March 2019

Vol. 44, Issue 6, 24 pages

Friday, March 22, 2019

After 11 years of development, the controversial One Paseo mixed use development project is open. ONE PASEO continued on A4

photo by alexei serguienko/falconer

“Four years went into ensuring that I received this letter ... but senior year would prove most crucial.

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PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE, A8

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A Falconer investigation into the SDUHSD recycling practices found that EDCO Waste and Recycling Services, has evidence that TPHS and other district schools are violating California’s organic waste recycling law.

Angela Liu and Maya Satchell

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND STAFF WRITER TPHS is among seven SDUHSD schools that are in violation of California Assembly Bill 1826, which requires all California schools that generate four cubic yards or more of commercial solid waste a week to arrange for organic waste recycling.

The law first passed under former governor Jerry Brown in Oct. 2014, but the regulation regarding organic waste recycling was only phased in on Jan. 1, 2019. Commercial solid waste is defined

by AB 1826 as a combination of all trash, recycling and organic or green waste, according to San Diego County Recycling Specialist Stephanie Ewalt, and organic solid waste includes food waste, landscaping trimmings, non-hazardous wood waste and compostable paper, according

We don’t want to go to the sites and try to promote recycling, because ... it’s going to be a failure.

Dan Love

to the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) website.

TPHS generated about 6.9 cubic yards of commercial solid waste per week from Oct. – Dec. 2018, according to the SDUHSD Waste Tonnage Quarterly Report for that time period, provided by the SDUHSD EDCO account representative, Margo Cobian.

All of SDUHSD’s waste is collected and sorted by private waste management company EDCO, but none of SDUHSD’s food waste is recycled, meaning that La Costa Canyon High School, Canyon Crest Academy, Carmel Valley Middle School, Diegueno Middle School, Oak Crest Middle School and Pacific Trails Middle School, as well as TPHS, are not complying with the organic waste recycling requirement, according to the Waste Tonnage Quarterly Report. During those three months last year, those seven schools each generated between about 4.1 to 7.5 cubic yards of commercial solid waste per week, according to calculations by the Falconer. Because California state regulation thresholds are measured in volume, and EDCO reports its waste in tons, a measure of weight, the figures were converted using conversion factor estimates provided on the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery website. The conversion factors used were 800 pounds of household trash per cubic yard, and 600 pounds of yard waste per cubic yard to convert green waste.

According to Cobian, SDUHSD’s waste is collected by EDCO and taken to its Resource and Recovery facility in Escondido, where the different types of recyclable materials are separated on a processing line, baled and then sent to different locations that are determined

by EDCO’s recycling director. Trash, which includes all food waste, collected by EDCO from SDUHSD is sent to San Diego landfills.

According to Cobian, EDCO currently does not have the infrastructure needed to meet the demand for diverting food waste, but “the state [of California] and the County of San Diego are aware” of this.

“We’re building an anaerobic digester

… where eventually we’ll also be able to deal with food waste, and we’re going to process that at our Escondido facility,” about the lack Cobian said.

According to EDCO’s website, they of recycling are “working closely with food waste at TPHS but generating customers through [a] tiered are unsure of to approach,” which includes preventing food whom they should waste, donating edible food and collecting voice their concerns.

“The trash cans and non-edible food.

According to SDUHSD Director of recycling bins around campus Maintenance and Operations Dan Love, and in classrooms are useless when there is currently no “organized approach students don’t work to put recycled goods for recycling that is district-led.” The in recycling,” Arian Renner (12) said. “And district-wide SDUHSD recycling program what makes it even worse is that I heard that the district website says is operated that the custodians just mix the trash and under the aegis of the facilities department, recycling.”

According to TPHS custodian José refers to a “minimum level of recycling at each school site for paper and plastic,” Novoa, Renner’s claim is true, as the meaning that recycling bins for paper custodial staff will mix recyclable waste and plastic are provided to classrooms from classrooms with regular trash “daily.”

“There’s some times [when the and school grounds. However, the district does not take any measures to enforce recycling or to ensure that students and staff are using the bins, according to Love.

One reason behind the lack of a district-led recycling program is a lack of custodial staffing, according to Love and SDUHSD Custodial Javier Lopez Grounds Supervisor Javier SDUHSD CUSTODIAL/GROUNDS SUPERVISOR Lopez.

“I think right now, the custodial staff custodians] put everything together,” is just trying their best just to clean the Novoa said. “We don’t have time to bathrooms, restock them and take care of separate it ourselves because we are on all the sporting events that are going on,” short time and short-handed.”

The practice of mixing recycling and Lopez said. “We would love to be able to recycle — we just don’t have the staffing trash reduces the amount of recycling TPHS is capable of producing and, levels.”

According to Love, it is up to individual according to Cobian, can be prevented. “[Custodians] should just pick the school sites to determine how much recycling they would like to implement contaminated pieces out and put them in on their campuses, and a lack of student the trash,” Cobian said. “We absolutely support at schools is another contributing don’t want them putting any recycled factor to the absence of a district-wide material that’s recyclable in the trash.

We want only contamination going in the recycling plan.

“We don’t want to go to the sites and try trash and things that are not recyclable.”

While TPHS and most other schools in the to promote recycling because, typically, if we’re trying to lead something at the sites, district do not have school-specific recycling it’s going to be a failure, and that’s just the programs, Oak Crest and Diegueno Middle School have “very organized and successful harsh reality of it,” Love said.

Some TPHS students are concerned programs,” according to Love. However,

We would love to be able to recycle — we just don’t have the staffing levels.

photo illustration by anna jeong/falconer

SDUHSD DIRECTOR OF MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS

both O a k Crest and D i e g u e n o produced more than four cubic yards of commercial solid waste per week, according to the most recent Waste Tonnage Quarterly Report.

Diegueno also had the lowest percentage of recyclable waste out of its total solid waste produced, with 4.5 percent, while Oak Crest had the fifth lowest percentage of 10.7 percent.

Diegueno principal Cara Dolnik declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.

According to TPHS principal Rob Coppo, in order for TPHS to receive increased funding for recycling, funding would have to be moved from another part of TPHS’ budget.

According to Love, there are multiple ways in which additional funding for recycling could come from the district, including the introduction of an initiative from the district’s Business Services department or recommendations for additional funding from the superintendent or a board member. However, Love is unsure of the likelihood that any of these methods will occur, as “it just depends on how much energy surrounds” a proposal for additional recycling.

This is the first in a series of stories on TPHS recycling. Next month, the Falconer will cover how the district plans to comply with AB 1826.

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tape to avoid endangering students and staff, but the tape and cones are frequently ignored and knocked over.

A support beam in the overhang “I’ve noticed that people are still adjacent to Jeffrey Owen’s classroom, room walking through this area even though 57, slipped out of its bolting due to the age it’s zoned off, [so] I try and knock on the of the wood and an uptick in rainfall over window and tell them to move,” Owen said. the past several months, causing concerns The path is an important part of the that it may fall, according to Assistant school because it serves as the primary Principal Rebecca Gallow. way for people with disabilities to access The B building houses the learning the southwest side of TPHS. Without it, commons, ASB rooms and a majority of the they have to go around to the front or back science and social studies department. It entrances. is one of the oldest buildings on campus.

Some students did not notice the caution Over the past three years, the learning tape until it was pointed out to them, but commons was renovated, science rooms had concerns and even suggestions once were remodeled and chemistry rooms were they were made aware of the situation. added.

“Now that Added in the I’ve seen the 1980s after the caution tape and construction of the understand the building in 1974, reality of the the large wooden situation, I am beam roof juts scared someone out on the side is going to walk of Owen’s room. underneath the To support it so beam when it far out from the falls,” Owen building, there student, Nathan are many huge Pupko-Ginsberg support beams.

(12) said.

“In “With the rain Nathan Pupko-Ginsberg (12) my opinion, the STUDENT that we’d been school’s number having, water one priority should had begun to sink into my classroom, so I be the safety of students above all else, called maintenance to fix it,” Owen said. which is why the situation should be fixed “When he was working on my window he as soon as possible.” noticed the third beam from my window Johnny Carvalhal (12), another student had dropped about six inches.” in Owen’s AP Economics class, did notice The beam sits above the path from the the caution tape around the classroom, B building to the E building. It stretches but assumed it was because the walkway the length of Owen’s classroom and the had broken. Now that he knows what it is for, Carvalhal said there needs to be more adjacent concrete planter.

As a precaution, the school has effort made to keep students away from the restricted access to the area with caution loose beam.

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Leo Silverman

STAFF WRITER

Now that I ... understand the reality of the situation, I am scared someone is going to walk underneath the beam when it falls.

a culinary arts teacher, said.

According to Catherine Brown (12), an advanced ceramics student, one of the Empty Bowls, an international charity setbacks in previous years was the poor fundraiser organized at TPHS by culinary quality of some of the bowls made. arts and ceramics teachers and classes, “We’ve been thinking about doing this will be held on campus on April 2 to raise process since last year, and it just never money for Feeding San Diego, a food bank got fully into it — mostly because not that provides 63,000 weekly meals across everyone’s skill level was as nice as making the county. a bowl that’s very nice and it was kind of The fundraiser is a part of an hard to plan,” Catherine Brown (12) said. international project of the same name “But we definitely got together this year, that encourages cooperation between and I think it’s really great that our school potters and cooks in order to fight hunger. can participate in something like this.”

Culinary arts students will cook soup Aside from food from the culinary arts that will be served classes, bread will in bowls made in the be supplied by O’s advanced and regular American Kitchen. ceramics classes.

“We have garlic Meals will cost $15 bread that’s been each, and those who donated, and purchase a meal will we’re … making also be able to keep a few different the bowl it comes in. types of soup,” “Ceramics classes Coward said. “All are going hands on the culinary arts with culinary by classes will be providing bowls as helping out with they provide soup,” it, and then some Grace Smith (10), students will come a ceramics student, after school and said.

Catherine Brown (12) help serve the The fundraiser STUDENT food.” was organized by In addition to ceramics teacher showcasing their Sarah Morawa. work students have an opportunity to “I used to teach at Coronado High benefit the local community.

School, and the teacher I worked with “The things that we hope to get out of down there put on [Empty Bowls] every [the fundraiser] are … creating awareness year,” Morawa said. “Thanks to him, I about hunger in San Diego County and was made aware of what it’s all about — I giving back to the community by the student population,” Morawa said, “so wanted to do it here.”

This is the first time such an event they’re doing something that they’re has been held at TPHS, though Morowa creating with their hands and they put has unsuccessfully tried to organize the effort forth, and then that goes on to … create a kind of community awareness.” fundraiser before.

The fundraiser will also require more “Sarah has been trying to do this for a few years, and it looks like it’s actually cooking than culinary arts students are going to happen this year,” Kelly Coward, used to.

Yury Bukhradze COPY EDITOR

Even though it’s just purchasing the bowl, it’s going to have such a big impact on everyone in San Diego [who] needs the help.

photo by christy lam/falconer

CAUTION: The roofing over room 57 is considered a safety hazard to all students. The staff cautions against walking near or through the caution tape placed around the structure.

“I think exercising caution around the area is a good idea,” Carvalhal said.

Gallow, the Assistant Principal in charge of campus facilities, detailed the maintenance process for the dislodged beam.

“Our maintenance members wanted to make sure that the structural integrity of all the beams outside is sound, so they cautioned off the ramp area,” Gallow said.

“Since the beams are made of wood, there is concern that they are rotting.”

Owen also noticed another beam starting to rot and crack, confirming Gallow and the maintenance team’s concerns.

“In fact, if you look at the last beam, it’s got a big crack in the same spot,” Owen said.

Gallow also explained the reason behind the delay in repairing the structural beam over room 57.

“We don’t have our own maintenance crew here,” Gallow said, “It is all done through the District Office level, and we are waiting for them to send a maintenance crew down to repair the roof.”

Finally, Gallow stressed the importance that students avoid the area until the caution tape is removed.

“Because there was some concern that there’s something wrong with the beams structurally,” Gallow said, “we don’t want any persons walking through there right now until they’ve come and given the ‘all clear’ and done any repairs that need to be done on the beams.”

“This will give my students a chance to cook in large quantities because the recipes we do in class are usually for four to six servings, [but] this will be preparing a recipe for like 100 people,” Coward said.

Students also agree that this project will benefit the local community and provide students at TPHS’ an opportunity to get involved.

“It gives awareness to other students,” Brown said. “Even though it’s just purchasing the bowl, it’s going to have

such a big impact on everyone in San Diego [who] needs the help.”

As of now, the two classes have not begun actively working together on preparation for the fundraiser.

“We haven’t exactly gotten together as a group, which I’m sure we will at some point,” Brown said, “but, as of now, that hasn’t happened yet.”

Empty Bowls will happen in the main quad in front of the gym from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on April 2.

Student special Free fountain drink and chips with purchase of burrito with student id

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Dhathry Doppalapudi and Neha Pubbi

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER At the end of the summer, the shopping section and parking structure of One Paseo, a 23 acre mixed-use development project at the corner of Del Mar Heights Road and El Camino Real, is set to open after eleven years of planning.

One Paseo will house an apartment complex, townhouses, retail space and office buildings, reflecting One Paseo’s motto: “live, work, play.”

Dining options that will be offered by One Paseo include Tender Greens, Shake Shack, Parakeet Cafe and Blue Bottle Coffee. Retail stores like Sephora, DryBar and Blackbook Bikini are also opening, in addition to Soulcycle and Vibe Flow Yoga. According to polling by the Falconer, TPHS students are most excited for the opening of Shake Shack.

One Paseo customers will be able to park in the retail parking structure adjacent to Del Mar Heights Road.

After opening, construction crews will finish the 286,000 square feet of commercial office space and a residential neighborhood. One Paseo’s living space will include 608 apartments, sixty of which will be affordable housing units, priced at 65 percent of the average median income. According to One Paseo’s director of events and sponsorships Adrienne Pacheco, the due dates for the rest of One Paseo has yet to be determined.

One Paseo has faced pushback over the course of its development.

“I just don’t think we need it,” Tess Alwan (12) said.

“The traffic that it’ll cause is not worth it, especially because we already have the Highlands right across the street. It’s just pointless.”

Although some are supportive of the project, other community members are concerned about the potential consequences of One Paseo.

“It will definitely bring in a lot of jobs and interesting stores, but, on the other hand, it’ll cause absolutely massive traffic,” Canyon Crest Academy senior Grace Lincoln said.

Ursula Krane, a Del Mar resident of 48 years, agrees.

“The traffic already cannot be handled as it is,” Krane said On April 2015, local law firm Chatten-Brown & Tess Alwan (12) Carstens represented STUDENT groups such as Alliance for Responsible Development Corporation, East Bluff Community Association and Mitigate One Paseo in a lawsuit against Kilroy Realty.

“One of [my clients’] main concerns was that the traffic impacts weren’t adequately analyzed in the environmental impact report prepared for the project,” Josh Chatten-Brown, the lawyer for this case, said.

The case was eventually settled and both parties agreed that One Paseo would not “generate in excess of 14,000 average daily trips,” including trips from the apartments, retail center and offices.

Because of the complaints, though, the One Paseo plan was downsized.

“Originally, the retail component of the project was

photo by alexei serguienko/falconer

MODEL OF PERFECTION: One Paseo will contain housing units, office buildings and a retail area. The model shows the entire project, including retail, residential and hospitality units, in detailed miniature. designed as two stories, and there were additional office buildings planned,” Pacheco said. “After taking community feedback, the project was redesigned on a smaller scale to better fit the needs of the area.”

In further effort to mitigate traffic, Kilroy Realty is creating a shuttle system that stops at five destinations: the Solana Beach Transit Center, the Del Mar Corporate Centers, the Carmel Valley Corporate Center, the Kilroy Center of Del Mar and One Paseo. The bus will run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day of the week.

“We expect the shuttle to be a great tool in mitigating traffic, in addition to the other steps we have taken, including adding turn lanes, restriping and installing state-of-the-art adaptive traffic signals, which are interconnected to respond to local traffic flow,” Pacheco said.

Once open, One Paseo will host various activities for community members, including outdoor movies and concerts and a weekly farmer’s market.

Although there are mixed feelings about the project from the community, many say that they are looking forward to visiting One Paseo.

“I’m really interested to see what the shopping center will look like and to try all the fun restaurants they will have,” Alwan said.

I’m really interested to see what the shopping center will look like and to try all the fun restaurants they will have.

photo by alexei serguienko/falconer

photo by alexei serguienko/falconer

photo by alexei serguienko/falconer

FUN FOR ALL: The retail center will contain a variety of restaurants and shops. Shake Shack is a favorite among TPHS students (TOP).

Shops will be surrounded by areas for social gathering.

Benches will be situated throughout the mall (MIDDLE).

Salt and Straw, an ice cream shop, will be among the restaurants added. It will serve a variety of ice cream flavors (ABOVE).

photo from one paseo

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Esther Choi

FEATURE EDITOR Starting Fall 2019, there will be changes in scheduling for rising sophomores’ PE requirement, as well as a prohibition of seniors from joining entry-level Career Technical Education classes.

The CTE pathways programs are operated statewide, meaning that TPHS and other SDUHSD schools are not alone in the new vocational-education scheduling changes.

In an effort to encourage growth in industrial job sectors, the California Department of Education, in addition to many other states, started the Pathways program to teach students technical skills.

To provide financial help for mandated vocational education classes, which are typically more expensive and sometimes seen as less necessary than core classes, the federal Perkins grant allocated funds to schools that met certain criteria.

Among those requirements are the rules that led to the new scheduling changes for Rob Coppo PRINCIPAL seniors.

In order to receive Perkins financial aid, schools need to offer a career technical pathway, comprised of at least one introductory “entry” course and a “capstone” course that builds on the skills from any former classes. In addition, students are not allowed to take two classes in the same pathway simultaneously.

“If [the pathway] has to be two years and [the pathway] has to be sequential, as a senior, if you didn’t start a pathway you can’t go into it because you wouldn’t be able to finish that pathway because you have to get two years,” principal Rob Coppo said.

A large part of preventing seniors from starting pathways had to do with space and availability.

“If you’re a senior, and you jump into AutoTech I, I’ve kept a potential completer out because now a junior isn’t taking that class because the senior took the seat from them,” Coppo said. “That senior is now not a completer because they’re in AutoTech I, [and] they can’t be a completer and I’ve kept a seat from another completer that’s going to hurt our dashboard.”

Complaints from students affected by this change were because they were not notified before senior year. Tom Sze

(11) was planning to take AP Computer Science Principles in his senior year.

“I am very disappointed ... I’m kind of frustrated,” Sze said.

Sze said he did not know about the rule until recently.

“I only figured out that I couldn’t take AP CompSci Principles when [my friend] told me two nights ago,” Sze said.

According to counselor Lary Chanelle, the rising seniors were not given notice because of the amount of time they had over the course of their high school careers to take those entry-level courses if they had been interested.

“It’s not about being notified that you can’t take a class — it’s the fact that you’ve been exposed to CTE pathways, and if you’re on this pathway this is where it’ll go,” Lary said.

Kelly Coward, who teaches classes in the Culinary Pathway, dislikes the change.

“I wish that more students could take it. It makes me sad that so many kids don’t get to take the class,” Coward said.

The rising seniors have little to no chance of taking entry pathway classes.

“They won’t be able to [start pathways] if they don’t [take] it freshman through junior year — they won’t get it as a senior,” Coward said.

In addition to the new pathway changes is the requirement of physical education as a class for both freshmen and sophomores at TPHS, another state-wide regulation.

Students and teachers appear to be mostly amiable towards the requirement.

“For me this actually works well,” dance teacher Sarah Kaye said. “For dance PE, if students want to continue it sophomore year, they can move up to Intermediate without auditioning. This is great for a student who loves to dance but might not have time to commit to the dance team.”

Alexia Civit (9) also had a positive outlook about her schedule change.

“The fact that they’re requiring you to take a PE [class] freshman and sophomore year is kind of annoying, [but] I guess it will be better in the long run,” Civit said.

“Since it’s mandatory from the California government that you take two years of PE in high school, and our district has just been relaxed about it, I understand if they’re like, ‘Now you have to take PE freshman and sophomore year.’”

As a senior, if you didn’t start a pathway, you can’t go into it because you wouldn’t be able to finish that pathway.

Former TPHS English teacher, the late Kit Moffett, was awarded Teacher of the Year.

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“Between 8 and 9 p.m., I would walk by, and she would still be in her classroom, still grading things, still getting ready for On Feb. 13, Julia Newman’s students the next day,” Coppo said. in College Prep Chemistry and AP Physics Newman’s class was known to be 1 were contacted via email by TPHS challenging. administration regarding her leave for “Her finicky grading often resulted in the rest of the semester, though no reason frustrated students who whined about was given for Newman’s departure. losing points for insignificant mistakes, “It is confidential family information … but with the sheer difficulty of the class, and it’s something Mrs. Newman would [it] motivated students to thrive,” Pablo be able to share,” Principal Rob Coppo Valdez (10) said. said.

Akari Takimoto (‘18) is thankful to According to Katelyn Lee (10), who Newman for her dedication to her students, is in Newman’s third period AP Physics inside and outside the classroom.

1 class, AP Environmental Science and “Every lab report we handed in, she Biology teacher Brian Bodas announced corrected them in that Newman detail so we can was on leave learn from it,” sometime during Takimoto said. “I first semester due do think that her to her husband’s class was difficult, declining health but I really loved and eventual her and her class.” death along with Students of Newman’s “own Newman’s AP issues.”

Later, Physics 1 class said Newman told the it was one of their class that her most memorable mother-in-law was classes at TPHS. in the hospital too.

“She was a Kashika Rathore (12) Newman has STUDENT really good teacher taught at TPHS for and person who 17 years. During really tried her that time, she had instructed science to best,” Jonas Kim (11) said. thousands of students.

Takimoto said that taking Newman’s “[I’ve known] Mrs. Newman for 11 physics class was one of the most years now,” Coppo said. “She has had a meaningful and favorite times of her life tremendous impact in her influence with and she could thank her enough for her students over her many year career here.” help.

Newman’s leave this semester did not surprise some of her students, given her earlier leave of absence from October 2018 to January 2019. Throughout her absence, Newman continued to assist long-term physics substitute Barry Toyonaga in running her physics class.

“Even while we had a substitute and were being taught by someone else, she attempted to stay involved in class and her students’ work,” Kashika Rathore (12) said.

Newman is known for her passion and thoroughness.

“Mrs. Newman truly has a passion for teaching, dedicating most of her breaks grading our lab write-ups thoroughly,” Emily Zhang (12) said.

Zhang recalls a particular moment when Newman stayed with her friend and her until 5 p.m. to finish up a lab.

“She was sitting there answering our questions while I was working on the lab photo by david vapnek/falconer with my friend,” Zhang said.

SUDDEN FAREWELL: Newman’s room Coppo recalled being impressed with seeing Newman in her classroom after he remains the same following her leave. finished watching a school sporting event. Students are still unsure if she may return.

Maggie Choy

STAFF WRITER

Even while we had a substitute ... she attempted to stay involved in class and her students’ work.

art by seyoung lee/falcon artist

A new amendment to the TPHS schedule prohibits rising seniors from enrolling in introductory Career Technical Education pathway courses.

Yury Bukhradze COPY EDITOR

Due to changes in the class offerings for rising seniors, it will not be possible for them to take entry-level Career Technical Education pathway classes. Of course, the change will most likely lead to disagreement from some rising seniors, but, in fact, the policy change may bring more benefit than harm. The new system will encourage students to take CTE pathways throughout their whole high school career and teach them planning skills, important in professional and college life.

The new system is most beneficial to underclassmen, for whom entrylevel pathway courses are most intended. Because spots in each class are limited, it would make sense for the administration to prioritize freshmen and sophomores, who are able to continue with the pathway further in the following year — unlike seniors, who will graduate anyway without the ability to continue the pathway at TPHS. This change is also ultimately good for students because it will encourage underclassmen to better plan their schedule throughout their whole high school careers. Knowing that there would be no way to take an entrylevel course senior year and being interested in a particular pathway, a student would prioritize trying that course earlier in high school.

Such a skill is crucial in later stages of everyone’s lives; it would teach students how to plan their college course sequences and prepare them for long-term thinking that is required quite often in professional life.

Since the purpose of career pathways at TPHS is providing students the opportunity to acquaint themselves with career options they may be interested in, the change would encourage students to think

about career choice earlier in order to gain extra years of entry level experience while they’re in high school. This would not only give students a better understanding of what career options are available to them earlier in high school, but also would let students begin their path towards a career they feel most inclined in pursuing. That way the student could have early access to certain careers and be more prepared for college — both the classes offered there and the process of selecting major. By starting in freshman year, more options can be explored.

Furthermore, if students are encouraged to take CTE pathways in earlier years, it would prevent them from being overloaded with challenging classes. As many students in TPHS prefer to fill their schedules with Honors and AP classes even as early as sophomore year, this new policy would make students dilute their schedule in order to create a balance between hard academic courses and electives.

The obvious problem caused by the changes is that rising seniors will simply be barred from trying new possible career paths — even if it is just an entry level course. But, the changes would only affect current juniors and, probably, sophomores, while the future classes won’t see this policy as an issue due to the fact that to them it will be a norm. As the change is rather drastic, there’s no way for it to be implemented without students experiencing inconveniences. For that reason, the change will indeed be harmful to rising seniors, but not future ones.

Overall, this change — despite causing short term inconveniences to rising seniors who may change their minds about course selections and decide to try new CTE courses — would ultimately benefit students in future years. As this change is a sharp turn from what students are used to, it is expected to be a hard pill to swallow. But, the new system encourages students to take a more responsible approach to planning their schedules over the course of several years and would prepare them better for college and, eventually, their careers.

The 2018-19 California K-12 budget includes $214 million for Career Technical Education.

It was recently revealed to TPHS students that in the 2019-20 school year seniors will not be able to take introductory classes in Career Technical Education pathways.

The changes are being pushed by the administration in order to prioritize underclassmen who can complete entire pathways, as opposed to just taking the intro class.

The schedule change is unfair to current rising seniors who have saved certain classes for their last year of high school, as well as for those who realized they want to sample certain subject matters and classes later on in their academic careers. The new system should make beginning pathway classes available first to underclassmen and juniors instead of barring upperclassmen entirely.

The schedule change was announced during course selection presentations, meaning that up until their second semester, the class of 2020 was under the impression that they would be able to take introductory pathway classes. When planning out their high school schedules, the class of 2020 accounted for those beginner classes and often waited until senior year to either take a less rigorous course or save a spot in their schedules for a subject they thought would be fun to explore.

Students reserve those classes for senior year because during the college application process colleges focus on students’ sophomore and junior years to gauge how skilled they are and how heavy a course load they can handle, according to PrepScholar Admissions, a college admissions service. So, students often load up on Advanced Placement classes in an effort to build an impressive academic resume. The sudden change of scheduling rules can completely shift seniors’ plans for next year and find them scrambling to fill in their empty spaces with classes they are less passionate about or a free period, which reduces the learning that student could have received.

Furthermore, this new plan is running on the assumption that incoming students should have all of the pathways and classes they want to complete throughout high school decided by their first year. While some

Vlada Demenko STAFF WRITER

students may have an idea of what they would like to pursue in high school, it is unlikely that the average student has a complete mental map of what their future will look like. In reality, schedules and future plans are more fluid and flexible. By imposing such rigid deadlines on which classes students can and cannot take later on, the administration is essentially forcing students to follow one, predetermined path and not to explore other options. This would overall be harmful, as it blocks students from exploring their options and interests further before having to go to college and decide which career path they ultimately would like to pursue.

The goal of the changes is to motivate underclassmen to start pathways earlier. Emphasizing the importance of pathways, however, should not come at the expense of seniors’ class selection. Instead of barring seniors from these entry level classes, it would be more sensible to prioritize students in earlier grades.

Prior to these schedule changes, certain classes, like AP Art History or Culinary Arts, gave enrollment priority to seniors first and all other students after. In that same sense, entry level courses just prioritizing underclassmen and juniors would still accommodate the school’s desire for pathway completion while allowing older students the opportunity to pursue those same classes.

This new system undeniably causes more harm than good as it limits students’ mobility in their future schedules and unfairly damages the high school experience of current rising seniors. A new plan where seniors are deprioritized is preferable to one where they are completely excluded.

tphsfalconer.com

Most TPHS students and community members, like many Falconer staffers (until recently), are probably under the impression that the plastic and paper trash that is put in the countless recycling bins around TPHS is being recycled. But that’s not true. And, according to the district, students are the ones to blame.

TPHS has no real recycling program in place — much of our recycling gets mixed into the trash and is sent to the landfills.

When TPHS custodians look in the bags from the recycling bins and see non-recyclable items in them, they throw away the whole bag rather than sorting out what is recyclable from what isn’t.

All of the bright blue recycling bins in TPHS quads, hallways and classrooms are completely misleading.

SDUHSD says this is because students do not know what to recycle and put things in the wrong bins. To undo that, they could simply hire another custodian to sort through the recycling bins and take out non-recyclable items first, but the district claims that hiring more staffing would be too expensive and the budget for TPHS does not allocate for that. But that shouldn’t matter.

Recycling is an issue of enough importance for the budget to be changed to make room for it.

The claim that the students are at fault is nothing but an excuse. If the students’ lack of knowledge about what can be recycled is truly the reason that they can’t recycle, then why hasn’t the administration told us that we need to do more? Instead of informing the student body that incorrect recycling is a problem, the administration kept quiet and simply stopped all recycling. If the district really thinks that recycling is a student responsibility, they should have at least notified everyone of that. This is the first step the district should take to improve the recycling situation at all schools.

There are numerous easy ways that this problem could be solved.

The administration could split up the duties of the custodians to be more efficient so that someone would have the time to sort through the recycling each day. Even if they had to hire another custodian to solve this problem, recycling should be considered a priority.

If the school doesn’t want to spend money on hiring more custodians, TPHS, as well as all other SDUHSD schools, needs to implement a recycling education program. Whether it be through assemblies, posters, morning announcements, social media posts or emails, the school needs to do something to inform the students. They could easily put signs on the trash cans and recycling bins that explain what can or can’t be recycled. If they don’t at least put in this bare minimum effort, TPHS cannot claim the students are even remotely at fault.

This is a very simple and easy way to raise awareness so that recyclables are less contaminated.

The district does have a point — students need to be more conscious of what’s going into the recycling bin. It is

opinion

the falconer

not that hard to educate yourself on recyclable materials and to make the conscious decision to recycle. But, this isn’t enough to cancel the entire recycling program.

In past years, TPHS’ Key Club stayed after school and sorted through the recycling, removing any contaminants. We no longer have an active Key Club that will take care of those responsibilities, but the fate of the innumerable recyclable items that our school is throwing away with the trash should not be in the hands of a small group of students. This should be the district’s responsibility — not the high schoolers who will come and go from this school in a short four years.

The bottom line is that throwing away so much recyclable material is unquestionably immoral and there is no reason to keep doing it.

But if that is not enough, TPHS is also in violation of a bill that went into effect in October 2014. A requirement in California Assembly Bill 1826, enacted on Jan 1, 2019, says that all California schools that generate over four cubic yards of commercial solid waste each week must recycle their organic waste. Even though the law mandates that we recycle, TPHS is one of seven schools in SDUHSD that continues not to do so.

TPHS should make an effort to fix this problem now — whether it be through educating the students on what they should be recycling or by sorting out the materials themselves — and both the district and the school need to be held accountable for not doing so.

Seven out of 10 SDUHSD schools are in violation of Assembly Bill AB 1826, signed into effect in 2014.

Gwennie Liu (9) Students should [initiate recycling programs] because they are the ones who are actually recycling their materials and their papers.

Saeji Hong (10) The district should [improve recycling] because they oversee the school, and they set the example for the students.

Arda Ulug (12) I think the district should already be [recycling], but since they’re not, the students should take charge to do what’s right.

art by amrita moturi/falcon artist

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A7

opinion

Daniel Kim

SPORTS EDITOR Spread across the Twitter feeds of local student athletes and their families are tweets proclaiming, “Torrey Pines hangs another banner!” or “HANG THAT BANNER!” in reference to the hundreds hung in the gym for each league or CIF division championship. Known for its reputation as the “athletic” SDUHSD school, TPHS participates in 26 San Diego CIF Open Division sports. Over time, the number of championships taken by TPHS has gradually decreased. To be fair to all players and teams, public and private schools must be divided into separate divisions because private schools can recruit athletes, giving them an indisputable advantage.

In San Diego sports divisions, there are a handful of private schools. The most significant disadvantage to public schools is that they are only limited to athletes who live in their districts while private schools can recruit and play athletes from anywhere, vastly increasing their chances for success.

Over time, competing against overpowering opponents will kill athletes’ motivation to continue playing. For example, most of this year’s boys basketball team losses in Open Division play were to private school teams in the division, including St. Augustine High School and Foothills Christian High School.

The football team, boys soccer team and girls

volleyball team produced great results but came up short against Cathedral Catholic High School every time this year.

Winning a competition produces a rush of dopamine in the hypothalamus, the pleasure center of the brain. Over time, people want to continue to feel that pleasure, leading them to want to compete against others. According to Andrew Westbrook and Todd Braver’s paper for the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, constant competition with little success in terms of winning will limit the dopamine produced, leading to fatigue and a lack of motivation.

Students also deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. The grind is the cyclical, grueling process in which athletes train and prepare for games and matches. Most of the students who compete on the school’s varsity teams are unaffected by the tedious grind, although competing against overpowering private school athletes could potentially kill their motivation and cause the grind to feel even more monotonous.

High school coaches have noticed the unfair gap between the public and private schools and have requested separate divisions for the two types of schools. The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL), located near Pittsburgh, discovered that 86 percent of the high school coaches there want to divide public and private high school teams. Also, District 10 in Northwestern Pennsylvania, just south of Lake Erie, found that of 365 public school coaches and administrators, 354 believed private schools had an advantage and 338 wanted separate tournaments. As professionals who can easily notice large disparities in skill, coaches are a reliable source in determining whether the competition between public and private schools is fair; since a vast majority voted for the split, the San Diego Section CIF Open Division should do the same and separate

march 22, 2019

the public schools from the private schools.

Other states, like Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi, have noticed the inequity with playing private and public schools against each other and have wisely implemented methods to close the gap. The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association voted to create a new division for private schools that gave financial aid, resulting in the TSSAA Division II in 1997. Private schools that stayed in the public school divisions were subject to an enrollment multiplier, increasing their student count and forcing them into divisions with larger

public schools. Georgia did the same as Tennessee. In Mississippi, the number of private schools remaining in the MHSAA fell to only 10, separating the public and private schools nearly entirely.

In the sports world, sportsmanship and fairness trump winning or losing. If some schools are able to recruit athletes while others can’t, it creates inequity and ruins the pact between all athletes for fair competitions. In the modern era, the competition to get into college between students, including athletes, is severe.

If public school students are unable to thrive and improve in high school play, the gap in recruitment by colleges will create even larger disparities between public and private school athletes. Although the issue may not have peaked yet in San Diego, it is still a considerable threat to a balanced high school sports division. The county must be wary and prevent the problem from occurring from the start.

otherwise behaved, my horrendous attendance record was irrelevant. Yet in the past few months, arriving sometimes as much as 10 minutes after the bell (and, ok, even later), I’ve been marked truant enough to be put on a watchlist. At some point amid deep cleaning Michael Montgomery’s classroom during lunch, I realized my tardiness in high school was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Made it to school with barely enough time to sign in. Yeah, I hear the alarm, yeah, I hear you, Mom. Yeah, yeah, I don’t wan’ be broke when I’m thirty-one.” That’s the part of the song I’m at right now. But what about next year?

“They said the best classes go to the fastest, sorry, Mr. West there’s no good classes, and that’s what [you] get. Not even electives? Not even prerequisites? You mean I missed my major by a couple of seconds? Now I’m in the shop class or the basket weavin’.”

Not to be dramatic, but tardiness could be the gateway to my demise.

My rationale this whole time has been that a few minutes is nothing, but if a few minutes

is nothing, why haven’t I been able to arrive on time? I don’t have an excuse. All I can say is I wish I had been responsible enough to intervene before it got to the point where I was walking straight to the attendance office in the mornings, because being chronically late is the terrible. You forget things. You don’t get to walk to class with your friends. Your teachers don’t deserve to be interrupted, and they absolutely get to take it personally. Everyone looks at you when you walk into class panting like a dog.

But on the topic of everyone looking at you, I’d like to take this opportunity to shoutout the senior class for neglecting to even nominate me to be on the ballot for “Most likely to show up late to graduation.” It’s unfortunate to think that after all that, I won’t even receive formal recognition for my consistency.

So, I guess since I’m not going to be honored in the yearbook for my contribution, I’ll continue trying to remedy my attendance record and hopefully keep my parents out of jail.

But old habits sure do die hard.

If you’re reading this, I’m probably late.

art by sam mathe/falcon artist

A8 the falconer

EVE GROSS-SABLE

When I was in middle school, my eldest brother would drive me places in his Bluetoothless car. So we’d listen to the same five CDs containing none other than his preferred selection of rap music. As a 12-13-year-old girl, I really did try my best to find my own personal meaning in the lyrics. But figuring out what in my life paralleled the activities and emotions discussed in those songs was a struggle, and maybe that’s why the only song from the CDs that I can recall is “Late” by Kanye West.

From me being chauffeured down the I-5 without a care in the world aside from what dress I’d wear to my eighth grade promotion until now, much has changed. Now I’m removing a long-sought letter from my mailbox. Four years went into ensuring that I received that letter, establishing habits and such, but senior year would prove most crucial.

Oh yes, March is a big month for college decisions. But I think if I had to read one more thing about how someone chose which college to attend or came to terms with a rejection, I would tear my hair out. So this isn’t about that.

The letter wasn’t from my dream school. It was from my high school. Telling me that I’m at risk for truancy due to my “chronic absenteeism.”

And that my parents can be prosecuted if they don’t compel my attendance!

Record scratch. Freeze frame. Yup, that’s me.

You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

Let’s start by clearing up a few things. I am not a chronic absentee. I am chronically tardy, or, as West says in the song, “I be late for that.”

I live a wall’s jump away from school. In ninth grade, I walked the long way. No shortcuts for me, I left my house at 7:15 and arrived with time to spare. But before long, I was leaving at 7:28, 7:30, 7:32, and decided that hopping the wall would be for the better. By the end of freshman year, I was running through the quad to make it to Scott Ashby’s first period PE class, terrified that I’d get enough points deducted to lower my grade. Tenth grade meant waiting outside the locked door of Erin Simpson’s room and threats of “five detentions” from Junior Villegas.

I knew I had really made it when I no longer had to tell Adriana Sherman my name at attendance.

Unfortunately, she still knows me.

This year, senioritis and a predisposition for tardiness have made for a most lethal combination. A quick scan of the attendance section of my Aeries would tell you that I have been tardy for 24 periods. This is undeniably false — I’m usually still in my room when the 7:35 bell rings.

As I write this, there have been 114 instructional days of school, 111 of which I have been present for. The only day I can say with certainty I was on time is the very first one. I can estimate that of those 111 days, I was on time to about 20. Twenty-five if I’m being generous.

Which brings my total tardies to 86-91. Thus far.

Up until recently, I didn’t see my lateness as a pressing issue because TPHS doesn’t enforce any penalty for tardies. I was lucky enough to have teachers who didn’t either. I’ve tried to break the habit, but too often convinced myself that because I did my homework, studied and

photo by christy lam/falconer

Opinion Editor Eve Gross-Sable reflects on her endless struggle with tardiness, its long-term consequences, and a potential prophecy from Kanye West.

STAFF WRITER If you’ve been paying attention to the frenzy of presidential campaign announcements from Democrats, you’re likely familiar with Medicare for All, the proposal to expand and bolster the government health insurance program that currently applies to Americans over 65 and people with disabilities.

Most notably proposed by Senator and Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders, Medicare for All would expand to cover the health insurance needs of all Americans, including vision and dental.

From the average patient’s perspective, Medicare for All is a no brainer.

Copays, deductibles, premiums and medical bills, which constitute the number one cause of personal bankruptcy for Americans, would be eliminated.

Without the confusing networks developed by commercial insurance providers, which often limit where patients can and can’t go for care, Americans would be able to go to whatever hospital or practice they’d like.

Some, like billionaire Starbucks founder and likely presidential candidate Howard Schultz, are not quite on board yet. Shultz says that Medicare for All is “not American.” Schultz brings about a curious line of argument. To him, any expansion of the federal government is unAmerican, even if it emancipates Americans from the bounds of their corporate overlords, allowing them to roam the job market more easily. Sixty percent of Americans get their

Katie Flint

STAFF WRITER Having to shop at Walmart is pretty disappointing. The store is big, disorganized and the people there are generally low-spirited. But, the highlight are the employees, specifically the Walmart greeters, many of whom are disabled and welcome customers, brightening their day.

In the past, Walmart has been one of the most inclusive companies toward disabled workers.

In fact, the Disability Equality Index (EIC), a tool to measure disability inclusivity in companies, gave Walmart a 100 percent and placed them on the 2018 DEI Best Places to Work list.

But in recent years, many disabled Walmart greeters have been in danger of losing their jobs due to a policy change that makes it a more physically demanding position. While the change may seem like a consolidation of a similar position, a report by National Public Radio found that the changes to the greeter position “disproportionately affect workers with disabilities.”

While Walmart’s CEO Greg Foran said in his memo regarding the situation that Walmart is looking into each disabled greeter’s case “with the goal of offering appropriate accommodations” and making every effort to allow disabled associates to continue working at Walmart, it isn’t happening.

Walmart is discriminating against their disabled employees because they aren’t making reasonable accommodation around employees’ disabilities and aren’t giving current employees information concerning their jobs.

In 2016, Walmart launched their new greeter job, the asset protection customer host, to

took over $10.5 million from the same sector alone. It’s no coincidence, then, that Pelosi and Biden are hesitant to support a plan that would all but eliminate private health insurance companies.

The grip of the private health insurance lobby on our politicians is emblematic of a larger problem in our campaign finance system, a system that enables and rewards those with money to donate.

Luckily, a new wave of progressives has begun to drag the framing of discussion from the far right toward the global center. In other industrialized countries around the world, healthcare is considered a right of citizens, guaranteed through various single-payer systems. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service, for example, goes much further than Bernie’s plan, which more closely resembles the Canadian model. The NHS completely

welcome customers, check receipts and keep the entrance clean. According to their blogpost, Walmart has been collecting data on safety and security and adding these new positions where Walmart's, "data tells [them] the risk is higher, [they'll] add the new customer host."

The most concerning part of this new position is its physical demands that many current disabled greeters cannot meet. These include lifting 25 pounds, cleaning up spills, collecting carts, using ladders and remaining standing for the day.

Disabled employees who feel discriminated against have already filed three complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Also, a federal lawsuit has been filed in Utah, claiming unlawful discrimination toward disabled workers because Walmart didn’t provide reasonable accommodations.

Reasonable accommodations are defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as change to a job or place of work that allows an employee “with a disability to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions.” Even though Walmart extended the transition period, many people feel targeted because of their disabilities. Walmart said after the change 85 percent of the greeters affected were able to find another position in Walmart, but wouldn’t disclose how many were disabled.

Disabled Walmart greeters might lose their jobs because Walmart isn’t modifying the costumer host requirements to accommodate their limitations.

Many of the current greeters are disabled or elderly and can’t contribute to the added security, so they will lose the jobs that they have relied on to support themselves and their families. Because of Walmart’s disregard for them, those hard working people will be dependent on the government or others for money and support.

Walmart’s spokesperson Kory Lundberg said that Walmart recognizes that “associates with physical disabilities face a unique situation” and that they will be extending the 60-day greeter transition period for associates with disabilities.

While they extended time period for disabled people to apply for new roles, they never specified what that period will be.

With many disabled Walmart greeters losing their jobs, the store will lack the staff diversity that sets it apart from many other department stores. Customers who shop at Walmart have the opportunity to interact with people who are often stigmatized. By employing elderly and disabled people, Walmart can change the way people typically think of the disabled and elderly. Shoppers can better understand that

publicizes healthcare, giving citizens access to publicly funded and run hospitals and practices.

The Canadians, on the other hand, employ publicly funded private institutions. In the context of the greater global healthcare debate, Sanders’ plan is smack dab in the middle.

A recent Gallup poll reported that healthcare is the number one issue for most Americans.

Given that fact that an overwhelming majority of them also support Medicare for All, the policy considered fringe and radical only a few years ago has clearly become an easy litmus test to weed out candidates.

It’s time to put the basic needs of Americans ahead of all else. With clear public support and fiscal benefits, not to mention the prospect of finally giving quality health insurance to every American, any Democratic candidate who wants a chance of beating President Trump should endorse Medicare for All.

art by farhan hossain/falcon artist

art by anna jeong/falcon artist

people with disabilities are just like everyone else and can contribute to society.

In addition to changing people’s opinions on those populations, giving jobs to the elderly and disabled gives them a purpose and helps retain certain skills like problem solving, communication and social interaction that otherwise might be easy to lose.

Employing disabled and elderly people benefits the customers, staff and Walmart’s image, and Walmart should be aware enough to see that.

art by kristen ching/falcon artist

Nico Johnson

health insurance through their employer. Given the importance of having health insurance, many American workers are hesitant to take risks and pursue new career paths without a guarantee they won’t go bankrupt if they get sick. Without having to worry about going bankrupt if they get sick in between jobs, Americans would have the ability to take more risks, therefore freeing up the labor market.

To the average American, Medicare for All sounds wonderful. The most recent Reuters polling data shows that 83 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of all registered voters are in favor of Medicare for All, proving that the American people are anxious for a radical shift in our healthcare system.

So how much would Medicare for All cost?

Commentators in the corporate media, from MSNBC to Fox News, constantly throw around the Mercatus Center reported $32 trillion a decade, but that big scary number is misleading, as cable news pundits often conveniently forget to add a few key pieces of information. For one, Medicare for All is significantly cheaper than our current system. In fact, that same right leaning Mercatus Center study predicts Medicare for All would save at least $2 trillion in net healthcare spending over a decade. Other studies, like a recently published paper from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, project Medicare for All would save a whopping $5 trillion. The program saves money by doing things like cutting out costly administrative bloat, profit margins for insurance companies, and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for services and drugs, to name a few.

Why, then, are Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi dragging their feet on a program that would cover everybody, save money and has overwhelming public support? One possibility: campaign finance. Over the course of her career, Pelosi has raised over $1.6 million from “health professionals,” according to Open Secrets, an organization that tracks money in politics. Former President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, obviously tied to Biden,

A10 the falconer

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march 22, 2019

MADE FOR

primetime

When she stepped out onto the talent show stage in fourth grade and began to sing, she captivated her audience, leaving her parents wondering where she had learned to do that. Kendra Checketts (‘17), would soon be used to those kinds of reactions, starting with the time she opened for Mac Miller, to when, more recently, she auditioned for NBC’s “The Voice.”

Checketts, who performed at the TPHS pep rally on February 22, competed on Season 16 of “The Voice” on March 5, where she secured a spot on Team Blake with the song “Sober” by Demi Lovato.

Her appearance on “The Voice” follows her previous audition on the show at age 14, when she was turned down for being too young and asked to come back when she was older.

Now, at age 19 and having graduated from high school, Checketts has had more time to focus on her passion for singing.

Receiving a chair turn from country singer Blake Shelton not long after she began singing, both Checketts and her family, which was backstage, were thrilled that she secured a spot on the Kendra Checketts (‘17) show.

ALUMNA “At the time, I definitely wanted John Legend [as my coach] 100 percent,” Checketts said. “But I realized that being on Team Blake was probably the best thing that could have happened because I am the only one on his team that sounds the way I do … Moving forward in the competition, it is really awesome to not be on the same team with somebody who is the exact same as you.”

A huge fan of “The Voice,”

Checketts is grateful to have her first vocal coach ever.

According to Checketts, the coaches aren’t “just in it for the TV, but are definitely there to help mentor you,” allowing for a fun experience, friendships among contestants and a point of view very different from before, when she was just a viewer at home.

“Kelly [Clarkson] was talking about me putting more emotion into the song and [doing more] storytelling, and country music is super big on storytelling, so being able to work with Blake on that is really awesome,” Checketts said. “He’s also one of the craziest people you’ll meet; he’s hilarious.”

And, Checketts said, “he’s also huge; he’s like 6’5,” which explains the frequent jokes on the show about Shelton’s height.

Following her blind audition, the judges commented on why they didn’t push their buzzers and encouraged Checketts that she would go far in the competition with Shelton.

Hearing the judges speak to her was also a surreal moment.

“Kelly said ‘Kendra’ and I was like ‘What? Kelly Clarkson is saying my name right now!’” Checketts said.

That was a powerful moment for both Checketts and her family.

“My dad went through four brain surgeries and was in the hospital for a year. The only thing that could get me through was going down to the lobby and playing piano,” Checketts said. “I needed some sort of outlet to take my mind off of wanting to cry, so I would write songs.”

Even now, after teaching herself how to sing using YouTube and learning to play the piano by ear, her father’s injury still pushes Checketts to express her emotions in the only way she knows how — through music. Feeling her parents’ constant support and see their reactions to her audition makes Checketts appreciate everything they’ve done for her to achieve her dream.

Though “The Voice” was filmed in October and is currently airing, Checketts and other contestants have had to remain silent about how far they make it into the competition. While Checketts is unsure of what will happen during the live rounds of the show, where voting is open to the public, she is confident about the new music she is currently working on.

“After the show is over, I’m going to be releasing my first album, which is going to be really awesome,” Checketts said.

Meanwhile, Checketts wants to grow her fan base after gaining more than 4,000 Instagram followers since her blind audition aired.

She also was interviewed on Star 94.1 and performed at the TPHS pep rally.

Seeing all the faces of students and teachers instead of sitting in the bleachers was strange, like she had missed a week of school and was returning on a day that happened to have a pep rally.

“It’s always great when you see a graduate come in,” Principal Rob Coppo said. “I think it was surprising to see someone sing on that level and to have that as part of our rally. It was just a cool moment.”

When she reflects on her blind audition and watching her family, especially her father, jump for joy, Checketts thanks them for being such a strong support system.

She also appreciates the memes of her mom’s scream being compared to a goat’s and Adam Levine looking over at her dad whooping with joy before proceeding to compliment her vocals.

“I did not hear them at all while I was singing because I kind of just tuned everything out,” Checketts said. “But looking back, it was the funniest thing.”

by Colette Chiang

Kelly said ‘Kendra’ and I was like ‘What? Kelly Clarkson is saying my name right now!’

Checketts’ Blind Audition

ART BY ESTHER CHOI

feature

A12 the falconer

march 22, 2019

Despite being often called a country of immigrants, immigration and the legislation surrounding it remains a controversial topic in the U.S. Feature explores how the immigration system at the southern border can facilitate a multitude of experiences, all different.

undocumented people live in the U.S., or 3.3 percent of the total population.

of the farming industry is comprised of illegal immigrants, as compared to the 4.8 percent of the general workforce .

of unauthorized immigrants are Mexican,

“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists … they should have never been in our country.” So says our president, Donald Trump, about immigrants entering the U.S. from Mexico illegally.

But for Carla and Maria*, undocumented immigrant sisters, the only thing they brought with them when they were smuggled in a car across the border was hope for a better future.

“My dad wanted us to have a better lifestyle, since [life] over [in Mexico] is not the best, and also for us to have a good education,” Maria said.

Though she doesn’t clearly remember crossing the border because she was only six, Maria was the second person from her family to do so, with her dad having crossed a year prior.

“My family covered [Carla and I] with blankets so the agents wouldn’t see us,” Maria said. “We went separately; it was me first. I had to go with a woman and pretend I was her daughter. I was crying when I reached the border, but I was able to cross.”

Maria’s sister, who crossed a few months later, was only three and had to “be injected with something to fall asleep.” After her sister came, her mother, was the final member of their family to cross into the U.S. Like most immigrants who enter the country without legal permission, their family did not come to the U.S. by jumping a border wall or trekking across the desert. They are part of the majority of immigrants that entered the U.S. normally.

“What people don’t realize is that illegal immigrants are not just people who come through the wall,” San Diego immigration lawyer Jacob Sapochnick said. “They come with Visas and overstay.”

But, since Trump took office, there has been a 13 percent decline in Visas granted to immigrants, according to Politico.

Consequently, that decline has led many to view crossing the border illegally as an attractive alternative to waiting in line to enter legally.

“One of the inequities of our system is that we basically do the same thing in terms of administrative processing whether you come through the port of entry or if you cross illegally,” William Rogers, a Supervisory Border Patrol agent in Imperial Beach, said. “What people have found is that in some cases, they can actually be released out into society more quickly if they enter illegally and get arrested by the Border Patrol [versus waiting at a port of entry].”

But Rogers recommends against this, urging people to wait their turns.

“You’ve made a long journey, and you’re literally at the front door,” Rogers said. “You should just wait. That’s what we expect — that you will come in the front door, you will tell us what we need to do to help you and then you’ll be on your way. It takes about two hours per person, so the thing we try to stress is that it takes time.”

While Rogers sympathizes with the situations of immigrants hoping to enter the U.S., he still stands by the law. Specifically, the Immigration and Nationality Act requires that any person, citizen or not, can only enter the U.S. through a port of entry. “[Border patrols agents] are not heartless; I know [immigrants seeking to cross the border] probably have terrible lives, and that is really, really awful,” Rogers said. “However, nobody has a right to just enter the United States anywhere they want. There’s no question about that.”

For those who do make it into the U.S. illegally, they face a barrage of challenges.

“There’s a constant fear. A few years ago, two of our cousins got caught and were sadly deported,” Maria said. “They had a family here as well, but they had to leave.”

Since coming to the U.S., Maria has been forced to face the fear of being caught in addition to the responsibility of caring for her two siblings and being a high schooler due to the fact that her parents work multiple jobs and are gone all day.

“It’s hard since we don’t know the language,” Maria said. “My parents don’t know English, so if I didn’t understand anything, I would have to teach it to myself.”

Maria has also had to choose between taking care of her family and having a social life.

“Who’s going to be taking care of [my siblings]? And translating and paperwork. I have to do taxes [for my family],” Maria said. “I haven’t really gone out or had time for myself.”

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Even those who come to the U.S. legally are afraid that their legal status will be revoked somehow.

“We have people who are green card holders, and they come to [my office] and say, ‘Should I become a citizen? Because I’m afraid of my green card being revoked,’ and I’m like, ‘Why are you afraid? You haven’t done anything wrong,’” Sapochnick said. “They’re just worried because they don’t know what to believe anymore [under the Trump administration].”

Although the Trump administration has had fewer deportations than Obama’s, the pattern of who is being deported among undocumented immigrants has become inconsistent.

“When [immigrants entering the country illegally] were reported under Obama, there was a pattern,” Sapochnick said. “Either you had to be a criminal or be this and this. Now, here under this administration, we just feel that there’s no consistency, so there are much more denials [of stay in the U.S.]” According to Sapochnick, before the Trump administration, ICE typically would not respond to reports of illegal immigrants. That has changed in the past few years.

“When [people] call [about an immigrant], ICE is going to act on it now, as opposed to before. I think that the main difference is that people always threaten to say, ‘I’m going to call on you if you don’t do this,’ but now ICE is more actively pursuing those leads,” Sapochnick said.

With arrests

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of unauthorized immigrants have been in the U.S. for more than a decade.

of the U.S. prison population is undocumented.

through phone calls to ICE, Hispanics who have entered the country without legal permission have had to lay low, especially in school environments.

“Even if [students who have immigrated illegally] are leaders and they want to take leadership positions, they will probably want to lay low. That’s kind of how it’s progressed because they want to blend into everyone. They don’t want to stand out and attract attention to themselves,” AVID and math teacher Rosa Velasquez said.

The need for the students to stay wary at school, as well as the offensive jokes about immigrants in the country illegally, heard by both Chelsea and Velasquez, can place illegal immigrants in an uncomfortable environment.

“I have a student that was born here, but she has a darker complexion and she’s taking AP classes,” Velasquez said. “She’s heard comments, and while they might not be directed to her, it’s like ‘Oh, now you’re worried about your family’ or ‘You might get deported.’ It’s difficult, and it’s not just my undocumented students that I hear that from.”

Insensitive statements often stem from the misconceptions many have about immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally.

Student Casey Davidson* believes that “In the U.S., [illegal immigrants] took our jobs and although they are paying some taxes, they are still mooching off of a lot of Americans by taking health care benefits.”

But in reality, “undocumented immigrants are not eligible for any welfare benefits,” according to SDSU Economic Professor Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes.

“About 60 percent of [undocumented immigrants] pay income taxes. They provide a fake social security number and those contributions go to the federal government.”

Social security numbers are available for purchase through black markets, and, according to Sapochnick, employers seldom check if they are real.

“I do most of the taxes, and we don’t have a social security number, but we get a special pin number that we can use,” Maria said.

Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are also unlikely to go to the emergency room among other things because “they don’t want to be exposed to anything that looks semi-official,” according to Amuedo-Dorantes.

Another misconception, according to Amuedo-Dorantes, is the impact immigrants here illegally have on the economy. Rather than taking jobs from American citizens, they take on labor-intensive jobs that need to be filled.

“If anything, what people have found is that [those immigrants] complement natives because the undocumented do very bottom-level jobs, allowing the natives to work in higher positions,” Amuedo-Dorantes said.

According to TIME Magazine, immigrants in the country illegally aren’t actually workers competing for the same jobs. Instead, cheap labor makes businesses like restaurants possible and also helps Americans by “boosting wages and lowering prices.”

Working low-wage jobs, though it bolsters the economy and various industries, can be tough on the families of those immigrants.

Though Maria’s parents work several jobs, they still rely on the school to “help with free lunches” or to lower prices of certain services.

The college application process has shown Maria that she doesn’t qualify for scholarships because she lacks a social security number. Regardless, for Maria, it will be a way to explore the U.S. and experience a different way of life.

“We’re just trying to find a better future for ourselves,” Maria said. “But I want to go somewhere far [for college] because I want to try something new.”

by Colette Chiang and Bea De Oliveira *Names changed to protect identity Information provided by the Pew Research Center and Government Accountability Office

immigrants as of now have temporary protected status.

of illegal immigrants live in California, Texas, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey.

art by farhan hossain/falconer

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Senior Maxine Sy Chu talks about @quokkaflocka, and how she has used

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her Instagram meme account, it to promote feel-good content.

After Maxine Sy Chu (12) selects her next Instagram post from her camera roll and composes a thoughtful caption, she taps the blue “Share” button in the upper right corner of her phone screen and watches as the likes begin to flood in.

And flood in they do. When the Falconer went to press, Sy Chu’s Instagram account, @quokkaflocka, had over 414,000 followers, and her posts can receive up to a million likes. While both of those numbers may seem astronomical for anyone who isn’t a celebrity, her current number of followers is actually not as high as it once was.

“I’ve actually been losing followers over the past few months,” Sy Chu said, “I used to have [440,000] something and now I’m at like 415,000.”

But Sy Chu isn’t too worried about the decline. Instead, she spends more of time focusing on analytics made available

by Instagram; one of those analytics tools measures the reach of her posts or the number of individual accounts that have viewed a certain picture or video. Some of Sy Chu’s posts have reached four million views.

Mindful of the many people around the world who see her pictures and words, Sy Chu wants her content to be “good and to [make] some sort of impact.”

“When you have influence, you have to be careful; that’s what I’ve noticed,” Sy Chu said. “You can’t be so outright, and you choose what kind of things you advocate for.”

One of the things Sy Chu advocates for is mental health awareness, a topic she focuses on more in her posts than she does with certain “polarized issues,” despite their significance.

“I know that there’s a lot of controversy, and it’s important to address [those] things. And it’s not that I’m staying quiet, I [just] prefer to have more focus on inclusivity and making sure that people feel okay,” Sy Chu said.

As part of her concentration on mental health, Sy Chu is particular about posting a certain type of feel-good content.

“I like being wholesome,” Sy Chu said. “It’s really important for me that whenever I see something motivational, like even aggressively motivating, I feel like that’s important for me to share.”

Sy Chu is also less keen about the frequency with which she posts.

“I make sure to try to post at least once a day. Sometimes I do more, sometimes I don’t. I used to be really [strict] about it, but now not so much,” Sy Chu said.

Despite the varying amount of time she spends daily as @quokkaflocka, Sy Chu still considers running it one of the greatest priorities of her life, especially because of the many hours of effort she has poured into it since its creation.

“I’ve made my community what it is … I’ve been single-handedly running the account for a long time,” Sy Chu said. “So I feel it’s my responsibility to continue what I’m doing.”

Sy Chu attributes part of her growth to the growth of her friend Tim’s popular account, @3.1415926535897932384626433832 (the handle is made up of the digits in pi), which is one of the accounts in her community.

“He does a thing where he follows certain accounts … and [posts] or [features] something that [they] posted, or he [comments] or something,” Sy Chu said.

Getting closer to her online community is Sy Chu’s favorite aspect of running the account.

“There’s this community of people who genuinely care, and I don’t know them, but I still feel like I’m connected to them,” Sy Chu said.

While few members of her online community know Sy Chu’s identity, the same does not hold true for members of her actual community, where it’s well known that she’s the owner of @quokkaflocka.

“I’m not secretive about it anymore,” Sy Chu said.

People find out through other people … so I don’t know who knows at this point.”

But, Sy Chu’s concern is not revealing her identity; it is making sure her content has a positive impact.

“I want to make people happy, make people’s days better and make people realize that they’re comfortable with themselves,” Sy Chu said.

As likes shower Sy Chu’s most recent post, she scrolls through her Explore Page, in search of her next meme.

by Alexei Serguienko

@quokkaflocka

photo by katheryn yoo/falconer

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Once condemned by Rev. Edmund Massey in the 18th century as “diabolical operations” — an attempt to rebel against God’s punishments upon man for his moral sins — vaccines have caused controversy and public criticism since their introduction.

But far from dying down, the antivaccination movement continues to raise concerns about medical practices today as the number of people in Western countries who refuse vaccination has risen in recent years, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. Also according to the NLM/NIH, a large part of the antivaccination movement includes parents who refuse to vaccinate children because of perceived fears. A “global trend of distrust in ... doctors and scientists who can interpret and explain data,” is another reason for the anti-vaccination movement, according to CNN. Vaccines contain a weakened strain of pathogens that train the immune system to build immunity to diseases through the secretion of antibodies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A key aspect of the anti-vaccination movement is the fear that vaccines cause autism and other chronic illnesses, sparked by a 1974 report, “Neurological complications of pertussis inoculation,” by M. Kulenkampff, J.S. Schwartzman and J. Wilson that lists 36 negative neurological reactions to the whole-cell pertussis vaccine.

But the CDC, the leading U.S. public health institute, charged with protecting public health, says there is no link between autism and vaccines. Also contrary to the “Green Our Vaccines” campaign, there is no connection between thimerosal, a mercurybased preservative that prevents bacteria growth in vaccines, and autism. Despite that, thimerisol was removed from U.S. childhood vaccines in 2001, according to the CDC. According to a 2018 report, by NLM/ NIH, the fear of vaccines and “myths against them” have been strengthened by the internet and its ability to spread ideas, right or wrong. The RAND Corporation, a non-profit global think tank, also said the effort to increase patient involvement in decisions about their own medical care, the “recent establishment of shared decisionmaking between patients and healthcare physicians,” has contributed to the increase in the number of “anti-vax” parents.

As the percentage of unvaccinated U.S. children under two years has quadrupled in the last 17 years, according to The Washington Post, concerns have emerged regarding health risks posed by the unvaccinated and undervaccinated to their greater communities — particularly in rural areas, where the number of unvaccinated children aged 19 months to 35 months is double that in urban areas.

Measles, which spreads easily to those not immune and previously considered eradicated in the U.S., has resurfaced because parents in some areas failed to vaccinate their children; in 2017, Minnesota was plagued by the state’s worst measles outbreak in decades, reportedly fueled by “anti vaccine-activists who targeted a community of Somali immigrants, spreading misinformation about the measles vaccine,” according to the Washington Post. Similarly, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee had to declare a state of emergency on Jan. 25 due to a measles outbreak in Washington state.

On Feb. 18 of this year, an unvaccinated French boy brought measles to Costa Rica for the first time in five years.

by Kahyun Koh

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photo from garrett seamans

STRIKE A POSE: Seamans shot Paul Jason Klein, the lead singer of LANY, for the cover shoot of Men’s Fashion Magazine (ABOVE). Seamans also filmed a behind-the-scenes video for the story.

first glance at Garrett Seamans’ (12) photo of his two friends, Lauren Cassiano (‘18) and Emmaline McKeag (‘18), laughing in office chairs in the middle of a road, is likely to make the scene seem like a staged photo shoot.

In reality, the moment was more spontaneous. On an ordinary March day last year, the three stumbled upon the chairs near a dumpster in the back alleys of Fletcher Cove Beach Park, and since Seamans’ camera is always in his pocket, he captured his friends racing down the hill. Photos and videos capturing normal, organic moments from everyday life are typical of Seamans, a self-taught photographer, videographer and musician who has gained a significant online following for all forms of his work.

Seaman grew interested in photography and videography in eighth grade, shooting videos of family vacations and of himself and his friends surfing. Since then, his photos have gained significant recognition, garnering him over 33,000 followers on his Instagram

account @phylm, a play on the word “film.” What started as a hobby has turned into a passion, and the subjects of his photos and videos have shifted as well.

“The way my photos go [now] are more documentary or photojournalism of my friends’ lives,” Seamans said. “I’d say my focus now is more on people or small stories or places; it’s nice to capture someone in their natural state.”

While he has been photographing and filming for about four years, Seaman is still developing his sense of style. But, he does recognize that his passion for photography stems from being able to Garrett Seamans (12) capture memories.

STUDENT “A lot of people would categorize [my photography style] as vintage because of the coloring of the images, but I try to stay away from that label because I feel like a lot of people are intentionally trying to shoot retro all the time,” Seamans said. “Maybe a better word that kind of encapsulates the same idea is ‘nostalgic.’”

According to Seamans, the type of photos and videos he has shot over the past year appears to be more stylistically consistent, allowing more people to recognize his work and expect a certain style. Seamans believes the consistency is behind the growth of his audience and what has allowed him to meet, photograph and film several well-known artists and influencers.

“I’ve shot Paul Klein, the singer of a band called LANY; I’ve shot Gus Dapperton, [who is] a musician as well [and] I’ve shot Emma Chamberlain,” Seamans said.

Chamberlain, who is arguably one of the most trending YouTubers a m o n g teenagers today, is

actually Seamans’ second cousin. After unexpectedly meeting her for the first time at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco in August 2018, Seamans contacted her, allowing them to meet in Los Angeles in September for a day-long shoot.

While Seamans is grateful for the increased following that has come with photographing several famous people, he also knows some of his new fans follow his account merely for the celebrities.

“It’s frustrating to feel like someone comes to you for someone else rather than for your own work,” Seamans said. “So I thank [those celebrities] for exposing me to a larger audience, but, at the same time, it was a little bit frustrating knowing that these people weren’t really there for my content — they were there for the connection.”

Overall, Seamans is grateful for his large audience and employs it to promote his other interests, like producing his own music.

Seamans’ music content is eclectic because he has a combination of tracks in a typical song by Seamans, and the subjects of his music have included his past relationships, the pressure to produce a certain quality of work after gaining an increased audience and, most recently, self-analysis.

“Over the last few months, I’ve been really focused on my introspection and trying to understand myself better and trying to explain that,” Seamans said. “I feel if I just talked about myself, maybe someone else would probably relate a little bit [to me]. It feels good to say stuff without having to be scared about talking about your feelings face to face with people, so [music is] definitely a cool outlet for selfexpression [for me].”

He is relatively new to producing, so his music does not fit into an exact genre, but more of “an alternative pop that’s kind of mixed with a little bit of lo-fi electronic.”

Although he plays many instruments, it was not until his sophomore year that he began producing original music.

“I was really into electronic music at the time because that’s what I was using in my surf videos, and so I was like, ‘Why not try to make it myself?’” Seamans said.

“So then I started producing a little bit more and just [put that music] out on SoundCloud. I was just messing around, and then in August 2018, I put my first song on Spotify.”

Seamans had about 100 listeners per month on his Soundcloud profile, until he released his song “No Tissues” which ballooned his listenership in two Spotify curated playlists, “All New Indie” and “Fresh Finds,” boosting the number of his listeners again.

“I owe a lot to the Spotify editors to get that jumpstart,” Seamans said. “I think right now I have 130,000 listeners per month [on Spotify], which is

I’d say my focus now is more on people or small stories or places; it’s nice to capture someone in their natural state.

ridiculous.”

As a musician, Seamans’ goes by Postcard Boy, a name that emerged from a line in the chorus of one of his unreleased songs and signifies his passion for photography.

After graduating from TPHS in June, Seamans will attend college to study film and continue producing music as a hobby. “[For] film, it’d be really cool just with bigger projects and connections,” Seamans said. “It also could be a more stable source of income in the long-term, just because you could have more freelance jobs lined up and you really control it more rather than music — people might just stop listening or may just not have time to anymore.”

After reaching the bottom of the hill, Cassiano and McKeag try and catch their breath while laughing, before pushing the chairs away.

What had been a momentary thrill had been captured and posted by Seamans, preserved on Instagram for posterity.

by Katie Flint and Angela Liu

photo from garrett seamans

JUST ROLL WITH IT: Lauren Cassiano (‘18) and Emmaline McKeag (‘18) ride office chairs down a hill near Fletcher Cove Beach Park (ABOVE). The two of them and Seamans found the abandoned chairs near a dumpster in an alley.

photo by anna jeong/falconer

tphsfalconer.com

Deciding to review The Cat Cafe a day after being diagnosed with a cat allergy was not one of my best decisions. But when I walked in on a Friday afternoon, I was too excited to care about a few hives.

Before I went, out of curiosity, I looked up cat cafes online. The results all depicted clean, well-put-together rooms filled with cats, where they served gourmet coffee and treats. Needless to say, after walking into The Cat Cafe and being greeted by the three employees and the delightful stench of wet animals, I was disappointed.

The previous Saturday, Falconer staffers Dhathry Doppalapudi (11), Alexei Serguienko (12) and I had gone to the cafe at around three in the afternoon, and they had told us that we would not be able to see the cats at all that day because it was too busy (even though there were only a few people in the room with the cats).

We weren’t expecting a wait on a Friday at 1 p.m., and weren’t too ecstatic about having to go on our second 40-minute trip to the cafe.

The moment my group entered the cafe, which was split into a small, coffee-serving room and a larger room for the cats, a staffer came up to us and reported that there would be a 20-minute wait to see the cats. To pass the time, we purchased food.

It was not difficult to decide what to order with a menu made up of nothing but “hot drinks,” “cold drinks” and “blended drinks,” with almost no options. The tiny fridge next to the cash register had a few parfaits, one sandwich and a few pastries made at Bread and Cie, a San Diego bakery.

We decided to order the Iced Chai ($4.00), Caramel Frappe

The bright setting of Lucho Libre Taco Shop (LEFT). The Large Champion Fries with Chicken, the Surfin’ California Burrito, the Birria Taco and the Queso Taco with Beef (RIGHT).

Lucha Libre Taco Shop warmly invited me in with its brightly lit exterior and mouthwatering smells; as soon as I walked in, I noticed the walls were popping with bright colors. Everything was painted pink and teal, giving the interior a cheerful ambiance.

As expected from the name “Lucha Libre Taco Shop,” the restaurant was decorated top to bottom with Mexican wrestling masks, innumerable pictures of famous wrestlers and various wrestling figurines hanging all over the walls. In the far back corner of the restaurant, there was a table placed in the center of a wrestling ring with a cartoon mural of a wrestling audience towering over it. The friendly, vibrant and odd interior of the restaurant made the experience all the more enjoyable and made me more excited to try the food.

With high hopes for the food, I ordered the Large Champion Fries with Chicken ($11.50), the Surfin’ California Burrito ($10.95), the Birria Taco ($5.50) and the Queso Taco with Beef ($5.50) which are best-selling items according to the cashier.

Any order at Lucha Libre Taco Shop comes with a complimentary refillable bowl of corn chips and access to a salsa bar with pickled vegetables as well as a variety of salsas and sauces to choose from.

As I was waiting for my food to come out, my name was called out over the speakers, and I noticed that the cashier was using the kind of microphones that hung

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($5.25), Cheese Danish ($3.00) and Cranberry Scone ($3.00) — which covered the six dollar entry fee to see the cats.

Sitting outside waiting to be called in, we devoured our treats.

The Caramel Frappe and Iced Chai were well made, but extremely sweet. The chai tasted as though the barista had poured a cup of chai syrup in it and watered it down with a few tablespoons of milk. The Caramel Frappe lived up to the “frappe” aspect and was wellblended, with a powerful caramel flavor. When it came to the food, the cranberry scone was delicious; it was not too sweet and not too bland, and filled with dried cranberries. The cheese danish, on the other hand, was less than pleasant. It was very chewy and hard to bite into, with a filling that I don’t know I could even consider cheese. I can’t blame The Cat Cafe for the food, (which was strangely poor quality coming from Bread and Cie), but the small selection of beverages they did make pleasantly surprised me.

After what seemed like forever, we were called into the cafe to see the cats. An employee greeted us at the

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door with her laptop and detailed the rules: don’t pick up the cats, no flash photography, use a quiet voice, and any phone calls must be taken outside. The room was pretty small with a few tacky decorations and about five cats lying around either sleeping or walking.

Even though the cats were cute, it was hard to get over the room’s unsanitary conditions. It was very entertaining to pet and play with the cats, but the ones that were walking around climbed onto the tables and put their mouths (and other body parts) all over people’s food and drinks.

Additionally, the cats were not too well-behaved. For example, Doppalapudi was bitten by a cat when she stood too close to it. The cat showed no warning signs beforehand and, when it bit her, the one staff member in the room did nothing about it but continued to work on her laptop. We left soon after that, with an experience comprised of two 40-minute drives, a 20-minute wait and 20 minutes of actually interacting with the cats.

Overall, my experiences at the Cat Cafe were underwhelming, to say the least. If you want to simply see cats in a relaxed environment, it’s a good option, but be prepared to go and purchase food elsewhere. For people with cat allergies, I can also attest to the fact that getting hives as a result of visiting the understaffed and unsanitary cafe is not worth it. There are better ways to spend your time.

by Bea de Oliveira

photos by alexei serguienko/falconer

Part of The Cat Cafe’s environment, complete with playgrounds and scratching posts for cats (LEFT). The Iced Chai, Caramel Frappe, Cheese Danish and Cranberry Scone (RIGHT).

my burrito. Next, I felt the soft snap of perfectly grilled shrimp and the steak was still hot, juicy and tender. The secret chipotle sauce was a combination of sweet, spicy and salty and also added to the creaminess of the dish. The burrito was near perfect in terms of flavor and texture, and I didn’t move onto the next dish until I’d devoured the entire burrito.

Satisfied with the dishes I’d tried so far, I moved on to the photos by david vapnek/falconer Beef Queso Taco. The taco had a pile of steak, a couple avocado from the ceiling that are commonly used by wrestling slices and a generous amount of announcers. cheese sauce, and was wrapped with two cheesy corn Amused by the interesting theme of the restaurant, tortillas. The tortilla didn’t get soggy at all and the corn I started with the Large Champion Fries. The dish had flavor was clear in each bite. My only concern was that a generous amount of guacamole, beans, pico de gallo, there was no acidic component to counteract the greasy sour cream, cheese and chicken on a heaping pile of dish. The steak, cheese sauce and avocado were a bit freshly fried fries. I expected the toppings to overpower greasy, but the various salsas helped cut the greasiness the dish but each ingredient complemented each other. of the dish.

The greasy components of the dish were balanced out by Lastly, I moved on to the Birria Taco. The worker the acidic pico de gallo. The fries were miraculously not explained to me that birria is a spicy Mexican stew and as soggy as I expected and had a nice crunchy exterior that the kind served at this restaurant was made with and a very pillowy center. After taking a couple bites of beef. The Birria Taco was also wrapped with two corn the fries, I moved on to the burrito. tortillas, a relief, as it ensured that the taco wouldn’t fall I’ve had my fair share of California burritos over the apart as it overflowed with salsa and stewed beef. The years I’ve been in California but the Surfin’ California meat was tender and spicy and the salsa had just the Burrito has to be one of the best I’ve ever had. The right amount of spice and acidity which was a great way burrito contained grilled steak, shrimp, fries, pico de to conclude my otherwise heavy, greasy and delicious gallo, cheese, avocado slices and the restaurant’s secret meal. chipotle sauce. Similar to the fries, each element of Lucha Libre Taco Shop’s exceptional quality of food the dish was well-balanced and every ingredient was and unique theme and ambiance has definitely convinced equally represented. me to come here again with family and friends to share As my teeth sank into the burrito, I immediately the same delicious experience I had. noticed the crispy texture of the tortilla that wrapped

by Jeremy Chung

A18 the falconer

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march 22, 2019

The Black Box Tiffany Salatino (‘18) grew up watching “High School Musical,” so when she decided to audition for “Urinetown,” a TPHS musical in her sophomore year, she was afraid that the others trying out would channel their inner Sharpay Evans and look down on her.

“I was like, ‘They’re going to judge me,’” Salatino said. “They’re going to be like, ‘Why is she auditioning? She’s new, who is she?’”

Instead, Salatino, who is now studying education and theater at Point Loma Nazarene University, found a community that would come to mean “everything” to her.

“Everyone was really supportive,” Salatino said. “I felt really comfortable onstage, so I knew that I belonged there because it just felt so natural.”

TPPlayers, the TPHS theater company, operates out of a black box theater in the arts building next to the gym. Black box theaters are typically square with a flat floor and black walls; the TPHS black box seats 90. TPHS is the only high school in SDUHSD without a performing arts center or a proscenium theater — or, at least, it will be until April 26, when the brand new TPHS performing arts center, or PAC, will open. Funded by Proposition AA, a $449-million voter initiative passed in 2012 that is being used to make physical upgrades to the entire district, the PAC is the physical embodiment of the arts teachers’ decades-old wish list.

“Everything in that performing arts center, the 355-seat proscenium, is everything that I asked for,” Marinee Payne, director of the TPPlayers, said.

“There are elements in that performing arts center that are not anywhere else in any combination in any high school. It is a custom-designed building.”

For Payne, who has taught at TPHS for 27 years, the process of watching the PAC being constructed has been emotional.

“I feel that this is my baby, and I want to live in the house for next year.

I want to move into the house and then we’ll just see how things go,” Payne said regarding how much longer she will teach at TPHS. “I would not have retired before it was done.”

Moving to the PAC does not represent a complete restart for the TPPlayers, but is a continuation or “evolution” of the club, according to co-president Bennett Prag (12).

“I feel like we’ve pushed the limits of the black box as much we could. It will be a really cool opportunity to take what we did in there and adapt it to a bigger stage,” Prag said. “But the memories and experience from the black box will always be there.”

Salatino found the black box calming during her senior year when she was dealing with the college application process and AP testing.

“I would just walk in there and immediately would go to a different place,” Salatino said. “I know that sounds totally clichéd, but whenever I walked in there, my worries just went away.”

Payne felt an immediate connection to the building.

“The day I walked on this campus many, many years ago, as an artist in residence, I walked here, I stood in the middle of the quad, and I said, ‘I will be the theater teacher here at TPHS,’ because I felt at home here,” Payne said.

Sophomore TPPlayers representative Shannon Brownlee (12) Nola Fritz (10) said the close bond among VICE PRESIDENT those in the company is one she has not seen in years of doing theater in programs outside of school.

“As soon as you walk through those black box doors you are immediately immersed in building sets or designing costumes and acting out scenes,” Fritz said. “It is a really magical experience.”

Fritz believes that while the actors interact with each other as their characters, they are able to be themselves with the stage crew.

“When you are doing make up, you can interact with them in a way where you get to talk to them,” Fritz said. “‘Hey, how’s your day going? Are you excited for the show?’ You get their thoughts out. It’s really friendly that way and you kind of become each other’s therapists. You can tell each other any drama that’s going on in your life and escape from it here.”

Prag credits the non-judgemental culture among the TPPlayers to Payne, who is on a first-name basis with all the TPPlayers.

“It’s funny. You’ll see the people who go into their first play are always like, ‘Oh, Ms. Payne,’ but then eventually they fall in line with the rest of us,” Prag said.

Payne is characterized by her accessibility to her students.

“If I needed to talk to somebody or I just needed to be somewhere where I could feel comfortable and safe, all I would have to do is go in there and talk to Marinee,” Salatino said. “I could tell her everything that was going on. You didn’t have to feel afraid of showing emotion.”

The TPPlayers produce two plays and a musical each year, with daily after school rehearsals that can run up to an hour and a half. Occasionally, weekends are also dedicated to a show.

“Sometimes [we come on the weekends] to build sets and paint, if we have costumes to try on,” Fritz said. “Marinee is always here.”

Payne plans each production with a crew of student directors, whom she sees as her equals in the process.

“Everything here at TP is student-run,” Vice President Shannon Brownlee (12) said. “We don’t hire any people to run lights or sound or anything for us.

All the costumes are made by students or chosen by students. All the plays, we decide on them as a group of students. We put on the productions, we have a student director, we have students do lighting, sound, all of that kind of stuff.”

Payne said she is motivated by the “sense of accomplishment” the students get from their productions. In fact, she does not sit in the audience during plays, opting to stay out of sight in the tech booth.

“It’s their work and they should be recognized for what they do and what they give to this school, and they are,” Payne said.

Payne “absolutely” believes the black box functions as a second home.

“I think theater has saved people,” Payne said. “We create a family here, we create fellowships here, and sisters and brotherhood that stretch beyond our years here at TPHS.” That family is built on Payne, whom many members of the TPPlayers describe as a maternal figure.

“She’s honestly become kind of a grandmother to a lot of us,” Brownlee said. “She cares so much about our other interests and how our lives are going … it’s completely just her own voluntary actions. It’s not something that she’s doing to get paid or to get anything out of it.”

That sense of camaraderie is visible on the walls of the dressing room.

“Usually, we would sign [the dressing room wall] after our last show in our senior year, but sometimes we would save a spot for the entire cast and just write little messages,” Salatino said. “That was honestly so bittersweet. It was crazy because there are some messages on the wall that are from the ‘90s and you think about how many people have passed through the box.”

While they are excited to move into the PAC, aspects of the TP Players history are tied to the black box.

“We’re definitely trying to figure out a way to bring bits and pieces of the black box into the new theater,” Brownlee said. “It has such a rich history, and so many people have come through there. People that are 40 years old now and have their own kids, their signatures are on those walls.”

The history of building, however, is more welcoming than intimidating. “[On rainy days] we would all hang out in the lobby and talk to each other, and she’d be sewing some costumes and hanging out in her office,” Salatino said. “It felt like walking home and hanging out at home.”

Salatino returned to the black box from college to watch “Into the Woods” last month.

“It was really fun to see my friends perform on stage, and I wanted to jump in there with them, but it was their time to shine,” Salatino said. “It was definitely weird … because [when I was in the] shows, I never really got to watch the shows happen.”

Fritz was happy to see Salatino watch her performance.

“I passed by the building and I’m like, ‘Is that Tiffany?’ and I ran back and gave her a big hug,” Fritz said. “We’re so bonded in that way that when you don’t see them for days at a time it feels like years.”

Prag agrees that the underclassmen and upperclassmen have a strong relationship and is still in contact with those he knew as an underclassmen on Snapchat and Facebook.

“While they were here it was kind of like a peer mentor,” Prag said. “A few of them from last year helped me with starting the college application process and how to look for colleges, and what the best criteria are for when you are looking.”

TPPlayers help each other out with even smaller things, like math homework.

“I do remember having a bit of a struggle [with math], and I said to my fellow sophomore friend ‘Hey, can you help me with this’ because I knew she was in Honors [math],” Fritz said. “Not even five minutes after asking the question my friend Bennett, my friend Noah and all of these people came over my shoulder. They’re super helpful in that way.”

Salatino makes sure to maintain the connections she made in theater when she comes home for break.

“I’ve made these really good sugar cookies that I would bring to the banquets and to our last performances. Everyone is like, ‘Oh my gosh, bring your cookies,’” Salatino said. “So, I’ll bring those and then say hi to everyone.

I’m still really close to everyone.”

Principal Rob Coppo, who was the president of the TPPlayers when he attended TPHS, credits theater with helping him get into college.

“The leadership lessons I learned through TPPlayers back in the day have really been a guiding force for what I do now,” Coppo said. “It absolutely, profoundly changed my life.”

When Coppo was a student at TPHS, the TPPlayers performed in what is now the lecture hall, as the black box was then a metal shop.

“To have a place for the performing arts — and really the same is true for our visual arts, we’re looking at now expanding and trying to get a dedicated

Everything here at TP is student run. We don’t hire any people to runlights or sound or anything forus.

photo by david vapnek/falconer

entertainment

tphsfalconer.com

studio space for our visual artists — is an essential part, is a critical piece of the success of the school,” Coppo said.

According to SDUHSD school board Area 4 trustee Joyce Dalessandro, the district began planning Proposition AA in 2010. Dalessandro originally ran for school board to create high school music programs and to build a PAC at TPHS. “Year in and year out, I would do my lobbying, but year in and year out we didn’t have the money to build the performing arts building,” Dalessandro said over email. “Several parent groups tried to raise enough money to build it but were never successful enough to accomplish it.”

Dalessandro said TPHS was the last school in the district to build a PAC because other schools found funding from outside sources.

“Each of the other schools’ PACs were built with big boosts from state grant money,” Dalessandro said. “San Dieguito Academy’s [was built] with huge donations from outside sources.”

According to Coppo, Dalessandro “helped lead the fight” to get the PAC funding. Proposition AA passed the SDUHSD school board with a 4-1 vote; former board member John Salazar was the lone dissenter.

“Funding the arts is of the utmost importance for so many reasons,” Dalessandro said. “Having the opportunity ... for self-expression through music, drama, drawing, painting, sculpting, dance, writing, etc., is a cornerstone of a well-rounded education.”

While the PAC excites Brownlee and Prag, they and the other seniors will only be able to spend a limited amount of time in the new space.

“I try not to think about leaving [the black box] too much and thinking of it as growing,” Fritz said. “It’s almost like a sacred land, honestly, for actors.

We are all so deeply connected to this.”

Sophomore Fritz believes she has a responsibility to shape the culture and feel of the PAC. “It is less of a responsibility and more that I am excited to do it. It’s more like playing, which acting is,” Fritz said. “There’s more opportunities we can have.”

In addition to a proscenium theater, Payne requested that the new PAC also have a new black box theater, since the cost for getting the rights to plays is dependent on the number of seats available in the audience. In almost

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three decades at TPHS, Payne has never repeated a black box production, but she plans to repeat shows of 2018-19 productions in the PAC’s new 130-seat black box when it opens.

“Wherever you are doing a play in [the black box], you are five feet away from the audience, so it creates a really intimate feel with any of the plays,” Prag said. “You can feel like you are right there with the audience.”

The draw of the black box, however, has had some competition. According to Payne, Canyon Crest Academy’s Envision program and newer facilities has given it the perception of being the “arts” school.

“Let’s face it, people like new things,” Payne said. “I’m hoping that [our] performing arts center will draw people here.”

Payne is working with music director Amy Gelb to invite former music and theater students working in the entertainment industry to a gala in the PAC once it opens, and to give workshops and talks.

“We have an alumni page that we’ve set up so that our students know what’s going on with the performing arts center,” Payne said. “The two of us are very serious about getting a gala going so that we can get some of our students who are now professionals to come back in and share things with an audience.”

Salatino expects to attend the alumni gala and understands that students interested in pursuing the arts as a profession face pushback.

“There’s such a stigma,” Salatino said. “I’m not going to name any names, but I’ve even had some teachers and adults say, ‘Really, you’re going to study theater? Are you sure there isn’t anything better you can do?’ And I’m like, ‘Honestly, no. I think that’s what I need to do, and if I’m being supported by my peers and parents especially, then why not go for it?’”

While the existing black box does not allow any food to be eaten inside, the building will be transformed into a brand new kitchen for the TPHS nutrition services. Payne, however, sees “nothing ironic” about that. “[The black box] was a metal shop before,” Payne said. “It’s moving on to its next life.”

Her initial fears about acting now gone, Salatino is now focused on becoming a teacher. She can see herself, however, much like Sharpay Evans, returning to high school again — as a theater teacher.

by Farhan Hossain and Kevin Song

11.7%

51.1%

NO

YES

DOES

63.3%

NO OPINION

TP

of TPHS students are looking forward to the opening of the new performing arts center

EED

W E AN

mit Ad ne o

mit Ad ne o

mit Ad ne o

72.2%

mit Ad e on

no

HS N

PAC ?

37.2%

27.8%

yes

Have you ever attended a play in the Black Box? Information provided by informal poll of the Falconer

Brandon Raimo

STAFF WRITER

Daniel Kim and Kevin Song

SPORTS EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER Falcon baseball (5-4-1) fell to Sage Creek High School (8-2) at home by a score of 1-0 on March 19.

“We’re losing too many close games like this one, when we had opportunities to win. Teams that we should beat, we aren’t beating,” assistant head coach Rick Ray said. “We don’t have that dominance on the mound that we had last year, and last year things went really well. These games went our way, but this year they’re just going the other way. This is baseball, it just happens.”

In the first inning, the Falcons played impressive defense, while starter Carson Williams (10) struck out two and coaxed a fly ball for the third out. In the bottom of the inning, the Falcons got on base with a single by centerfielder Mac Bingham (12).

That was followed by a Jack Johnston (10) photos by katheryn yoo/falconer fly out to left, then third baseman Kevin Sim (11) walked and Bingham stole second.

BATTER UP: Pitcher Carson Williams (12) throws a fast ball to the catcher under That brought up shortstop Max Power (12).

Bingham attempted a steal of third, but pressure with two strikes, three balls, two outs and two runners on first and second base was thrown out. With Power still at the (TOP). Max Power (21) prepares to swing at the pitch and take the lead for his team in plate, Sim stole second, but Power struck a lengthy, scoreless game, in which both teams displayed strong defenses. (BOTTOM) out to end the inning, scoreless heading into the top of the fourth. at the plate, though, and the Sage Creek “I thought I did all right. There were The fourth inning began immediately pitcher struck out the side. situations with runners in scoring position with a ground out from Sim to Matthew After a lead-off walk by Sage Creek in where I didn’t do my job, but overall it was Schlesener (12) at first. The rest of the the sixth, Williams struck the next man good,” Sim said.

Sage Creek order fell in quick succession, out and got a double play to end the top After a scoreless first half of the inning. Sim opened up the inning, TPHS immediately bottom half with a double to left field, forced three outs against but after the Sage Creek coach visited Sage Creek: a ground out the mound, the Falcon’s momentum was fielded by rightfielder broken, and they finished the inning with Nathan Smolinski (12), a Power getting tagged on a pitch dropped by fly ball caught by second the catcher, then ground outs by Smolinski baseman Johnston and and Schlesener. a strike out by pitcher In the top of the final inning Williams Williams.

Even Sage allowed a lead-off double to right followed Creek’s defense was Rick Ray by an error on a dropped fly ball by dominant, forcing a fly ASSISTANT HEAD COACH leftfielder Lucas Nelson (11), scoring the out and two ground outs runner from second and depositing the against the Falcons to end hitter at second base. Williams struck the second inning at 0-0. with a fly out to Bingham and a ground ball In the third inning, Williams continued up the middle to Williams, who tossed it to out the last two hitters to end the top half to pitch impressively with no base hits, Schlesener to end the top half of the inning. of the seventh. In the Falcon half of the then he helped his own cause with a double Sage Creek continued its strong defense in frame, Isaacman grounded out, Nelson got thrown out at first on a dropped ball by the in the bottom half of the frame.Bingham the bottom half, forcing three fly outs but catcher, and Williams grounded out to first was hit-by-a-pitch and both Williams and not before TPHS catcher Max Isaacman to end the game.

Bingham advanced on bunt by Johnston, (11) took first after he was hit by a pitch.

“I think I had a good game. I think I but Johnston got thrown out at first. With With the game still scoreless, Sage lost it a little bit in the last inning. I could men on second and third, Sim slugged a Creek’s lead-off hitter got to first on a have thrown more strikes, but I think I did double, but Williams got caught between ground-ball base hit, but the Falcons shut well,” Williams said. third and home and was tagged for the it down with a fly out to left and two ground TPHS plays La Costa Canyon High second out After a ground out by shortstop outs. The Falcons continued to struggle School (7-3) on Mar. 25 at LCC. Max Power (12), the game remained

We’re losing too many close games like this one, when we had opportunities to win.

The UEFA Champions League Round of 16 ended on Mar. 13, and with the matchups for the quarterfinals in place, all four matchups should prove to be intriguing and full of excitement.

In what will likely be the most exciting game, Spanish juggernaut Barcelona faces off against English side Manchester United. Barca features an extremely talented lineup, including Argentine winger Lionel Messi and Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez. But, they face a resilient Manchester United squad who upset French side PSG in the Round of 16 and have only lost two games since the appointment of manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær in mid-December. United is led by French midfielder Paul Pogba, who struggled under previous manager José Mourinho, but has flourished under Solskjær, scoring 11 and assisting on nine goals this season.

In another exciting contest, Dutch side Ajax faces reigning Serie A champions Juventus. Ajax shocked the football world with a stunning 4-1 upset of reigning champions Real Madrid in the Round of 16, thanks to an incredible performance from Serbian midfielder Dusan Tadic. Their next task is to defeat a team led by former Real Madrid striker Cristiano Ronaldo, the centerpiece of Los Blancos’ Champions League title run in 2018.

The Portuguese star scored a hat-trick to defeat Atlético Madrid in the Round of 16 and is looking to obtain his sixth Champions League trophy.

Manchester City, last year’s Premier League Champions and most likely this season’s as well, will face fellow English club Tottenham Hotspur, who feature two-time Premier League Golden Boot winner Harry Kane. But, City’s lineup is loaded with talent, such as Belgian midfielder Kevin de Bruyne, Argentine striker Sergio Agüero and German winger Leroy Sané. They showcased their loaded roster in a 7-0 victory over German club Schalke in the Round of 16. Tottenham’s team, outside of Harry Kane, sports solid players such as Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen, Korean forward Heung Min Son and English forward Dele Alli.

They were able to handle German side Borussia Dortmund in the Round of 16 but will have trouble dealing with City’s dangerous attack.

The most unevenly-matched game in the quarterfinals will occur when English side Liverpool faces Portuguese side Porto. Liverpool was able to make it to the Champions League Final last year with a potent attack led by Egyptian winger Mohamed Salah.

But, with Salah exiting the game with a dislocated shoulder and goalkeeper Loris Karius making two costly mistakes, the Reds lost 3-1 to Real Madrid. This year’s Liverpool squad features a new goalkeeper, Alisson Becker, who was signed from Italian side Roma in the offseason, as well as a few other additions, such as midfielders Fabinho and Naby Keïta. They also got rid of Karius because of his horrendous performance, sending him to Turkish club Beştikaş on a two-year loan deal.

Liverpool plays Porto and Tottenham plays Manchester City on Apr. 9, while Ajax plays Juventus and Barcelona plays Manchester United on Apr. 10.

All four games have the potential to be riveting, especially at this stage of such a major tournament.

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the falconer

Mason Kohn has been skating since he was nine. Now 18, Kohn has played hockey across the country in the hockey minor leagues. Oh, and he plays lacrosse for TPHS. Before every match, Mason Kohn (12) arrives at the rink at exactly 6 p.m. He first secures a hockey shin guard around his left leg. Then, Kohn skates on the ice with three hockey sticks and taps them twice against the ground before putting them away and warming up.

Kohn’s pre-game habits have helped him to focus and find peace, especially before matches.

Kohn started skating at age nine, which is later than the age at which most ice hockey players first pick up the sport.

“At first, it was really frustrating because skating is a really weird thing to get used to, and I was just mad that I sucked,” Kohn said.

“And it was more of like a ‘I really want to get better at this’ than it was like ‘I love this.’ So that kind of happened, and as I kept playing, it [became] more and more fun.”

At the age of 15, after playing in local junior hockey leagues, Kohn was contracted by the Boston Junior Bruins, a junior ice hockey organization from the United States Premier Hockey League, and relocated in Massachusetts for a year to participate in the BJB training program, which prepares players typically ranging from ages 16 to 21 to play professional or collegiate ice hockey.

In Boston, Kohn played in the National Collegiate Development Conference, a junior ice hockey league that also prepares players to play at the collegiate level. But Kohn did not feel challenged.

“There were no guys who were really getting drafted to the National Hockey League from that league [in Boston], and I think in Boston we got like 300 or 400 fans per game,” Kohn said.

When the North American Hockey League assigned Kohn to Corpus Christi, Texas from Boston in May 2018, he could immediately identify differences in the team atmosphere.

“There are higher expectations, and the coaches get paid more, and you get better equipment and a better environment and surroundings,” Kohn said. “It’s also much more competitive and much more high pressure than Boston was.”

At times, Kohn struggled with living up to the higher expectations at Boston. Teammates were replaced and traded often, giving way to performance-related stress.

“It was like [the players] were always competing just to stay on the team,” Kohn said. “You can be traded away anytime; the coach can send you home because you’re not playing well.”

But for Kohn, the pressure did not detract from his overall experience on the team.

“It sucked in some aspects, because you make friends and then they’re gone or you play a bad game and then you’re stressed that you’re going to get traded or sent home,” Kohn

photo by christy lam/falconer

said. “It was cool to be part of a professional environment like that, but it was really stressful.”

Corpus Christi is where Kohn played one of his most memorable games, which took place on the team’s annual Military Appreciation Night. At that game, the rink was filled with 10 to 12 thousand fans.

“It was nerve-racking, but it was mostly just fun, because it was so loud,” Kohn said. “[It was] such a cool experience.”

Kohn was also happy that his family came to that game.

“My family got to make it out there [to Texas] in October, and I scored in front of them, which was really fun because I didn’t score all the time — but I scored enough — and it was special to really do that with them.”

Another memorable occasion for Kohn was when he and his team played hockey to raise money for breast cancer.

“We had breast cancer nights where we had pink jerseys that would be auctioned off to the fans. That was pretty cool.”

When Kohn was not training from Monday to Thursday, he was playing games. During his time at Boston and Corpus Christi, practice sessions usually consisted of warmups, skill training, team coordination and lifting weights.

“It was a grind, but practice [would] officially start at 10 [in the morning] when our coach got out there, and then we would skate as a team until noon, Monday to Thursday …

We got off the ice [at 1 p.m.],” Kohn said.

After playing hockey at Corpus Christi for about a year, Kohn needed to make plans for his near future.

“I had to choose between finishing the season or committing to a college — like a Division One college — to go play and enter college as a 21-year-old freshman,” Kohn said.

“One of the things that’s kind of scary about [committing] is you lose control over how good of a college you go to. It’s more like who offers you the best deal, and I’m a pretty good student, so I didn’t want to go to a low-end college.”

When Tufts University approached Kohn with an offer to play ice hockey and lacrosse for them finish his senior year at TPHS, he jumped at the chance to commit. Now in San Diego, Kohn is enjoying the last stretch of high school before gearing up for college.

by Esther Choi

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Brandon Raimo

STAFF WRITER Girls Lacrosse (3-0) defeated the Cathedral Catholic High School Dons (1-2) on Mar. 13 at home with a score of 17-7.

“We were aggressive, we moved the ball well, we shot well. I think we had a good performance today, and I think we can continue that,” head coach Kaitlin Doucette said.

TPHS started out strong with a goal by Addison Gonzalez (12), followed by a goal less than two minutes later by Mia Kohn (11). But, the Dons were able to counter with two goals of their own. Action slowed after the hot start from both teams, with neither team scoring for the next five minutes despite some dangerous chances for the Falcons.

The Falcons eventually ended the drought with a goal from Kate Rothman (11) and Liz Trask (10). Gonzalez tacked on two more goals to complete her hat-trick and increase the lead to 6-2, but Cathedral responded with two goals of their own in the final minutes of the half, including one with 17 seconds left, decreasing TPHS’s lead to two at halftime.

“We definitely need to work on defending,” Doucette, who is currently in her third season of coaching varsity at TPHS, said. “We weren’t able to maintain a lead in the first half, and that could be a problem against a different team.”

Shortly after play resumed for the second half, Reese Loseke (9) scored two goals to bring TPHS’s advantage back up to four. The Falcons continued to build their lead, with goals from Kohn and Madeline Carlson (10) which increased their margin to 10-4, but the Dons refused to go away, scoring two goals in quick succession yet again to give themselves a chance at coming back.

CIF Champions Boys Soccer Boys Basketball

After conceding the previous two goals, the Falcons attacked relentlessly for the remainder of the game. Courtney Wayland (11) scored a quick goal, and Trask followed with another. Cathedral managed to build a counter-attack and score one more soon after, but they had no answer for the Falcons’ potent offense. Sofia Chase (10) capitalized for the Falcons to increase the lead to six, and Loseke scored a goal less than a minute later to complete a hattrick of her own. Kohn grabbed her third and fourth goals of the game to make it a nine-point lead, and Rothman added on one more with three minutes left to give the Falcons a 17-7 advantage.

After Rothman’s goal, the Falcons played the remainder of the game much more defensively, and they were able to keep the Dons at seven goals despite surrendering a few good scoring chances to Cathedral. The Dons started to force shots in the final stages of the game and managed to get three shots off in the last two minutes, but all three failed to hit the target and sailed out of bounds. As time expired, TPHS retained the 17-7 lead, their closest game to date, but their third consecutive double-digit margin of victory this season after an 18-7 win over Del Norte on Mar. 7 and a 17-1 drubbing of El Camino on Mar. 4.

“Mia was great, she scored four and also distributed well,” Doucette said. “But I think it was a great team win more than an individual performance, especially offensively.”

On Tuesday, Mar. 19 at home, the Falcons faced the Valor Christian Eagles (2-1) and won 16-11. TPHS were able to handle the Eagles easily, despite the game being their closest to date.

At home on Friday, Mar. 22, TPHS will play IMG Academy (3-5) at 4:30 p.m.

League Champions Boys Soccer Boys Basketball

Winter All-CIF Team Bryce Pope Michael Pope Ali Demirlap Denzel Zepeda Garrett Seamans Andy Hargreaves

Boys Basketball Boys Basketball Boys Soccer Boys Soccer Boys Soccer Boys Soccer Coach infographic by daniel kim

march 22, 2019

photos by anna jeong/falconer

LAX TO THE MAX: Megan Keel (12) avoids defenders and looks for an open teammate farther down the field in order to get the ball into the net (TOP). Madeleine Carlson (18) and Kate Rothman (23) look to get open to receive a pass y and launch an attack so they can grab each of their second goals of the game (ABOVE).

Opinion by Leo Silverman STAFF WRITER

Baseball is known to many as “America’s Pastime.” But is this beloved sport past its prime?

The sport was invented all the way back in 1839 by Abner Doubleday. Three decades later, Major League Baseball was invented, and quickly propelled baseball into every household across America.

Flash forward to today, and baseball is in a vastly different state. With the rise of other leagues like the National Football League, America’s pastime has slowly taken a backseat in the hearts of American sports fans.

To put this into perspective, the most watched World Series game happened in 1978 in a series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. The total viewership for that series came in at about 44 million. Since then, viewership has been decreasing. This past year’s series, for example, between the Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox, attracted a measly average of 14 million viewers, the fourth-lowest of all time. Back then there was a lot less to watch on TV, so it makes sense for there to be a slight drop in viewership in the modern age, but not a 30 million decrease in average viewership.

To make matters worse, attendance at ballparks is at an all-time low. Last year MLB average attendance dropped four percent to 28,000, the lowest in the last 15 years. Most suggested the drop was caused by an above-average number of “rebuilding” teams. That is a fair point, since last year there were eight teams with 95+ losses (Padres, Tigers, White Sox, Royals, Orioles, Rangers, Marlins and Reds). But, I expected teams like the Tigers to stay at league average due to their loyal fanbases.

Despite that, I understand why some people are adamantly opposed to baseball.

I, for one, hated baseball as a kid. The sport can be confusing; with so many different stats and rules, it took me months of watching games to truly understand the game. On top of that, it is vastly slower compared to basketball and football. The modern sports fan simply doesn’t have the patience to watch baseball.

Thankfully, the league has already adjusted the game to appeal to the modern sports fan. Over the years, games have sped up with fewer commercial breaks and a controlled amount of time to throw warm up pitches for relievers.

Luckily, a few deals in recent weeks will surely garner a resurgence in interest for the sport. Two of the best players in baseball, shortstop Manny Machado and outfielder Bryce Harper, became free agents. The four-month chaos of trying to figure out which teams they’d choose had the sports world’s attention. In the end, they ended up signing mind-boggling contracts, with Machado choosing the San Diego Padres for $300 million over 10 years, while Harper signed a 13 year, $325 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. To top those, Mike Trout recently took the title of biggest sports contract in North American sports history with his 12-year extension for $430 million with the Los Angeles Angels. Those teams sold out their opening days for the 2019 season due to these players, leaving no doubt in my mind they’ll bring new interest to these ball clubs.

So, is baseball a dying sport? For all I know, last year could’ve just been a down year. Despite this, I am confident that MLB, its players and its loyal fans will find a way to keep America’s Pastime as popular as ever for years to come.

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Ethan Graubart varsity lacrosse march 12, 8:02:35 pm camera: canon eos rebel t6 lens: canon EF-S 18-55 mm iso: 6400 exp: 1/500 f/stop: f/5.6

Photo by Katheryn Yoo

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Is community service really worth it?

03-10-19 at 3:04 A.M. in Is community service ...

Registered User 293180 Posts

Eighth grader here! I just had my first meeting with my college counselor and she told me that in order to stand out to colleges, I should start doing community service. But I have a sneaking suspicion that helping others might actually be detrimental to my application.

It just seems like everyone is doing it these days, and I’ve never been one to hop on to the latest fads. My mom said that not doing it will separate me from the herd, and I think she’s right. P.S. I already participate in my local delegation of Young Anti-Vaxxers. Apparently this is considered community engagement, so I should be all good.

Replies to Is community service ... almostvaledictorian 03-10-19 at 3:05 A.M. Registered User @squarehead The short answer is: no. It’s not worth it. I spent 3 months 22560 Posts volunteering at a center for canine dyslexia. You have no idea of the physical toll this took on me. I went for a total of 100 hours (it was really only 2, but they said I could multiply it by 50 because of my advocacy efforts). I even made sure to pick a cause that nobody else was aware of, and still the admissions officers at UC Bakersfield didn’t see it as “alternative” enough to grant me an acceptance. Don’t waste your time.

oliviajade Registered User 1 Post

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06-20-19 at 4:56 P.M. @squarehead Honestly, don’t sweat community service. Every time I made a vlog last year, I put down 2 hours of community service on my Common App (well I didn’t actually write it down, it’s pretty difficult to fill out, but you catch my drift). Getting into college is a lot easier than people on here make it out to be. The hardest part is when you have to take that photo to send to the school. Something about the ERG machine just made me look really bad and I wasn’t vibing with it, I don’t know about you guys. Just do you in high school, your parents will figure it all out for you, I promise.

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