International Students

The Oakwood 7th Grade FIRST LEGO League team, Poison Oak, competed in the Peninsula Championship on Sunday December 15 at St. Francis School in Mountain View. The top 40 teams from 8 regional Qualifying Tournaments were invited to the Championship. Poison Oak bettered their Robot Game score from 195 in the Qualifying Tournament to 260 in the Championship. They also received a 2nd Place Award in the Alliance Round where they collaborated with another team (Team Chimera, a team they befriended during the Amazon Qualifier) to run missions jointly with each team's robot completing some of the missions. Not bad for the rookie team in their first year of competition!

On November 11th, the Oakwood High School Astronomy Club and Class set up an observation party for the rare transit of Mercury. Students and faculty stopped by to safely view the sun in three different ways: solar glasses, a magnified projection of the sun, and a look through the solar telescope! Mercury appeared as a tiny black dot on the face of the sun and took several hours to complete its transit. This event got the school excited about astronomy and left students in awe of the scale of our solar system. It also fits in nicely with Oakwood's 2019-2020 Year in Space theme and the ARISS contact happening in Spring 2020.

Congratulations to Company 34, a team of third and forth grade students, who received a Construction Innovation award at the NorCal FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Junior Expo, held at the SJSU Event Center, on March 29th. Oakwood students in first through fourth grade had the opportunity to participate in the FIRST LEGO League Junior this year. The students have been working with LEGO WeDo robotics systems to solve problems related to lunar habitation. In this after school program coached by parent volunteers and Principal Shales, team members learned to build and program robotic models, and explored space travel and lunar settlements. The season culminated with the construction of each team's own motorized moon base and presentation poster. Oakwood's first grade (First Grade Boys Rock) and second grade (Misters and Miss Moon) teams presented their successful Mission Moon projects at Oakwood School. Well done students!

Oakwood's Math Counts Team of Shrihan Dash, Daniel Lelescu, Lee Stilwell and Ayana Wilmot competed at the Northern California State Math Counts Competition. They worked to solve challenging problems with over 200 competitors representing schools from Pacific Grove to Redding. They completed 4 rounds of individual and team questions and earned a spot in Oakwood history as the first team to advance to the State competition. Congratulations!

On Saturday, March 2nd, eight Oakwood High School students (comprising three teams) traveled to Roseville to compete in the annual CodeWars computer programming contest. For three hours, the teams competed against 180 students from all over northern California in attempting to solve a collection of 29 problems of varying difficulties. All three teams coded impressively, and thrived in this exciting and competitive environment. Special congratulations to the team of Shayan Daijavad, Kate Jackson, and Konark Vinod, who finished 4th in the Novice division.

Who says math isn't entertaining? Oakwood's Precalculus class discovered the importance of probability in carnival games. From ball tosses, to car races determined by dice, to random selection, what are your chances of winning? The class had a blast finding out if games were fair or unfair, what do you think the students discovered?

High School Senior Nikhita Gopisetty has been honored for her exemplary volunteer service with the President's Volunteer Service Award, granted by Prudential Financial, in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). The award recognizes Americans of all ages who have volunteered significant amounts of their time to serve their communities and their country. Volunteer activities were judged on criteria including initiative, effort, impact and person growth. Nikhita has logged over a thousand hours of volunteering locally, nationally and internationally. Click "Read More" for details!

A group of Oakwood Middle and High School performing arts students participated in the Junior Theater Festival (JTF), February 8-10, 2019 in Sacramento, taking home a trophy for Excellence in Dance. Sophomore Konark Vinod and 8th Grader Tegan Leong were also selected as all-stars for a special performance, in which Konark had a terrific solo. Click "Read more" below to here details about their experience at JTF.

Saturday, February 9th, Oakwood Mathletes participated in the Coyote Valley Chapter MATHCOUNTS competition. MATHCOUNTS is a national middle school mathematics competition that builds problem-solving skills and fosters achievement through four levels of fun, in-person "bee" style contests. Middle school students Shrihan D., Justin D., Mateo J., Daniel L., Roman M., Josiah M., Aadjot S., Lee S., Ayana W., and Rohan W. outstandingly represented Oakwood. Extra congratulations to the Oakwood mathletes team of Shrihan, Daniel, Lee, and Ayana who qualified to move on to the Northern California State competition next month. This is a first for Oakwood!

On Saturday, February 2nd Jazz Ensemble students from Oakwood participated in the California Music Educators Association Bay Section Jazz Festival at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. They were awarded Universal Superior, which is the highest rating achievable! This event is designed to evaluate a group's overall performance quality and to motivate group and individual achievement. This was the first time an instrumental group from Oakwood has participated in a California Music Educators Festival. We are proud of our Oakwood students for a remarkable first performance at this festival!