AT hosted the annual Dec a Door competition to go along with International Fest week as a way for classes to have fun and help show diversity throughout the school.
The first place winners of the competition was Ms. Sokolowski’s ATR class, where they decorated their door to show aspects of France and French Culture. The class went all out with their submission. Not only did they decorate the door to their classroom, but they also decorated the walls that surrounded the area around the door.
The first place winners of the competition wins a pizza party. There are also second and third place winners that also win prizes, where second place gets a breakfast party and third place gets a desert party.
The winners of the competition are picked by a board of teachers that use a rubric to help determine the criterial that the winning class should have with the door that they submitted.
The event had a large turnout this year with around 20 classes from many different areas of the school participating in the competition.
“I think that the competition went really well this year! We had about 20 submissions,” said International Club board member Leilani Nevado. “So, there were quite a few doors to pick from in terms of the winner. We also had a lot of doors spread out throughout the school and not just concentrated in one area, so it was nice to have all of the different halls decorated with at least one door.”
Along with the winning classes there were other classes that were impressive with how they created their doors.
“An honorable mention for me was Ms. Colleran’s South Korea door. I liked that she had different aspects such as food and TV shows included,” said Nevado.
The competition is a way for many classes in the building to come together and fill the hallway with colors that represent many different countries.
“Seeing the classes come together to make a fun door together and see the halls full of color,” said International Club sponsor Hannah Sutton.
The Dec a Door competition started many years ago, and has been done every year to go along with International Fest week. It has been used as a way for many classes in the school too become more involved with International Fest week. Along with that it is been used as a fun way to show diversity throughout the school, and for different classes to learn about cultures and countries that they may not be very familiar with.
“My favorite part of the competition is that it helps people get excited about I-Fest,” said Nevado. “People are able to choose a country that they maybe don’t have much knowledge about with their class and decorate their doors with different elements of that culture. I love that we’re able to have people outside of International Club get more involved with the celebration, and it serves as nice decorations for our halls too.”
