By Tiffany Kuo 

Staff Writer

Next week, Gabrielino High School will hold its 7th annual Gab Week in which the central theme, Involved and Connected, will be showcased around the campus and within the classroom.

This year, Assistant Principals Christopher Guyer and Vince Lopez worked in conjunction to choose a message that would best resonate with students. Since the first Gab Week in 2011, it has been the duty of an assistant principal to oversee the week’s events.

“We noticed that more students were becoming involved in school activities and clubs,” stated Lopez, “and wanted the theme to reflect an [increasingly interconnected] campus.”

The Gabrielino community has looked for unique ways to incorporate the message: the assistant principals have organized lunch events, the art department is in the process of creating an installation to be displayed on campus, and teachers are free to outline specific lesson plans.

“[Teachers] have the creativity to take the theme and apply it to whatever is relevant to the class,” stated Guyer.

At lunch, multiple activities will commence in which students will participate in groups, spurring communication and, thus, interconnectedness. Participants will have the opportunity to win free shirts and wristbands that will be handed out throughout the week.

Amidst the plethora of Gab Week festivities is the tradition of hosting a guest speaker who will share his or her insights correlating with the theme. Guyer was given the responsibility of deciding the guest speaker this year: Samantha Bosco, a female cyclist from the USA Cycling Team.

Her speech will revolve around being integrated in a team even with circumstances that set her apart from her teammates. Bosco will be speaking in the Goodson Theatre at lunch on Tuesday.

Similar to previous years, the art department is combining forces between artists and woodshop to build a central work of art in light of the theme. In the quad, they will display dog houses representing each school in the district, the Mission, and Parks and Recreation department, inspired by the idea that San Gabriel and the community are one.