Oakwood School in Morgan Hill Know how One local family has been with Oakwood for many years! Meet Divya and Nikhita Gopisetty who didn’t know what their future had in store for them but whose parents believed that Oakwood would provide an excellent foundation for them to discover who they were and how they wanted to shape the world.
Growth and progress have always been a part of Oakwood School’s history.
The Oakwood School story began in 1959, when Gwen Riches, an educator and artist, gathered her children and their friends for an afterschool arts program in her Los Altos home. As the children happily played, created, and performed, word began to spread. The Riches’ family home became Pinewood School, which still thrives today in Los Altos. Fast-forward 40 years, when Gwen Riches’ eldest granddaughter, Michelle Helvey, and her husband, Ted, founded Oakwood School in Morgan Hill. It began as a preschool through eighth grade school, and the high school was added in 2005. Today, Oakwood School is flourishing with an enrollment of nearly 500 preschool through twelfth grade students on a 30-acre campus tucked away behind the intersection of Monterey Street and Watsonville Road. One local family has been with Oakwood for many of those years. When Divya and Nikhita Gopisetty started at Oakwood School in seventh and second grades, they didn’t know what their futures had in store for them, but their parents believed that Oakwood would provide an excellent foundation for them to discover who they were and how they wanted to shape the world. During her time at Oakwood, Divya co-founded the Speech and Debate Team, was the captain of the Girls' Varsity Basketball team, and also participated in the Interact Community Service Club, where she was able to engage in social justice issues that mattered to her. These experiences helped Divya grow as a student, individual, and leader, supporting her next chapter in life. After grad- uating from Oakwood in 2014, she headed to Stanford, where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Human Biology and was honored to speak at Stanford's 2018 grad- uation ceremony. Nikhita is currently a Senior at Oakwood and was one of five Bay Area teens who headed to Washington D.C. last year with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to meet with two U.S. senators and members of Congress to talk about renewing $150 million in federal funding to find a cure for the disease. Like her older sister, she has also been able to balance academics and extra-curricular activities so that she has discovered where her passion and interest lie. Nikhita works on the tech team for Oakwood Performing Arts productions and plays tennis with the Girls’ Varsity Tennis Team. Oakwood School has reached another pivotal point in its history with the launch of Spreading Our Roots: Oakwood Campus Expansion Project. The project includes a new Liberal Arts building, gymnasium, and a playfield. These projects are well underway, advancing the school's ability to provide enhanced hands-on learning opportuni-
Divya with Parents Stanford Graduation
8 www.indiaparentmagazine.org
October 2018
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