Pinewood School, Los Altos

Infobox Private School
background = #f1f6fa
border = #ccd3d9
name = Pinewood School


motto = Pinewood is the Difference / Ad Astra
established = 1959
type = Private, Coeducational
head_name = Principals
head = Mark Gardner
Susan Giovanni
Debbi Applegarth
location = Los Altos, California
country = USA
campus = Suburban, Three Campuses
enrollment = 600 approx. 295 Lower and Middle Campuses
approx. 300 Upper Campus
faculty =
class = 18
ratio = 1:7
year =
SAT =
ACT =
athletics =
colors = Green and Gold color box|greencolor box|gold
mascot = Panther
conference = WASC
homepage = [http://www.pinewood.edu/ www.pinewood.edu]

Pinewood School is a private, independent, non-denominational school in Los Altos, California with three campuses, two in Los Altos and one in Los Altos Hills, spanning Grades K to 12. The lower campus serves grades K-2, middle campus serves grades 3-6, and upper campus serves grades 7-12. The principal is Mark Gardner.

History

Pinewood school was founded in 1959 in the then small town of Los Altos, California at the home of Mr and Mrs L. Victor Riches. Before the school was founded, the Riches family had planted 1,000 Douglas Firs on the family property, which is now the location of the “middle (3rd-6th grade) campus”, located at 327 Fremont Road. These trees are the reason for the name Pinewood. The school was originally called the Creative Workshop of Los Altos because it focused on the arts such as drama, painting, singing, and dancing. Mrs Riches established a kindergarten using the Carden method and subsequently added a new grade each year using the same method that is still used in grades K-6 at Pinewood today.

The school continued to grow through 1975, and as a result it was expanded onto a new campus. Established on the former Fremont Hills Elementary School campus in Los Altos Hills, the junior high was formed. This is known as the 'Upper Campus', however, it was not until 1981 that Pinewood had a high school. Before the addition of high school, the class sizes were larger. In 1981, though, they added a 9th grade class of 15 students. Every year following, they added another grade until a 12th grade was added. The first graduating class was in 1985.

Plans to expand the Fremont Avenue K-3 campus were scuppered by the Los Altos City Council, in May 2005, when it vetoed expansion onto neighbouring land. [ [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SJ&s_site=mercurynews&p_multi=SJ&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10A11A51C7671844&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM "LOS ALTOS VOTES AGAINST SCHOOL'S EXPANSION"] , May 12, 2005, San Jose Mercury News]

Academics

Classes

Pinewood is a college preparatory school. Most classes are mandatory, but there are some exceptions, such as P.E., which is required for only four semesters.

Requirements

The different classes required to graduate are four years of English/Literature and History or Social Studies. Three years of a Modern Foreign Language (Spanish/French), Science, and Mathematics. Writing is mandatory two and a half years, and P.E. is taken for the first two years in high school. A Visual Performing Arts course lasts one year. Computer Literacy and Economics both require one semester. Pinewood also requires twenty hours of community service every year.

AP Classes

For the Advanced Placement Classes (AP) at Pinewood, the College Board controls the content and the format of the class. The AP course is equivalent to a one-semester college course, and therefore is appropriately difficult with college level material. To get into an AP class, a student must have good grades and a recommendation from the previous teacher in the specific subject. Most AP classes at Pinewood are one year long, but some are only a semester.

Electives

* Choir - Pinewood's choir consists of 4 categories: The Junior High Choir, the 4th -6th grade Choir, the Pinewood Singers, and the Women's Choir. All four choirs perform regularly, both outside of school and during school assemblies and rallies.
* Journalism - The main focus of the Journalism elective is producing the school newspaper, the "Panther Prints".
* Band - The Band is open to Middle campus.
* Debate - The class is composed of about ten freshmen and ten varsity debaters. Novices may choose from either Policy or Lincoln-Douglas style debating, while Varsity debaters may also participate in Parliamentary debate and the newest addition, Model Congress.
* Drama - The Pinewood Theater produces one high school play, and one musical.
* Technical theater - An elective closely related to drama, the main focus of this class is creating the set and props for the current Pinewood play, as well as setting up lights and using audio effects.
* Studio art - The class includes mostly sketching and painting.
* Yearbook - The class takes photos for, organizes, and produces the school’s yearbook, the "Pinewood Paragon".

Activities

Dances

Pinewood hosts an average of six dances each year: back to school during the first few months; Halloween, a Sadie Hawkins dance where students dress in costume; holiday dance; winter formal, which is hosted on a boat in the San Francisco Bay; Prom for juniors and seniors; and MORP (prom backwards), a less formal event for freshmen and sophomores.

Class trips

It is an annual tradition for each grade to take a class trip towards the beginning of the year. The freshmen go on the “Freshman Retreat,” a two-day, one-night trip to Occidental, with a visit to the Four Winds Ropes Course.

The sophomores used to take a trip up to San Francisco for their class trip, where they take part in a class-wide scavenger hunt to find various items located in the city, such as an autograph from a street-performer. This class trip was officially cancelled due to the class of the previour year. They were split up into groups and had to meet back at a specified location at a certain time; the group with the most items won. The junior class kayaks and surfs in Half Moon Bay, while the seniors enjoy a rafting trip.

Holidays

Pinewood also offers a number of activities to celebrate various holidays. On Halloween, Pumpkin Day takes place, where each class can decorate a pumpkin and participate in a pumpkin-throwing contest. On Turkey Day, students can feast on a delectable Thanksgiving meal and run the “Turkey” (a mile-long run around the campus) to represent their class. During the holidays, Pinewood hosts a Holly Day full of activities, such as a tree decorating contest between the grades.

In addition, the school has a number of special days, usually warranting slightly shortened class periods and an extended lunch. March 14 is the nationally recognized Pi Day due to its similarity to the number 3.14, or π. To celebrate, the school holds pie eating and pi recitation contests, along with other pi-related festivities. Mole Day, though not technically a holiday, is also celebrated. Students in chemistry class create various objects spun off the word 'mole'; for example, a student might make a paper machete bowl of guacaMOLE. Modern Language Week is five days devoted to short skits performed by all of the students enrolled in French or Spanish, the only two languages currently offered at Pinewood.

Clubs

The Interactive Service Club, known as 'Interact', encourages community involvement and promotes social awareness through education and organization through after-school activities. Pinewood offers a robotics club, in which students design and construct robots to compete in local and sometimes statewide tournaments. In addition, each year, elected juniors and seniors can travel to San Francisco to participate in a Harvard Model Congress, where students across the country partake in a mock congressional session, where they compose, vote on, and delegate over bills.

Sports

The school is in the PSAL (Private School Athletic League) and also in the fifth division, which is the smallest division of sports, consisting of all the small schools with less than 300 students attending the high school.

Sports at Pinewood are divided into three seasons: fall, winter, and spring. The falls sports season consists of cross-country, boy’s football, girls volleyball, and girls tennis. The winter season sports consist of boys’ and girls’ basketball and soccer. The spring sports are baseball, softball, golf, track and field, swimming, and boys’ tennis. Because of the small amount of students at Pinewood, there are not a large variety of sports teams.

Up to three-quarters of all the sports teams at Pinewood advance into post season play called CCS (Central Coast Section). In the leagues Pinewood does exceedingly well in girls’ varsity basketball, girls’ tennis, and in girls’ soccer. The girls’ tennis team has won the league championship for five consecutive years. The girls’ varsity basketball has gone into CCS and has won the state championships in the years 1994, 1998, 2005, and 2006. The boys' varsity basketball program is not as accomplished as the girls' program, but did advance to the Northern California playoffs for 3 consecutive years from 1987-1989. This school year, the girls’ varsity soccer has won their league championship. Also in the fall season of 2006, a Pinewood student ran for a state cross-county meet.

The Pinewood's girls won both the 2005 [ [http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morguepdf/2005/2005_12_28.paw.section2.pdf "2005 The Year in Review - High Schools"] , Palo Alto Weekly, December 28 2005] and 2006 basketball state championships. [ [http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=690 "'Winning never gets old'"] , Palo Alto Weekly, March 22 2006]

Legal controversy

A teacher, Pamela Will, sued the school and a former principal, in February 2008, after her contract was not renewed, allegedly because she reported possible physical abuse to the police against the principal's wishes, according to documents filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court. [ [http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_8277783 "Ex-Los Altos teacher sues over dismissal, claims school hid abuse"] , Melanie Carroll, Mercury News, 1 February 2008]

Notable alumni

* Jon M. Chu, filmmaker, director of "Step Up 2 the Streets" [cite news |author=Leah Garchik |title=Pelosi-Kaufman a big wedding |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/02/20/DDJEV3G6K.DTL&type=printable |date=February 20 2008 |accessdate=2008-04-21] [cite news |author=Melanie Carroll |title=Filmmaker started out editing wedding videos in Los Altos |url=http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_8376200 |work=San Jose Mercury News |date=February 27 2008 |accessdate=2008-04-21]
* Lejla Hodzic, tennis player (Stanford)
* Caroline Jordan, volleyball coach (MIT)
* Şebnem Kimyacıoğlu, basketball player and Turkish national team playercite news |author=Michelle Smith |title=Kimyacioglu sisters apart, but together |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/02/SPG9ABJ3BA1.DTL |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=March 2 2005 |accessdate=2008-04-21] [cite news |author=Dennis Knight |title=PINEWOOD OFF TARGET IN DEFEAT |work=San Jose Mercury News |date=March 16 2003 |pages=14C]
* Yasemin Kimyacıoğlu, basketball player
* Larisa Oleynik, actress [cite news |author=Murry Frymer |title=For Some, It's Just Plaing Dress-up... |work=San Jose Mercury News |date=December 24 1989 |pages=16 |quote= ( [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SJ&s_site=mercurynews&p_multi=SJ&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB7315C116B69BC&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM Newsbank] )]
* Michael Penn, academic and author
* Scotty Scott, tennis player and coach
* Eileen Shea-Hilliard, basketball player, Michigan State University 'Athlete of the Decade'
* Roxy Bernstein, sports broadcaster
* James Escarzega, basketball player, (Cornell)

References

External links

* [http://www.pinewood.edu/ Official site]