On October 19 and 20, potential freshmen set foot on San Marin’s campus and experienced a high school day, full of tours and emersion in certain classes.
Throughout the first part of the day, Leadership and the link crew students bustled eighth graders from class, to class showing them the STEM and Biotech academy along with some classes that Vice Principal Diane Santamorena chose beforehand.
“ I wanted to refrain from limiting their experience only to freshman classes. I think it’s important for them to see what’s ahead of their first year of high school. Therefore, each group was scheduled to be in at least two junior or senior or multi-grade classrooms.” Santamorena said.
The Leadership class was responsible for half of the day and then switched with the Link Crew halfway through.
“I think the shadow program is a great opportunity for the incoming freshmen to get a feel for San Marin’s atmosphere,” sophomore Macy Anderson, who is a part of Leadership said.
They also saw a showing of this year’s musical, The Addams Family. Many students coming to San Marin, or who are planning to come, are interested in the STEM and Biotech classes. The schedules that Santamorena made were geared to show Biotech, Algebra 1, College and Career Readiness, Health, and the performing arts, while making sure that only one group of students were there at a time.
With a fresh perspective of San Marin, eighth graders had varying opinions due to the exposure of San Marin.
Within the 5 students who gave their opinions, they all agreed with Sinaloa Middle School Courtney McIvor and San Jose Middle School Gabriel Tanaka.
“I expected to learn about the schools classes and I wanted to meet people my age that wanted to attend STEM and hear what they had to say about the campus,” Tanaka said.
“I think our shadow leader showed us what school would really be like on a regular day at San Marin next year,” McIvor said.
However, some students felt that the shadow day did not provide as much information as they had hoped.
“I did not like how some of the classes only let us observe and didn’t inform us of what the course of the year would be like with specific units of learning.” McIvor said.
“I got quite enough information, but I wanted more,” Tanaka said.
The day for the shadows ended at 11:30 a.m. and they left after seeing previews of performances.
San Marin had another wave of students come in on November 2 and 3.
“Additionally, after the first Shadow Day we received an unexpected number of requests to attend upcoming Shadow Days. As a result, all our Shadow Days filled up,” Santamorena said.
