MOCK TRIAL TEAM 1
Dear Students and Parents:
CONGRATULATIONS!
We are so proud of your accomplishment of advancing to the State competition. We have been hearing wonderful comments all day about how happy everyone is for us and this accomplishment.
At the end of this letter, there is a spot for both you and your parents to sign. By signing, you are making your commitment to your Team for the State competition. That means you will attend ALL practices between now and Nov. 17, and you will attend the State competition in Des Moines Nov. 17 & 18. If you cannot attend a practice, you will need a note, email or phone call from your parent to excuse you. If you have a conflict with another activity at the same time, you need to be at mock trial unless that other activity is having a performance or a game. A practice schedule for the State teams was handed out tonight as well. We’ll be starting evening practices at 6:00 instead of 6:30 and ending at 8:30 instead of 8:00. We will also be ending afternoon practices at 5:00 instead of 4:30. And I’ve had to include some Wed. practices and an early practice due to some scheduling problems.
Included with this letter is information from Mr. Wheeler with more specifics about the competition – including information on which side we compete as first; our state team code; a schedule for Nov. 17 & 18; professional pictures being taken at State; and info about area hotels. This year’s competition will be at the Polk County Convention Complex.
I have a block of rooms reserved this year at the Renaissance Savery Hotel in downtown Des Moines, which is just a couple blocks from our competition site. Based on the HFCS guidelines, the Middle School will pay for 4 rooms for Thursday night (and also for Friday night if our students qualify for Saturday’s competition). School will pay their registration fees, but each student will need to purchase their own meals. There will be one coaches room, two girl’s rooms and one boy’s room. If you are attending the competition and would like to chaperone one of the rooms, please call school at 582-1198 and leave a message for Mrs. Huff (Ext.456) or call my cell phone at 580-8163. We would need a boy’s dad to chaperone the boy’s room and a girl’s mom to chaperone each of the girls’ room. If you can help us with this, you won’t need to pay for your own room (this is only for the one parent chaperone, no other siblings/family members could be in that student room). Also, if you are willing to chaperone, you will need to complete an online Virtus training for the safety of the students you are chaperone.
If you plan to come down and watch, but not chaperone, you will need to make your own hotel reservations. I initially booked 8 rooms for our teams early in the season in case we had a team or teams make it to State. Since we are only using 4 or those rooms, 4 are still available for parents/families to use if they want to. The rooms are at a reduced price of $99/nite (the normal price is $179/nite). As of today, there are also 7 other rooms available for that $99 rate that you can reserve by calling the Renaissance Savery at 1-515-244-2151. Just ask for reservations and then ask for the $99 mock trial block. Those 7 rooms are available to any teams so I don’t know how long they will last. The 4 rooms I have left are already reserved for us. I will do it on a first come basis – the first four families to call me, can have one of our left over rooms – you won’t need to call the hotel if you want one of these rooms as I already have them reserved. The issue with taking one or our rooms is we need to make sure when you check in that we take that room off of the Holy Family credit card and put it onto yours instead. There is also an additional cost of $16 per night, per car for valet parking or you can park off-site for about $11 per day. If you would prefer, your child can stay with you instead of one of the student rooms. If you want to look for a different hotel than the one we are staying at, there is a list of hotels included with the information from Mr. Wheeler. If you are unable to attend the competition with your student, please make arrangements with another family to be responsible for your student and to get your student to and from Des Moines. Mazzuchelli will NOT be providing transportation for the students to the competition. If you need assistance with travel arrangements for your student, please contact me and I will try to help. Please indicate at the end of this letter what your plans are for accommodations for those days. Also indicate if we can include your phone number(s) on a phone list for parents to use to make travel arrangements, etc. As always, if you have any questions, please call us at school or Mrs. Huff on her cell (580-8163).
Mrs. Huff and Mrs. Gonner
______I am able to make the commitment to the State team.
______
Student’s signature
Please check all below that apply.
______My child will need a spot in the school provided student rooms
______My child will be staying with me in my hotel room.
______My child will be attending the competition with ______
and will be spending the night in their room or a student provided room, and that parent will be responsible for my child during the weekend.
______You can include my phone number(s) on the phone list.
They are:______
______
Parent’s signature