PACA Teachers, Students, Parents, and Family come together for special Open House Event

The PACA Open house brought students, teachers and families together to start the school year off on the right foot. [by Victor Silva, Grade 10]

By Paula-Chloe Asare-Duah

São Paulo – Students, teachers, parents and families came together on Saturday morning, the 9th of August, to kick off the new school year with an assembly, meetings, activities and food that provided the opportunity for the PACA community to connect with each other.  

The first opportunity for connection was through the assembly that started off the Open House event at 9am.  

A ninth grade student, Bianca Magalhães, whose family attended the Open House, thought the focus on the upcoming Brazilian holiday was special.  

“It was a very meaningful celebration of Father’s day,” said Magalhães.

The Pre-K and Elementary students stood unified on the stage in the gymnasium and gave  a very powerful rendition of “Eu  Quero Ser,” written by Lenna Bahloe. In Portuguese, this translates to “I want to be” and expresses their desire to be like their fathers.  Selected members of last year’s high school choir followed this presentation by singing, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” written by Thomas Chisholm.  

 During the morning’s presentations, the new school principal, Jannie LeRoux, came to the front of the stage area to introduce himself and talk about the plans for the new school year.  He explained how his role would work with the three new coordinator positions found in Wesley Penteado as high school coordinator, Joel Rast as middle school coordinator and Gabriela Freitas as elementary and pre-K coordinator.  The coordinators for Brazilian studies, and school curriculum also came forward to be introduced. 

After these important introductions, LeRoux  said, “This is my dream team.” 

Then, he invited the teachers to gather in a line behind the coordinators, allowing parents to see them as a group before getting to meet them later on during the day. 

 Mr.  Renato Souza  talked about the sports plans for the year through a video that had been pre-recorded for the event.   Unfortunately, he could not be there in person due to an AASB  conference in Rio de Janeiro. 

He explained what would be different this year for the sports teams at PACA and what it means for the students who play on those teams.  

Then Meier,  Ricardo Silva, and Kevin Flurry talked about the expansion plan of PACA; the  four story building they are planning to build by the pool area. Flurry explained to the audience the three ways for the PACA community to get involved. According to Flurry, recommending PACA  to friends and family, inviting friends and family to events, and inviting PACA to your church are the most helpful ways to get involved.

Afterwards, the PACA community was invited to spread out across the school’s campus to meet teachers in their classrooms and attend special presentations for the senior class, the freshman class, middle school and elementary classes.  

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, families had the opportunity to meet and fellowship with one another. PACA also provided free games and food.  There was play space set up in the covered court behind the gym that was equipped with a Mechanical bull, bouncy castles, and slides for children to play while their parents caught up with friends and ate delicious food.

An enormous line was formed for pastels; a Brazilian dish made of thin crust pies with assorted fillings, fried in vegetable oil, commonly filled with beef, cheese, or chicken. Churrasco stations with a variety of meats, such as sausage, chicken, pork and beef, were available in two separate areas of campus to help avoid congestion for visitors standing in line.  

According to Kevin Flurry, there were several hundred people who signed up to attend.  With the projected growth of the school, it is safe to predict that rates will continue to grow with each passing year.