Odle Middle School is a public

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

in the

Crossroads Crossroads, crossroad, cross road or similar may refer to: * Crossroads (junction), where four roads meet Film and television Films * ''Crossroads'' (1928 film), a 1928 Japanese film by Teinosuke Kinugasa * ''Cross Roads'' (film), a 1930 Brit ...

neighborhood of

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as a s ...

, United States. The school is one of seven middle schools in the

Bellevue School District Bellevue School District No. 405 (BSD) is a public school district in King County, headquartered in Bellevue. As of October 1, 2016, the district has an enrollment of 19,974 students. The Bellevue School District includes 28 schools: 15 element ...

and was named posthumously after Frank Odle, who taught in the district for 55 years before retiring in 1968. Odle is located near Stevenson Elementary, formerly a primary feeder elementary school for Odle. Odle is primarily known for its hosting of the ALS program, a gifted program for high-performing children. As of the 2022–23 school year, the school's principal is Joseph Potts and its

assistant principal In larger school systems, a head teacher principal is often assisted by someone known as a vice-principal, deputy principal, or assistant/associate principal. Unlike the principal, the vice-principal does not have quite the decision-making authorit ...

s are Keith Altenhof and Danielle Virata. In the 2001–02 school year, Odle Middle School was one of two schools in the state to be awarded a

Blue Ribbon The blue ribbon is a symbol of high quality. The association comes from The Blue Riband, a prize awarded for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by passenger liners and, prior to that from Cordon Bleu, which referred to the blue ribbon ...

by the U.S. Department of Education, the highest award an American school can receive.

Demographics

As of the 2021-2022 school year, the school had an enrollment of 948 students. 61% of the students are

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 20% are

Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Anthropology *Anything from the Caucasus region ** ** ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region * * * Languages * Northwest Caucasian l ...

, 9% are

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

, 7% are

multi-ethnic Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...

, and 3% are

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

. 45% speak a first language other than English, and 17% are eligible to receive free/reduced price meals.

Academics

AL Program

The AL program at Odle is part of the Advance Placement program offered in the

for grades 2 through 12. GT is a selective program; applicants must have a minimum score of 144 on the

Cognitive Abilities Test The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is a group-administered K–12 assessment published by Riverside Insights and intended to estimate students' learned reasoning and problem solving abilities through a battery of verbal, quantitative, and nonv ...

. Reading and Quantitative scores must be of the 90th percentile or higher, one of which must be at or above the 97th percentile.

High school extension

The high school AL program extends the science, English and social studies classes further in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at

Interlake High School Interlake High School (IHS) is a public secondary school in Bellevue, Washington, one of the four traditional high schools in the Bellevue School District. Its mascot is a Saint Bernard named Bernie, and the school's sports teams are known as the ...

. In the IB program, AL students complete the IB diploma during 10th and 11th grade, rather than the usual 11th and 12th grade.

Extracurriculars

Rocketry

In 2016, Odle Middle School's rocketry club sponsored three teams in the

Team America Rocketry Challenge The American Rocketry Challenge is an annual American model rocketry competition for students in grades six to 12 sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association and the National Association of Rocketry. Co-sponsors include NASA, United State ...

(TARC). In the competition's qualifying round, two of the teams placed in the top 100 teams in the nation, earning them a spot at the TARC national finals, the third team placed as a second alternate. One of the teams, the Odle Middle School "Space Potatoes," won the 2016 Team America Rocketry Challenge, earning more than $20,000 in prizes and scholarships and a trip to London to compete in the International Rocketry Challenge. The team went on to win International Rocketry Challenge at the

Farnborough International Airshow The Farnborough Airshow, officially the Farnborough International Airshow, is a trade exhibition for the aerospace and defence industries, where civilian and military aircraft are demonstrated to potential customers and investors. Since its fir ...

on July 15, besting the top student rocketry teams from the United Kingdom, France and Japan.

Chess

The Chess Team has won many prizes all over the nation and the state. Odle Middle School earned first place in the 2006 national K–8 chess championship and got seventh place in Chess Supernationals 2013 K-8 chess championship. The chess team has also claimed first place in the Washington Middle School Team Championship for the school years 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2009–10, and 2010–11. In April 2014, members of the Odle Chess Team will go to Atlanta, Georgia, to compete in the National Junior High Chess Championship. The team is currently has the highest average rating as a team for the K-8 division. Odle Middle School tied for 1st place in the national 2016 K-8 chess championship. Odle Middle School 2017 graduate

Naomi Bashkansky Naomi Bashkansky (born 2003), is an American chess player, a World Schools Chess Champion (Girls U13), a North American Junior Girls Under 20 Champion, and a Woman International Master. Bashkansky won first place in the 2016 World Schools Chess ...

is a 2016 World Schools Chess Champion (Girls U13), a 2017 North American Junior Girls Under 20 Champion, and a

Woman International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

Science Bowl Club

The Odle Science Bowl Club has participated in the U.S. Department of Energy's

National Science Bowl The National Science Bowl (NSB) is a high school and middle school science knowledge competition, using a quiz bowl format, held in the United States. A buzzer system similar to those seen on popular television game shows is used to signal an an ...

since 2017. Over the years, it has gotten:
- National 2nd Place in 2017
- National 1st Place in 2018
- National 3rd Place in 2021
- National 1st Place in 2022

2014-2016 remodeling

In 2014, Odle Middle School decided to remodel the old building; implement about 200 kW worth of new

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

, the most solar power put on any

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

school building to date. The solar panels were built specifically for the newly designed classrooms created for classes involving

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

and the arts. Alongside solar panels, expansive athletics infrastructure, thermal floors, etc were also implemented. During the two year construction period of the new building, which is next to Stevenson Elementary School, Odle Middle School was moved to the Bellevue School District's designated swing school, Ringdall Middle School. The redesign however failed to compensate for the extensive backup of traffic onto 8th and 140th during morning drop-off hours leading to continued dissatisfaction among the parent community.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 47, 37, 1.54, N, 122, 8, 53.95, W, region:US_type:edu, display=title Public middle schools in Washington (state) Bellevue School District Schools in King County, Washington Educational institutions established in 1969 1969 establishments in Washington (state)