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
Famous quotes containing the words california, trail, junior, high and/or school:
“The attraction and superiority of California are in its days. It has better days & more of them, than any other country.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We sank a foot deep in water and mud at every step, and sometimes up to our knees, and the trail was almost obliterated, being no more than that a musquash leaves in similar places, where he parts the floating sedge. In fact, it probably was a musquash trail in some places.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Never burn bridges. Today’s junior prick, tomorrow’s senior partner.”
—Kevin Wade, U.S. screenwriter, and Mike Nichols. Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver)
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“By school age, many boys experience pressure to reveal inner feelings as humiliating. They think their mothers are saying to them, “You must be hiding something shameful.” And shucking clams is a snap compared to prying secrets out of a boy who’s decided to “clam up.””
—Ron Taffel (20th century)