We found out about an article that one of our Piner students, Elly Somnavong, worked with the Press Democrat and other high school students that highlighted the great programs Piner has to offer and wanted to share it with you. Here is the article:
“Piner High School’s Students find a Home Within Their Campus By Elly Somnavong
What makes Piner High School special is its unique blend of communities within the community, families within the family, that support student development and encourage self-discovery. At the January 8, 2025 Santa Rosa City School Board meeting, more than a dozen current and former students, teachers and counselors spoke eloquently about why the board should spare Piner from possible closure because of its popular and successful programs including the SPARQ Center, Early College Magnet Program, the Grace Program, and the Culinary Arts Program.
SPARQ Family
With the SPARQ Center, which features the only observatory at a California high school, students look to the stars to follow dreams they didn’t know they had. Kurt Kruger, who runs the SPARQ Center and the Science Technology Engineering and Math Certificate (STEM) program at Piner, inspires students to aim high with their aspirations and not accept the mundane. Kruger teaches them how to shoot rockets into the sky. Students attend classes on space science, geospatial intelligence systems and earn a STEM certificate that sets them up as highly qualified candidates for college. They can attend a variety of films and lectures at the SPARQ Center to help them achieve their certificates. “One of the big things with the SPARQ Center was that I wanted to bring the community together,” Kruger said. “I wanted students, parents, and the community around us to enjoy it so that they can see what we do.”
Early College Magnet Family
At Piner, students also are encouraged to aim higher through the Early College Magnet (ECM) program which pays for students to take classes at the Santa Rosa Junior College to find out what excites them about their future. 407 students are currently participating in the program, nearly a third of the student body. “Last year’s senior class included 3 juniors that graduated early due to earning so many college credits in the ECM program,” said Kristine Erken, the counselor for the ECM program at a recent school board meeting. “Our seniors took a total of 472 classes in their 4 years in the program,” Erken said. Due to free tuition for all high school students, they collectively saved $55,000. The ECM program also paid the estimated $45,000 they would have had to pay for their books. Students often speak excitedly about how the ECM program helped them find their passion and get a head start on college. Yesenia Carmona, a Piner senior, recently told the school board that the ECM program helped her find her passion for environmental science and earn enough credits to start college next year as a sophomore.
Grace Family
The Grace program is another great example of a family within the Piner family that aids the students who are struggling the most academically because of problems at home. “The Grace program is a lifeline for students who are credit-deficit and face significant barriers to accessing their education,” said Johana Perdomo, the Grace counselor. Perdomo tells that at Grace, students find a haven from their troubles with caring counselors, teachers, a club and clubhouse and other students just like them who want nothing more than a chance to earn a high school diploma. Ashley Avalos, a graduate from Piner in 2024 in the Grace program shared a quote she related with. “‘Kids who are loved at home come to school to learn, and kids who aren't come to school to be loved.”’ Avalos explained, “My freshman year at Piner was online due to the pandemic and along with everyone else I struggled to stay on track academically, I struggled with my mental health, but l especially struggled to feel like I was a part of something. Now, I have never felt more a part of something. I became the first person in my family to graduate from high school.” Avalos found a home in Piner’s Grace program, she found a place where she felt she truly belonged. “While dealing with hard times at home the Grace office became a home to me, my teachers became more than educators, and they never let me believe I couldn't achieve whatever I set my mind to.” Grace students care about each other and help each other. They enjoy the family dynamic and find the love and support they need from Ms. Perdomo and Grace teachers. Perdomo stated, “These are students who may not fit into the traditional mold, but at Grace, they find a family. We’re not just a program—we are a support network. Our students volunteer, encourage each other, and push each other to meet goals they might otherwise think impossible.”
Freshman Family
Another family within the family at Piner is the school’s program for incoming freshmen, which is run by Sydney Miller, the freshman counselor. “We are the only high school in the district with a freshman counselor,” said Miller during the recent board meeting. She said that’s important because “we know that when our students start high school with a counselor dedicated to supporting their unique needs, they have a foundation to build on for the next three years.” Piner’s freshman family also enjoys a unique event called Freshman First Day, a day-long team building event unparalleled in its goal of connecting students from 10 or more feeder schools with their new high school. Miller said the student's shared experience fosters connection, community and awareness of support as well as expectations at Piner.
Culinary Arts Family
Piner’s Culinary Arts program represents another family within the family at Piner with some 250 students, more than a quarter of Piner’s student body, enrolled. Kameron Rose, a teacher in the Culinary Arts program, said each year around 250 students enroll in culinary arts classes to learn about the hospitality and food service industry, one of the largest industries here in Sonoma county aided by the local tourism industry. “In our classes, our mission is to ready our students for a career in the hospitality and food service industry and we do this with our successful three year program to allow them to not only learn the basics of baking and pastry and culinary arts but also to become work ready right out of high school.”
Piner’s Families Connect the Entire School as a Whole
At Piner, due to the unique bonds and family-like connections, the entire school community comes together as a whole. Piner’s staff, teachers, students, alumni, everyone remembers their years as a Prospector. The Piner Prospectors welcome everyone and anyone to our family.”
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Elly shared with us how the article came to be:
“During my freshman year at Piner High School, I chose to be in the first year of Piner’s Journalism elective. I enrolled at Piner and Journalism sounded interesting to me. I have always been into reading and writing things of all sorts, so learning how to write and format articles for the Piner Prospector newsletter at school was both fun and engaging for me.
A few months went by and Anjuli Kumthekar who was a junior from Montgomery High School’s Journalism club reached out to Mr. Lonkevich, the Journalism teacher at Piner for a collaboration between the Santa Rosa City Schools to write articles together for the Press Democrat.
This was during the time when schools were being discussed on which to close down and how best to handle the situation to fix the lack of funds for the education system. Kumthekar explained that the paper would focus on the topic of reinforcing positive school culture and shedding light on the valuable and unique parts of the schools in hopes that we could spare a school from being shut down.
When Mr. Lonkevich received the offer, he was eager to participate in the endeavour, asking me if I wanted to be in charge of Piner’s part of the collaboration alongside a team of other students. I agreed to the proposal and started planning an outline of the article, I stayed after school plenty of days to edit the article with Mr. Lonkevich as well as dedicated lunchtimes and got approval from my teachers to leave certain classes to interview other teachers and students. I attended Zoom meetings with the other collaborators from Santa Rosa, Montgomery, and Maria Carrillo High Schools.
The project spanned for a few months and I spent every bit of my free time writing, editing, scheduling possible meetings with teachers either during or after school to talk with them about the special parts of Piner and what made our school so unique to the community. I included the SPARQ Center and how Piner is the only STEM school in the Santa Rosa City School district, the unique connection Piner has to the Santa Rosa Junior College through the Early College Magnet Program, Piner’s credit recovery program Grace, the three year Culinary Art program, and the school’s tradition for freshmen starting their first day as a Prospector.
In one of the final meetings with the other editors in the collaboration, Kumthekar got in contact with Mr. Hodgman, who is part of the Press Democrat, to work with us on our project and we talked with him in our hopes to publish the articles we were working on.
I worked with Mr. Hodgman a few times one on one to edit and format the article to meet the requirements for the Press Democrat and soon all the article needed was photos to add to the story and it could be published. Once the photos were added, the article was officially published on February 7, 2025.“