ANNUAL
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STUDENT SECTION
Project Excellence Highlights After 35+ years, the Project Excellence program and its scholars continue to thrive
by Molly Castro, Director Project Excellence and Julie Tamer, Assistant Director Project Excellence Project Excellence, Phoenix Country Day School’s signature outreach program, has been striving to meet the needs of highly motivated, high-achieving students from surrounding Title 1 schools in our community for over 30 years. This dynamic program seeks to connect students with resources, mentors, and scholarship opportunities to help them realize their full potential. The Project Excellence program is made up of two components: Saturday workshops on the PCDS campus made available to individuals from surrounding Title 1 schools, and the day-to-day partnerships with our very own Project Excellence scholars/students enrolled at PCDS and their families.
Saturday Workshops • After taking a year off due to COVID, Project Excellence Saturday workshops are currently back in full force. • This school year, we have welcomed over 70 middle school students from surrounding Title 1 schools onto our campus to participate in our Saturday workshops.
PCDS Project Excellence Scholars • We currently have 32 Project Excellence scholars on campus. • 21 US students • 11 MS students
• Saturday workshops meet once a month and offer students a wide range of courses to enrich their academic experience and spark their curiosity.
• Project Excellence scholars are a tight-knit community. They have weekly luncheons that offer opportunities to check in with each other and with their mentors.
• Our Saturday workshops feature courses such as biotechnology, engineering & invention, STEAM, artistic expressions, and struggles for justice in American history.
• Our students have been involved in School activities such as track, softball, eSports, speech & debate, basketball, swim, soccer, volleyball, musicals, plays, and more.
• Many of our Saturday workshop participants go on to enroll at PCDS as Project Excellence scholars.
• We have a record of achieving 100% college placement for our PCDS Project Excellence scholars.
Some Project Excellence scholars and their friends, from left: Olivia Owens ’25, Rodrigo Alvarado ’25, Nicholas Armenta ’23, Lyzbeth Lara Sandoval ’25, Taylor Jarvis ’24, David Ocampo ’24, Kaleb Gebresillasie ’25, Alex Flores ’24, Laurie Reyes ’22, Mia Warner ’25, Jessica Osorio ’25, Seth Osorio ’23, Caleb Humphreys ’23
