Welcome to the Carlé Chronicle, week three!

Some of the things that will be discussed this week are the progress on saving up for our school van, a shout out for the students going above and beyond, and some information about the Paintball Club.

The staff at Carlé is very dedicated to the well being of their students. A good example is Alan Siegel, who has been working very hard on raising money to buy Carlé its own van. With this van we would be more able to take school trips and college campus visits to help enrich our students.

He started trying to save up this money last year and has attempted to make connections to help. Alan has reached out to ex-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and his daughter Susan, who in turn sent out letters.

Given that we have our own digital arts program that uses state of the art design tools like Photoshop, Alan asked Mr. Brown to be introduced to Google and Adobe, and to be reintroduced to George Lucas who had given Alan some technology about 27 years ago when he worked for Mountain Vista Middle School.

Also, Alan is hoping there’s a possibility to rekindle a past friendship with the basketball team the Warriors, who for three years in a row provided Carlé tickets see the games.

Student Melyssa Moreno even saw that her neighbor had a van for sale and brought the van to school to see if it would work for what we need. The van had too many miles on it but the gesture was greatly appreciated.

If anyone would like to help us work on the van project or contribute to this worthy cause please call Carlé at 707-994-1033.

Speaking of Alan, he was awarded California Teacher of the Year in 2005.

This year he was selected by State Superintendent of Education Tom Torlakson to come to Sacramento and be part of the official state selection committee that will help choose the 2014 Teachers of the Year.

Alan also will be running the live audio and video along with former Teacher of the Year Jim Jordan for the TOY celebration coming up in February.

A lot of students are doing extra things around Carlé to make it a better place. There are three students who take care of all the recycling – Kenneth Kalousek, Joseph Sarro, and Troy Lambruth.

Chris Stutz makes sure the library stays in order. Jeremy Harper is now in charge of all the band equipment and sound board. Michael Lanigan serves as the Carlé tech guru, helping us with tech problems when need be.

Nathan Frigge takes over the phones so Barbara our super secretary can have a short lunch break. Marla Mitchell and Sabrina Farnan work on many things regarding design, including everybody’s birthday cards.

Kobi Minard and Lance Thurston set up the daily bulletin. Last but not least, Angelica Barajas-Vega keeps the kitchen clean.

The Paintball Club is back again this year! It is being run by Starr Skidmore and Mike Skidmore. They organized a meeting a couple weeks ago and appointed Sienna Norton as the student representative. If you want to join, you can get a permission slip and give it to Barbara or Sienna.

The games are usually held on Saturdays. Mike and Starr are open to giving rides to the games if you can’t get to the game otherwise.

Before each game the rules are reintroduced to keep things safe. There will be a meeting regarding paintball weekly at Carlé and sign ups are available at any time.

Student of the week this week was Malia Askew. She came back to school this year with a plan to get all her credits and graduate high school. She has been a real asset and we are all very proud of her.

We are already about a sixth of the way through the school year at this time, so keep up the good work and remember to set plenty of goals regarding graduation to help motivate you!

Kasandra Colwell is a student at Carlé Continuation High School in Lower Lake, Calif.