California Trail Middle School is located in Olathe, Kansas, one of nine middle schools in the Olathe Public Schools Unified School District (USD) 233. It is the largest middle school in the district.
The school's mascot is a bulldog, and colors are black and gold. Their traditional rivals are the Pioneer Trail Panthers and the Frontier Trail Jaguars.
The feeder elementary schools are Bentwood, Pleasant Ridge, Regency Place, and Heatherstone, (which also feeds into Pioneer Trail middle school). The school has approximately 900 students. The school's Science Olympiad program has won regionals ten out of eleven years, plus 6 first's and one second in state competition. In April 2006, they won state and went to Nationals for the third year in a row. In 2006, The California Trail Freshmen Bulldog Basketball team won their city tournament for the first time after a perfect season winning every game. The combined eighth and ninth grade orchestra of California Trail and Pioneer Trail was the first in Olathe to make KMEA, and the first to perform on PBS (February 2006). All middle schools have 6th-8th grade at schools high school 9th-12th grade
Also having a diverse student body, its students are also divided into teams. The principal's name is Connie Viebrock, along with the two assistant principals, Mrs. Karey Ficken and Mrs. Paige May.
In 2009, the 8th grade girls basketball team capped off a perfect season by defeating the Chisholm Trail Wildcats in the City Championship finals. Also, later in the school year, in 2010 the 8th grade girls track team won the City Championship.
In 2010, the first ever 7th grade city championships were captured by the 7th grade football and volleyball teams, and also the 8th grade volleyball team winning the city championship as well. But the 8th grade football team completed its first losing season since 2002, with a record of 1-6, their only win coming against Mission Trail, 48-7. Overall, CT's sports seasons do very well.
In 2009, the 8th grader Kavya Shivashankar won the Scripps National Spelling Bee contest, spelling the letters of "Laodicean" correctly.
Coordinates: 38°53′10″N 94°44′48″W / 38.88611°N 94.74667°W / 38.88611; -94.74667
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
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—J. William Fulbright (b. 1905)
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—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)