The Kinkaid 2013-2014 calendar has been updated. Please make note of the following date changes:
Parents and Middle School Students,
The 2013 Pen Power Middle School literary magazine has been posted in the student and parent password-protected portals on the website. After logging into the website, click on the Student Publications link, then the Pen Power link on the right sidebar of the student or parent portal.
Pen Power is a literary magazine produced annually by the seventh and eighth grade creative writing classes. It includes their original work as well as writing submitted by other middle school students in grades 5 through 8. It also highlights artwork created by students in the middle school art classes.
Parents: Click here and login to view the Pen Power 2013 magazine.
Students: Click here and login to view the Pen Power 2013 magazine.
The Kinkaid Middle School Robotics team recently competed with high school teams at the FTC Robotics competition. Kinkaid had the only Middle School team at the qualifying competition on Saturday and the team came in 7th out of 15 teams attending.
The Middle School Debate Team recently had a handful of seventh and eighth graders participate in the Taylor debate tournament in Katy ISD. This was a large, challenging competition at the high school level. There were 50 schools attending from throughout the Houston area, as well as from Dallas.
Kinkaid had an outstanding showing as the youngest students in the competition. Kinkaid Middle School students debated mostly freshmen and sophomores.
There were 95 total entries in the beginning division of Lincoln-Douglas Debate. After the three preliminary rounds, the tournament advanced the top 32 based on win-loss record. Kinkaid had 10 students advance, most of whom were undefeated, giving the team about one third of those in the elimination rounds despite how huge and difficult this tournament was. Kinkaid was the most represented school in the elimination rounds!
Going into quarterfinals, Kinkaid represented half the field with 4 of the top 8. Kinkaid’s top finisher was Sam Segal who reached semifinals and earned third place. Other Kinkaid students in the top 8 were Jiya Ghei, Taqi Hasnain, and Anna Thomas. Also advancing to the top 32 were Thomas Garrison, Lauren Ho, Collin Lawrence, David Liang, Amanda Roff, and Minhhy Truong.
In addition to these debate accomplishments, Kinkaid also earned three of the top 10 speaking awards, with Sam Segal getting 2nd, David Liang getting 3rd, and Anna Thomas getting 4th.
Finally, Kinkaid had two seventh grade teams entered in beginning Public Forum Debate. They were the partnerships of Amy Ho/Dani Knobloch and Rohan Kumar/Jack Neblett. For Amy and Dani, this was their first tournament ever, and for Rohan and Jack, it was their second. Neither team advanced, but both did win rounds against high school teams, which shows a lot of natural talent at such a young age.
Congrats to all these students for their hard work!
-- Middle School Debate Coach, Stacy Thomas
Nineteen Schools and over 700 students competed in the Oak Ridge High School Middle School Speech and Drama Tournament. In order to be a semifinalist, students had to have a first or second place in their preliminary round.
Congratulations to our semifinalists:
Humorous Interpretation: Trip Horlock, Cameron Rudin and Caroline Kunetka
Poetry: May Moorefield
Impromptu Speaking: Riley Shaper and Caroline Totz
Storytelling: Laine Jacobe
Prose: Jennifer Sekii and Helena Johnson
Duet Acting: Cheyenne Dawley and Caroline Moseley, Hudson Marix and Cole Vicknair,
Simi Bontha and Caroline Totz, Jason Gordon and Jennifer Sekii, Riley Shaper and Jake Jacobe
Mime: Spencer Hickman and Grant Whiteside
Dramatic Interpretation of Literature: Caroline Moesley
Solo Improvisation: Riley Shaper and Cameron Rudin
Duet Improvisation: Cheyenne Dawley and Caroline Moseley
Original Oratory: Emma Gilliam and Laine Jacobe
With 70 to 80 students in each event, Kinkaid advanced the following students to the top 6 in the tournament:
Dramatic Interpretation: 1st place Caroline Moseley
Impromptu: 4th place Caroline Totz
Impromptu: 5th place Riley Shaper
Duet Acting: 2nd place Jacobe / Shaper
Duet Acting: 4th place Marix / Vicknaire
Duet Acting: 5th place Dawley / Moseley
Solo Improv: 2nd place Riley Shaper
Prose: 1st place Helena Johnson
Prose: 5th place Jennifer Sekili
Pantomime: 5th place Grant Whiteside
Original Oratory: 5th place Emma Gilliam
Novice Humorous: 1st place Cameron Rudin
Novice Humorous: 4th place Trip Horlock.
A big thank you to all of the parents who came to the tournament to watch and support our students. It was a great weekend with students watching and supporting each other.
-- Middle School Speech and Drama Instructor, Patty Edwards
The 8th graders recently had a wonderful weekend at one of the largest debate tournaments in the state hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. Kinkaid had 10 debaters from the 8th grade represented in the junior-varsity division of Lincoln-Douglas Debate at the Longhorn Classic. They were the youngest students in this division, which includes participants with up to two years experience in high school debate. This division included about 75 students from Texas and Oklahoma.
All of the Kinkaid middle school debate team students finished with a win-loss record of 2-2, 3-1, or 4-0. That is a great accomplishment at this age at such a difficult event! All of the Kinkaid debate team students with a 3-1 or 4-0 record advanced to the double octofinals (top 32). When the doubles participants were announced, Kinkaid had the most representation of any of the 30 schools entered with 6 of the team’s students advancing
Once the tournament reached octofinals (top 16), the Kinkaid team had one quarter of the pool! Kinkaid finished with two of the four semifinalists. This is really remarkable for the only middle school students entered in the tournament.
Here are the students who advanced:
Semifinalists (top 4): David Liang and Anna Thomas
Quarterfinalists (top 8): Sam Segal
Octofinalists (top 16): Collin Lawrence
Doubles (top 32): Jiya Ghei and Anish Odhav
Congratulations to these students on all their hard work this semester and for representing Kinkaid with professionalism and good sportsmanship!
Middle School Debate teacher, Stacy Thomas
Kinkaid's robotics team won first place in the FIRST Tech Challenge competition on Saturday, January 18th, 2014.
One of only 3 middle school teams in the competition, Kinkaid's middle school team competed against a field of 26 teams (23 of them consisting of high school students from various schools with strong support and funding) and achieved a tremendous victory! Not only did this Kinkaid Middle School team, that is only two years old, win the entire qualifying competition in a competition whose goal is the inspiration and recognition of science and technology, but the team also clearly impressed the judges.
As a result, the team also received the “Innovate Award,” which celebrates a team that not only thinks outside the box, but also has the ingenuity and inventiveness to make their designs come to life. This judged award is given to the team that has the most innovative and creative robot design solution to any or all specific field elements or components in the FTC competition. Elements of this award include elegant design, robustness, and “out of the box” thinking related to design.
MIDDLE SCHOOL PRESENTS GREASE
Saturday, January 25, 2014 @ 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, January 26, 2014 @ 2:00 p.m.
Brown Auditorium
Come support a cast and crew composed of Kinkaid’s entire 8th grade class as they bring you Rydell High’s senior class of 1959: duck-tailed, hot-rodding “Burger Palace Boys” and their gum-snapping, hip-shaking “Pink Ladies” in bobby sox and pedal pushers, evoking the look and sound of the 1950’s in this rollicking musical.
For ticket information please contact the Box Office at 713.243.5442 or box.office@kinkaid.org.
The Kinkaid School 2014 Winter Magazine issue features:
Please visit the magazine webpage at:
The Kinkaid Middle School debate team recently competed at the Hastings tournament this past Saturday. For nearly all of Kinkaid’s 7th graders, this was only their second time to ever compete.
Kinkaid’s 7th graders were competing in public forum debate with partners. They were discussing whether or not the Supreme Court made the correct decision last year on the Voting Rights Act, a rather complex and difficult topic. Kinkaid Debate Coach Stacy Thomas was very proud of the students’ research for this debate.
At the competition, all students debated 3 preliminary rounds and then the top 16 partnerships advanced to the octofinals based on their record and points awarded for presentation. Kinkaid had half of the teams that advanced!
Making the octofinals (top 16) were the following debate partnerships:
CG Marinelli/Callie Rosenthal
Rohan Kumar/Jack Neblett
Daniel Mirzai/Mason Nome
Reeves Cameron/Brian Schroeder
Roya Moradi/Onuchi Ndee
Making the quarterfinals (top 8) were:
Dani Knobloch/Tate Toussaint
Mason Freeman/Andrew Yang
Madeline Karkowsky/Ellie Lucke
Two Kinkaid debate teams had winning 2-1 records but who missed the cut for advancing just barely based on speaking points. These two were Jeffers Shaper/Becket Toussaint and Nolan D'Souza/Alexander Treistman.
Additionally, students were awarded individually for their speaking. Out of the 80 students participating in this division, Kinkaid had two students honored for top speaking. They were:
Callie Rosenthal in 3rd place and Mason Freeman in 4th place.
Finally, while most of Kinkaid’s 8th graders were unable to attend this tournament, Kinkaid did have a couple of students in the Lincoln-Douglas debate. These students compete individually and were debating if developing countries should prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction.
David Liang successfully reached the quarterfinals in this division.
Congratulations to all of Kinkaid middle school debaters for the hard work they have been doing throughout the month of January!
-- Middle School Debate Coach, Stacy Thomas
The cold weather didn’t deter the Kinkaid 8th grade girls’ soccer team as they took on a talented Duschesne team in the HJPC Championship game last night at Presbyterian. With a final score of 3-0, the Falcons received their first place medals and earned the title of Champions. Coaches James Jordan and Stephanie Derieg believe “hard work, discipline, and unselfish team play” were the foundations of this team’s successful season.
On Wednesday night, the Falcon Middle School Swim team set a new HJPC and school record in the Girls 200 Medley Relay at the HJPC Championship meet with a time of 2:11.3. Members of this record setting relay were Audrey Orange, May Moorefield, Ava Finger and Helena Johnson.
Congratulations to the Kinkaid MS Falcons on a successful winter season of competitions!
Kinkaid’s Upper School and Middle School yearbooks were both selected to be a national sample for the Balfour Yearbook Company. Sample yearbooks represent the top 2% of yearbooks produced by the Balfour Company in their worldwide market. This is a big honor, as each yearbook will be used as a journalism resource for workshops across the country. Congratulations to all of the Kinkaid Middle and Upper School Yearbook student editors!
Kinkaid Upper School Yearbook Editors for this year are:
Annie Jeckovich, Lizzy McGee, Cynthia Ormiston and Nazie Amjadi.
