As the month of February comes to an end, the Pascack Valley High School community gets closer to their rapidly approaching spring break. Many students and staff in the community have already begun planning what they want to do during their spring break.
Everyone has different plans: some plan to travel while others plan on relaxing at home and seeing family.
“I’m going with my family for a few days to the Cayman Islands [during spring break],” said Freshman Julia Ross. “I used to go all the time when I was younger and I loved going. I’d always go multiple times over the summer because my grandparents would rent out a house there and we’d stay there for a few weeks. It would be nice.”
Junior Maddie Gagliardi also stated that she has plans for her spring break.
“[I will be] seeing ‘The Great Gatsby’ musical, spending Easter at my grandpa’s with my family, and relaxing at home,” said Gagliardi.
“Usually for Easter we go with my sister and her kids to a house in Massachusetts, and we hang out there,” said Lena Leacock, the school librarian at Pascack Valley.
However, not everyone will be spending their spring break traveling with family. There are a few teachers who will be taking groups of students on international trips.
From March 27 to April 5, Margaret Schmidt, a French and ESL teacher at Pascack Hills High School, and Teresa DelGiudice will take nine students to Grasse, in southern France, for an exchange program with our partner high school, Lycée Amiral de Grasse. Any student from the district was welcome to go on the trip.
Each American student will be paired with a French student who studies English. They will attend classes at the school and spend the afternoons/evenings visiting the small city. Since Grasse is known as the “perfume capital” of France, they will visit the museum and locations related to this industry. Students may spend some time during the day with their assigned partner and their families, seeing other cities and areas of France, such as Cannes, Nice, and Monaco.
“We started that [exchange school] program in 2014. So we haven’t been there since 2018,” DelGiudice declared about the program trip. “So we leave here Friday night, arrive Saturday morning, [and] we leave the following Sunday, so [students will be spending] just about eight to nine days [there].”
While the students of the Pascack Valley Regional High School District will be going on this enjoyable trip, this isn’t the only trip that will be happening over spring break. Aside from Delgiudice, Dr. Argine Safari will also be taking a group of students to Hawaii during their spring break.
The Hawaii trip will take place from March 26 to April 1. Mrs. Safari, a music teacher and the head of the language department at Pascack Valley, will take 30 students with her to Hawaii to attend the Aloha State Music Festival. Any choir students from Chamber and Concert Choir were invited to go on the trip. All the Chamber and Concert Band classes were also invited to go, but due to low interest in the trip from his students, Craig Yaremko, the Director of Bands, cancelled the trip, and the band will not be making an appearance at the music festival.
The students will be situated in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii, and spend the night at the Queen Kapiʻolani hotel. When they arrive, the temperature will be in the 80s and remain there throughout the entire trip. The group of choir students that Safari is taking on her trip is called the Aloha Choir, since Hawaii is the Aloha state.
During this Hawaii trip, students will be doing a lot of sightseeing and attending some fun events. When asked about what students will be doing besides performing, Safari replied, “We’re gonna see a Polynesian Cultural Center, which actually has a lot of things to do. There are some dance workshops, there are some singing workshops, there are some stores with ukuleles that we can check out, and then…we’re gonna learn some history there. [They have]…hopefully a language workshop as well to talk a little bit about the Hawaiian language’s historical background.”
Although the choir students are lucky to be visiting such a warm place with their friends and participating in many fun activities, the main reason they’re there is to perform at the music festival.
According to Safari, the students are also “gonna perform in two historic churches, one of them has portraits of all the modest dynasties of monarchs, and then we’re gonna perform a song written by the latest monarch, Quinn Liliʻuokalani. And then we’re gonna work with other clinicians, and there will be other choirs. When we perform that song, they’re gonna teach us how to incorporate a hula dance.”
Senior Julia DeBlock is a part of the Aloha Choir and a student in Safari’s Honors Chamber Choir class at Pascack Valley. She will be attending the Hawaii trip during her spring break.
DeBlock mentioned that some songs the Aloha choir will be performing are “Battle of Jericho, Sir Duke… There [are] some songs that you’re required to sing. There is a song in Hawaiian, [that is] very complicated.”
There is no right way to spend spring break. Whether you’re traveling with family, friends, classmates, or simply spending time relaxing at home, spring break offers a much-needed pause for the PV community. This hiatus is a chance for all students and staff to take their minds off homework and grading, and allow everyone to focus more on taking time for themselves outside of school.
