Pinewood's Summer Festival of Learning: Driven by Returning Alumni
The Summer Festival of Learning (SFOL) is a two or four-week summer program that blends academics with enrichment opportunities for students. Increasing numbers of alumni are coming back to campus in the summer as teachers and administrators - bringing both experience and a love of Pinewood to the program.
Heather McCauley '88 has been the SFOL Director for over 20 years. "Before that, she says, "I was a SFOL teacher, starting in high school, and before that I was an SFOL student. My children have been both students and teachers as well, so you could say SFOL has been part of nearly every summer of my life - and it’s truly one of my passions."
This year, thirteen alumni bolstered the SFOL across the three campuses. "Having alumni return to teach has been a wonderful addition in recent years," Heather shares. "Many of them also attended SFOL as students themselves, so it’s especially fun for them to come back in a different capacity and help create the same memorable experiences for today’s students."
Pictured above: Jamie Burton '25, Maddie Wheatley '16, Laura Blotter '86, Kaitlyn Dyer '25, Mia Gustavson '25
Nana Romero '04 (pictured above) loves teaching at Pinewood during the summer, and has taught SFOL for most summers over the last ten years. She usually teaches math and has also previously taught language arts and cooking classes.
During the school year, Nana teaches first grade at Covington Elementary. She also actively attends writing conferences, and works closely with her critique groups, as she hopes to publish her children's picture books soon. She's also busy raising her three young children.
"It's so fun being back at Pinewood over the summer, seeing alumni, their children, as well as some of her former teachers. My daughters also attend in the summers, allowing me to share Pinewood with them. It's something the entire family looks forward to annually."
Her favorite part is watching the students' confidence grow in math, and she especially loves seeing their performances during the last week of Pinewood's Summer Festival of Learning.
Pictured left: Ria Bose '06, Sachi Urushima '24, Anne Blotter '18
Pictured above: Michael Bradley '25
Not pictured: Addison Parenti '26, Cora Westcott '18
We are so grateful to our Summer Festival of Learning alumni for all of their valuable contributions!
Winning Two Regional Emmy Awards
Congratulations to Max Darrow ‘12, who just won two Regional Emmys for his work as an anchor and reporter with KPIX/CBS Bay Area. Max is honored to be recognized by his peers in journalism and is especially proud of ways he found creative, people-centered approaches to storytelling in 2025: guiding the community through a severe weather event as an anchor, telling the story of San Francisco tourism through the eyes of a cable car operator, and reporting from thousands of Bay to Breakers runners - while running in the race himself.
Max’s passion for journalism began in high school. A fan of local news, he was an active student journalist with Panther Prints (now the Pinewood Perennial) - but that wasn’t the only place he found his voice.
From being “that kid” who took every opportunity to read aloud in his English and Spanish classes, to jumping on the PA system for morning announcements, to trying out theater, Max found opportunities at Pinewood to build a strong foundation in public speaking and communication.
“Pinewood was instrumental in getting me where I am today,” he shared, “everyone pushed me to think differently, to think bigger, to think critically.”
Summer of Growth: Tackling New Challenges Head On
Congratulations to Denis Koterov ‘26, who has had a busy summer. In addition to attending the Y Combinator Startup School, his team won the Physical AI Hackathon event hosted by Mission Robotics in San Francisco.
He’s also been building a hexacopter drone (see right) from scratch on his own. This fall, Denis will attend the University of Maryland, College Park, where he plans to study computer science and physics.
Reflecting on his time at Pinewood, Denis says, “Pinewood Robotics has really given me some land in a vacuum. Sure, you can build anything nowadays, but in a vacuum of expectations and in a world of infinite possibilities, finding something to build AND motivating yourself is surprisingly hard. You want to find yourself a niche in the vacuum and THEN grow and iterate on the problems you see in that niche. That’s what Pinewood Robotics did for me - it was a perfect place for exploration with goals and dreams AND others who are willing to go 100%.”
