Presentation Excessive College could also be turning 60 subsequent month, however the Willow Glen non-public faculty has modified with the occasions.
“We’re positively not your grandmother’s all-girls Catholic highschool,” says director Holly Elkins with fun. “The stitching classroom is now the management room, and our uniform now contains pants. There are, nonetheless, fewer all-girl faculties in our area than there have been 60 years in the past.”
Kristina Luscher, Presentation’s new principal, says women faculties are extra necessary than ever with regards to empowering younger ladies. She says analysis reveals that women at single-gender excessive faculties carry out higher and acquire higher self-confidence; they grow to be extra concerned in actions, develop larger vanity and assume extra management positions.
“The opposite day, I bumped into a person whose daughter had attended Presentation,” Luscher provides. “He noticed that girls who attended all-girls faculties had been higher co-workers and executives.”
Specializing in a well-rounded schooling, Presentation emphasizes each the sciences and the humanities, and college students have received accolades in each areas. Presentation received the 2022 Excellent College Award on the Synopsys Science & Expertise Championship, the primary all-girls faculty to take action. One trainer and 9 college students additionally received awards on the competitors.
The varsity’s robotics workforce received the 2021 CalGames and competes on the nationwide degree. Their dance workforce has received 32 nationwide titles, together with the 2021 Nationwide Grand Championship.
The varsity provides a wide range of artwork courses together with ceramics, portray, pictures and digital artwork. Overseas languages are additionally taught.
The varsity embodies the spirit of service that impressed its founder, Nano Nagle. Born to a rich household in Eire, Nagle was educated in France, the place she later entered a non secular order. Finally, she returned to her homeland, the place she devoted her time to serving to the destitute and infirm. She based the primary Presentation Convent in Cork, Eire, in 1775.
“We emphasize exhibiting compassion to the poor and weak,” says Grace Bernal, the trainer accountable for service and immersion at Presentation.
Each vacation season, Presentation college students and their households help Sacred Coronary heart Group Service by offering meals gadgets, coats, blankets, hygiene merchandise, toys and diapers for purchasers served by the downtown San Jose nonprofit.
“We collected 888 Thanksgiving turkeys final 12 months alone,” Bernal says.
The bonds shaped at Presentation lengthen past commencement.
“A very powerful factor I gained from Presentation is the sisterhood,” says alumna Ellen Kamei, a Mountain View Metropolis Council member. “We shaped a robust community, and I nonetheless keep in contact with my classmates.”
Soma Sengupta remembers that her daughter Shrobana, at the moment a scholar at UC Berkeley, thrived at Presentation. “She liked the emphasis on creativity and the alternatives for management. She discovered the academics and school counselors to be very supportive.”
To have fun its Sixtieth anniversary, Presentation is holding a free neighborhood carnival on Sunday, Oct. 2, 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m., on the campus at 2281 Plummer Ave., San Jose. For extra data and to RSVP, go to https://www.presentationhs.org/support-pres/Sixtieth-anniversary.