Green & Gold is spreading

It’s no secret to our community that Overlake is a green and gold school. And if your student begins in the Middle School, you know if you are a green or gold family. That’s because at the beginning of each school year, new Middle School students go through what we call the Green and Gold Sorting Hat. Their color then determines which team they are on. Siblings are all on the same color team. 

This year, PE teacher Justin Prohn decided to expand the color teams to Upper School and beyond. “I thought that giving every single student a color could bring more unity and fun. Along with giving every single employee at Overlake a color as well. I am hoping this will create better relationships throughout our school in a low cost, friendly competition type of way.”

But starting this expanded tradition, took some effort and patience. “It was quite a task going back and finding who had colors in the Upper School from their Middle School days and who didn’t. It may be easier to do that in the future.”

For faculty and staff not associated with a student, Prohn designated colors for them. And for our Head Owl, as well as Upper School Head and Head of Student Experience, the sorting hat was pulled out. “It was fun giving Gretchen, Marshall, and Krishna their colors in front of the school with the sorting hat. I could see that happening for all new students and teachers at some point.”

While it is still early days with the new color teams across the campus, Prohn says there has already been some Green and Gold challenges in the Upper School. “The environmental club had an assembly at the beginning of the year, and they had a fun trash sorting competition. We added some green and gold points to that for extra incentive.”

The Middle School and Upper School ASB have been discussing other opportunities for people to get their color on.  “Owls nest, where we combine homerooms of Upper School together with Middle School, will have some opportunities to do some combined things. We will also bring together the MS and US in the new all school assemblies on the first of each month during announcements.”

Some Green and Gold fun facts:

1. Our head of school is “Lime”-I guess that is the color you get when you mix green and gold together, according to the sorting hat. 
2. Key phrase of the year regarding Green and Gold: “Go Green and Go Gold, but more importantly Go OWLS!”
3. Former Leaders of Green and Gold: Judy Adrian, Neal Iezzi, Mike Hufstader 
4. Green is currently on a big winning streak. They have won 4 years in a row:

• 2023: Green 2,440 to Gold 2,229
• 2022: Green 3,353 to Gold 3,225
• 2021: Green 2,345 to Gold 2,279
• 2020: Green 2,255 to Gold 2,109
• 2019: Gold 1,635 to Green 1,586