Piedmont High School will be hosting an Open House, the AP Art Show, an essay writing workshop for rising seniors, and the Senior Award night on Monday, May 18. Due to the open house, school will end at 1:05 p.m. that day.
The Open House will take place from 6:45 p.m. to 8:15 p.m..
“The middle school and MHS will also be having an Open House in coordination with us,” Principal David Yoshihara said. “There will be food trucks during the Open House for people to have quick bites.”
This will be the first Open House PHS has ever done.
“It’s a community event, so it’s open to the public, and if anyone is interested in the school they can come and check it out,” Yoshihara said. “Each department will be showcasing something. Music may put on a performance, I think P.E. will have some students do demonstrations, and science may do a lab.”
The AP Art Show closing reception will be at 6:45 p.m. in the Alan Harvey Theater lobby.
“On Thursday and Friday, [the show] will be open for people to see, and on Monday, right after the Senior Awards, there will be the closing artists’ reception,” art teacher Gillian Bailey said. “The art show on Monday will be open for the whole community, so anyone can come and check it out.”
Bailey said that the art that will be shown is five different works by each student, with the medium depending on what AP studio art exam they took.
“Students can take AP Drawing, AP 2D Design, or AP 3D Design,” Bailey said. “The students will choose five works from their portfolio to show, which they have been working on since September.”
Art teacher Sarah Houchin said the AP portfolio is all about creating work around an inquiry.
“Each student comes up with a topic of interest and then they create works related to that,” Houchin said. “An example of an inquiry is thinking about how they can use clay to explore duality in realities and fantasy.”
The essay writing workshop will be from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. to give rising seniors the chance to learn more about the Common Application Essay and Supplemental Essay. Two Regional Admissions Counselors of California will lead the workshop.
“This is the first time we’re doing it, and we wanted to try to offer it before school was out so that students didn’t leave the school year without any support from us,” said College and Career Center director Stefanie Manalo LeClair.
Last year, LeClair organized a Personal Insight Questions workshop the week before school started, and about 80 students attended. LeClair said she hopes that the same number of students or more attend the upcoming one for the students’ sake, as well as the admissions counselors who volunteered to lead the workshop.
Senior Awards night is scheduled from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Alan Harvey Theater.
“Each of the departments in the school have a series of awards, which are usually two per department,” Yoshihara said. “The department will nominate a senior, give a speech about them, and then the senior will go up to receive the award.”
Yoshihara said it’s a nice event and some of the teachers give very emotional speeches.
“Some teachers’ speeches will make people cry when they hear them,” Yoshihara said. “It’s a pretty formal event and students dress up nice for it.”
