On Friday, January 19th, Westridge held its annual All School Day (ASD), embracing the theme of “Once Upon a Westridge,” a fairytale and theme-park-inspired event. This year’s All School Day, held in January, provided the entire student body with a day of fun-filled games, engaging activities, and delicious treats.
All Schools Day is a school-wide tradition held once a year for students to enjoy exciting activities planned by the Associated Student Body. Leading up to the exciting day, ASB begins putting up posters all over campus hinting at a fake theme, keeping students in suspense as they speculate about the various options. In the past, All Schools Day has had a variety of themes such as Carnival, Zombie Apocalypse, and Into the Wild.
Students started the day in the Performing Arts Center (PAC), anxiously awaiting the infamous theme reveal video that ASB puts together each year. After the theme “Once Upon a Westridge” was announced, students rushed out of PAC to collect a stamp card and eat the delicious Krispy Kreme Donuts stacked on tables outside, an ASD tradition that was brought back this year.
Students had many options to choose how to enjoy their day. Students zipped down the zip-line on Frank Field. Others ran off to visit an enchanted forest in the gym with bowling, rose flower-making, or Cinderella Sweeping Contests. Middle Schoolers took turns jostling each other or singing together at the karaoke booth. More options for students to enjoy the day included relaxing and watching the Disney movie Tangled in Mudd, or playing musical chairs in Ranney Court. Even teachers just enjoyed supervising the students throughout the day. New Upper School Spanish Teacher Ms. Nalei Guzman shared her experience of her first ASD and dancing to DJ A$H’s (Ashley Z. ’24) music. She said, “I had a lot of fun monitoring the inflatable bowling…the dancing has also been super fun; I love to dance so any excuse to dance is a good one.”
To immerse students more in the fairytale experience, teachers even dressed up as Disney characters such as Upper School Biology Teacher Ms. Brooke Surin as Elsa from Frozen and Physical Education Teacher Ms. Allison Clark ‘07 as the Beast from Beauty and the Beast.
For many, including the entire fourth grade class and newcomers among students and faculty, Once Upon a Westridge marked their first ASD experience. Nadine M. ’27, a first-year Westridge student complimented ASB, saying, “I think the event is really cool and they [ASB] had great ideas!” Fourth grader Sofia R.-A. ’32 said, “It’s really fun to just run around and explore the campus.”
Although students and faculty alike thoroughly enjoyed the day, planning ASD did not go without challenges. ASB President, Ray K. ’24, explained, “the budget was slashed [post-COVID], which made it a lot harder to meet people’s expectations. Also it was an unfortunate fact that Ms. Coker, who is really experienced with this event, was on leave. We of course respect her time away, but we didn’t have the help of a central faculty advisor, which made coordinating ASD really difficult.” Julia Hughes, 12th grade President and a member of ASB, added, “our biggest challenge was the time crunch. Usually, ASD is in early March, but this year, since it was in January, we only had about a week and a half after winter break to organize the whole event.” Overall, despite the several obstacles ASB faced, Ray K ’24 concluded, “I think it went really well, and I’m proud of what we did.”
