Brick school building with a gabled roof, trees, a landscaped entrance and a curving driveway. — Brick school building with a landscaped entrance and driveway.

Jacqueline Cook, a ninth grader at Pinecrest Academy, shares what a typical school day looks like for her.

My day at Pinecrest starts as I arrive at school. I say goodbye to my mother and hello to my classmates, as well as the administrators, who warmly greet each student. As I walk in, I leave my phone in my designated compartment of a multi-phone storage unit. I then make my way up to the third floor, which is where my locker resides. There I meet my friends who all crowd along the walls of the hallways as they talk about an array of different topics. Eventually the second bell rings, which notifies students that they have five minutes to get to class. From here, a few of my friends who share the same first-period class and I walk all the way down to the weightlifting room.

After weightlifting, I have Spanish, which can sometimes be one of my most rigorous classes. Even as a native Spanish speaker, I still find grammar to be a challenge. Luckily, I have a teacher who is willing to push her students to be their best. After Spanish, all students have an advisory period. If there is no advisory activity, students have the ability to go outside, work on their assignments, or socialize with their friends. Typically, I tend to work on homework or simply talk to my friends.

After the advisory period, I attend Ancient World Literature. In this class, we typically discuss the assigned reading and work on thesis statements, as well as vocabulary and daily grammar practice. Following this class is Biology, which is one of my favorite classes. I would say this is because of my teacher and the class material, as it has answered a lot of questions I have had, such as, “Why do the leaves turn different colors in the fall?” I also appreciate that this class has led me to discover that I learn best when I listen to my teacher explain the notes rather than write them down in the moment. Biology also happens to be one of the funniest classes. This is simply due to the fact that I sit next to two of my friends who are always willing to laugh.

My fifth-period class is theater, a class I also love. Currently, we are working on the production of Legally Blonde Jr., which is extremely exciting, especially because the musical, as a whole, features many of my favorite things: the color pink, fashion, dogs, friendship, theater, law, love, etc. Theater is also generally exciting because I enjoy being part of the production itself. In theater, we, as in the ensemble, typically run scenes and work on choreography, while the leads typically work separately on their lines and then also with the ensemble.

After fifth period, the high school, as a whole, has lunch. This is when my friends and I have the most time to hang out and talk about how our day is going or what's going on in our lives.

On Thursdays, there is Adoration all day. This means that high school students have an apostolic formation opportunity to go to the chapel and worship during lunch. This is honestly one of the best parts about Pinecrest because most people, not just students, have to plan outside of their school/work schedule to find time for Adoration. I genuinely appreciate that my schedule at school provides me with such well-rounded formation. By the time the school day ends, I will have worked on my intellectual formation through my core classes, my spiritual formation through time spent in the chapel and in religion class, as well as having lifted weights, which is part of my physical and human formation.

After lunch is over, I have religion class. Currently we are learning about Exodus and Leviticus. Next, I have AP Modern World History. This class has proven to be manageable yet hard in many different ways. My final class of the day is Algebra I. I find that personally my success in math depends heavily on the teacher, and fortunately my teacher is great at his job. To end the day, the Angelus comes on over the speakers and then all students are dismissed.

My day at Pinecrest is something I hope to never take for granted. I appreciate all that Pinecrest Academy has to offer and am so grateful to have the opportunity to attend such an amazing school. I earnestly hope that all students at Pinecrest share the same sentiment. Pinecrest is more than can just be described in words, and I hope that anyone who visits the campus feels the same way.