One wouldn’t normally consider screams as a motivator, but that is the biggest motivator for the Placerita Junior High School ASB students.
On Friday, Placerita Junior High is scheduled host its second annual student-led haunted house for family and friends.
“How do you impress teenagers?” said ASB Director Laura Schultz. “I thought a haunted house would be fun.”
Placerita’s ASB consists of 36 students and is divided into six even councils that work on specific school events. Councils five and six were responsible for the project that is the haunted house. Additional members from the other councils, volunteers and parents helped as well.
“I just them free reign to be as creative as they can,” said Schultz. “I like that everything here is student-led. They’re running everything and taking ownership over it. That’s the best part of this job.”
The ASB students said that last year, and even this year, attendees were and are not expecting much.
“Before I thought when they said ‘haunted house,’ I’m like oh, it’s probably not gonna be that scary,” said student Alexa Ojeda. “Now seeing it almost done, I feel like I’m gonna be really scared.”
“That’s the thing: People are gonna get tickets and not think it’s scary because it’s a school event,” said student Emma Leonardi.
Last year they got to witness many leaving their haunted house screaming, which only motivated them to increase the scares for the next year.
This year’s haunted house will only have two aspects from the original and has expanded to go through half of the multipurpose room, in addition to the stage.
“Last year a lot of people enjoyed this, so we’re like, let’s just make it bigger and better,” said student Emma Gilbert.
Family and friends will get to witness spooky decorations, scare actors and more surprises that the ASB students have up their sleeves.
Their favorite part of the haunted house: “The clown and mirrors,” they all said in unison.
“They turned off the lights while I was walking in there, and I’m terrified of clowns, and it looked so realistic,” said student Solea Horvat.
Throughout a month and a half process of planning, two weeks of decorating and lots of advertising at the school, the ASB students said they learned the importance of patience, cooperation and trust all while constructing a frightful haunted house.
