Teachers prepare for the future of Redwood’s PE and dance programs amid upcoming school year

By Donya Hassanshahi

Recently, the Redwood gymnasium and locker rooms have become inaccessible to teachers and students for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year and upcoming fall semester. The dance rooms are able to be utilized to an extent due to construction within the area.

As of now, the areas will be off-limits until sometime in January 2023, although the date is not guaranteed.

Head of the Physical Education Department, Mr. David Watts, is an Integrated Core P.E. teacher at Redwood High School. His position requires him to oversee the physical education staff and work with them in regards to curriculum, then report to administration.

He says that next year will be interesting, considering the lengths of preparation he and his fellow colleagues have undergone.

When students dress out for their P.E. class, Watts says he thinks the process will “take between five to seven minutes longer than usual at the beginning and end of the period.”

Watts says that learning materials and course expectations will remain the same for the most part. Activities requiring the gym will be moved to the second semester.

Core PE teacher, Mrs. Victoria Wall, has high hopes for next year’s PE classes. “As far as we are looking at it, we are rocking and rolling like normal. We just have a couple of obstacles in the way,” she adds.

In preparation for next school year, she says the PE staff has “already prepared units for what we will have available to us in the beginning of the year; we already have tennis, pickle ball, flag football, and other outdoor non-gym sports available to us. So, we’re all just going to work together to work around the construction.”

This includes students dressing out in the two portables put in place of the old handball courts, although there will not be a locker room for students to store their belongings but instead taken to class with them.

Mrs. Michele Lapp teaches Intermediate, Hip Hop, and Advanced dance, as well as Dance Performance.

Since the dance rooms are located near both the locker rooms and gymnasium, Lapp says she hopes to return to the dance room in August, the latest September.

Unlike P.E. courses, dance students and teachers are able to utilize the LJ Williams Theater if the area is still restricted. In regard to this factor, there will be minimal effect on dance routines and the experiences for incoming students.

Local dance studios have also contributed to supporting Redwood dancers given the circumstances. Such studios include Dancers Edge and Xtreme Dance in Tulare.

Throughout her twenty-two years of teaching Redwood dance program alongside Mrs. Elisa Bardonnex, Lapp says that the transition has of clearing teaching materials and costumes has required a lot of work. Though this, she and Bardonnex are having a positive attitude by “trying to tell [them]selves it’s a chance to reorganize, reset, [and] modernize.”

Come the 2022-2023 school year, the renovations made to the gymnasium and locker rooms will be worthwhile for the students and faculty of Redwood High School.

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