletier. This win led the victorious team to the Team Quest Finals.

“I am extremely proud of this team, for their dedication. They are math whizzes and know how to think outside of the box by being creative and their approach to each of the challenges was actually fun to observe. I think they’ll represent Slider very well next month,” said Coach Esther Wickenden.

After placing first against all schools in the El Paso Region in Challenge D Slider’s Destination Imagination Team travelled to Houston to compete against other regional winners in the state finals.

The competition, held April 3-5, included teams from Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and other Texas cities. In fact, the competition included so many teams it was spread out across several local schools.

The Slider D.I. Team consisted of Tyler Kyle, Samantha Fernandez, Uriel Perez, Morgan Newton, Zane Pacillas, and Valerie Papa. They competed at Spillane Middle

School and Cypress Woods High School. “This school was huge, I’ve never seen a school so big!”, said Madison Luevano.

The team had to create a six minute improvisational skit about the origin of a randomly selected superstition, in their case how the number of spots on a ladybug’s back determines how many months of good weather are ahead. They had to present the skit using the styles of three different film genres and to integrate a fictitious sleuth, Melville McNaughten, who was randomly selected from a list of detectives the team had previously researched. The team had thirty minutes to meet all the criteria for the project which required drawing on their collective strengths.

Zane Pacillas was amazed by the outstanding performances of other teams. “It was great to see other teams that use the same style of comedy as we did in their skits. We really had a blast”.

DI Coach Sonja Kern summed up the team’s performance by saying, “This group’s strength was their improvisational skills which they really had to draw on in order to deliver all the aspects required by the competition,” she continued “They learned how to rely on the instincts of their team and to work together since the required components were so stringent. I’m very proud of them.”

Team scores will be released shortly and the team members are hopeful for a good showing.

Team Quest

winners

SLIDER DOMINATES TEAM QUEST COMPETITION

T h e fi n a l s p o r t s ’ seasons of the school year have begun.

T h i s y e a r ’s editions of the b a s e b a l l teams are on the field and both seventh a n d e i g h t h grade teams are off to a teriffic start.

B o t h t e a m s p r a c t i c a l l y d e m o l i s h e d P a s o D e l N o r t e . T h e s e v e n t h -g r a d e r s w o n their game by a score of 17-1 ! The s tory wasn’t different for the eighth-graders winning 17-0!

Eighth grade Coach Valdez said, “I think both baseball teams are going to

have a great season, I have a good feeling that they are going to do very well and h o p e f u l l y w i n a

champ ionsh ip , ” he continued, “We have a team that plays well together and works hard at errorless ball.”Their upcoming game aga ins t Montwood Middle promises to be o n e o f t h e m o s t exciting of the season as it is considered a rematch of last year’s championship game.

Some key players on this year’s squad are Steven Loya, Noel

Pinon, Omar Acosta, and Andre Silva.

“We have a good team this year, and we have a excellent chance of making it to the championship and winning.” said right fielder Martin Hernandez.

T h e S t a l l i o n baseball program has

consistently fielded strong teams and each has the opportunity of competing for thei r respect ive d ist r ict championship.

Coach Valdez added, “Th is g roup o f p layers represents the best of what Slider athletics is all about and I invite the students to take in one of the games this season and see how hard the boys are playing.”

By Anthony Molina

By Chris Garcia

By Uriel Perez

DI TRAVELS TO HOUSTON FOR STATE CHALLENGE

Eddie Molina

Steven Loya

STALLION BASEBALL TEAMS CAPTURE BIG WINS

U IL

SLIDER STALLIONS BEST ALL MIDDLE SCHOOLS IN UILStudents in all grade levels contribute to overall top score among all SISD Middle Schools in annual competition

SMS STALLIONS...

PRE-REGISTRATION

2009-2010

6th - April 18th

7th - April 25th

THE STALLION PRIDEWilliam D. Slider Middle School11700 School LaneEl Paso, Texas 79936-5400(915) 937-5400

Mr. Mitchell Ferguson, PrincipalMrs. C.C. Schwartz, AdvisorEmail: mschwa@sisd.net

This newspaper is produced by the students of Mrs. Schwartz’ Journalism class

ATTENTION SEVENTH-GRADERS...

Take Speech, Journalism, or Yearbook

next year if you are commended on your

Reading TAKS. See Mrs. Schwartz in room

216 for details or more information.

By Viahney Reyes

Spelling 6th grade, 2nd place Erika Araujo, 4th place Samantha Limon; 7th grade, 2nd place Mrudula Chitti, 4th place Armando Lujan, 5th place Jasmine Delgado: 8th grade, 1st place Emma Venegas, 2nd place Andrea Samaniego, 6th place Ariana Alcantara.

Ready Writing 7th grade, 1st place Krysta Weese, 4th place Cynthia Valencia.

Dictionary Skills 6th grade, 1st place Samantha Gutierrez, 3rd place Ashley Aguirre, 6th place Reagan Golucke; 7th

grade, 3rd place Gabriella Morales, 4th place Jasmine Delgado, 6th place Alexis Carrillo;8th grade, 2nd place Emily Soto, 4th place Giselle Aguilera, 6th place Charlie Espino.

Listening Skills 6th grade, 3rd place Aliya Gardea, 4th place Valerie Papa; 7th grade, 1st place Esteban Puente, 4th place Marc Hernandez; 8th grade, 3rd place Emma Venegas, 5th place Jessica Chapa.

Impromptu 7th grade, 1st place Morgan Newton, 3rd place Chris Schrader, 8th grade, 1st place Cassidy Banks, 2nd place Ryan Boyette.

Modern Oratory 7th grade, 3rd place Brianna Minjarez, 4th place Vianey Reyes; 8th grade, 4th place Evereth Perez.

Oral Reading 6th grade, 5th place Eden Klein, 6th place Claudia Gomez; 7th grade, 5th place Jordyn Vargas; 8th

grade, 2nd place Tyler Kyle, 3rd place Paola Larios.

Calculator 7th grade, 6th place Jessica Ortiz; 8th grade, 5th place Vanessa Sliva.

Mathematics 7th grade, 1st place Alan Flores, 5th place Christopher Vasquez, 6th place Jacob Hinojos.

Number Sense 6th grade, 5th place Xavier Zapien; 7th grade, 4th place Mrudula Chitti; 8th grade, 6th place Da Ye Kim.

Social Studies 6th grade, 3rd place Erika Araujo, 4th place Luisa Sanchez-Carrera.

Maps, Graphs and Charts 6th grade, 1st place Gabriela Arreola, 3rd place Susana Castillo, 5th place Aliya Gardea; 7th grade, 1st place Mrdula Chitti, 2nd place Esteban Puente, 4th place place Chris Schrader; 8th grade, 2nd

place Elizabeth Castillo.

Music Memory 6th grade, 4th place Melissa Cail.

Art Smart 6th grade, 2nd place Crystal Lujan, 5th place Lili Hoon; 7th and 8th grades, 3rd place Jasmine Munoz, 4th place Christopher Vasquez, 5th place Annette Tarin.

Congratulations to the Stallions for their winning performance in the University Interscholastic League (U.I.L.) competition. With 563 points overall, Slider beat Socorro Middle by only 34 points, leading middle schools in the red division. The Stallions placed first in a variety of contests including Ready Writing, Dictionary Skills, Listening Skills, Impromptu, Mathematics, and Maps, Graphs and Charts. Final results are listed below.