Maroon and White Night

In an effort to increase student enrollment, this year marks the debut of Maroon and White Night, an annual showcase designed to introduce prospective freshman to the programs offered at Austin High.

“We are going to be showcasing all of our different programs, for example, the choir, the band, the cheerleaders, and red jackets. We will show a little snippet of all those different programs and then some,” Assistant Principal Adrianna Longoria said.

The showcase will also show students the different academic options that are offered.

“They’ll be given a map with certain classrooms that will be open. For example, if they want to meet an English teacher they’ll know to go to room 272, and they’ll go there and they’ll meet an English teacher, a Pre-AP teacher and an AGS teacher. They can ask them any kind of questions they have about the curriculum and then same thing for all their core classes. They’ll be able to go to English, math, science, all of their core classes,”  Longoria said.

Longoria is currently working with Nicole Griffith to make sure the event is a success.

“Our target audience is eighth graders. Ms. Griffith has done a lot with going to the middle schools and talking with their principals and their counselors so we can get in their newsletters and things like that.” Longoria said.

In order to encourage student and parent attendance to the event, both teachers and high school students will be involved in the showcase.

“We had a meeting with all of the teachers that will be involved and we told them our expectations,” Longoria said. “We wanted them to show projects that they had. We also want them to recruit one or two students so that they can talk because when the eighth graders come in they will usually talk to students, whereas the parents will go and talk to a teacher.”