The Oracle Late March 2019

The friendship of Travis and Sanchez.

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Palo Alto Unified School District Henry M. Gunn High School 780 Arastradero Rd Palo Alto, CA 94306

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PG. 7 FEATURES

THEORACLE Henry M. Gunn High School

http://gunnoracle.com/

Friday, March 29, 2019 Volume 56, Issue 7

780 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94306

Gunn Confessions online page serves as outlet for student struggles Grace Williams Changing the Narrative Editor

Mina Kim

Stanford housing expansion proposal to increase PAUSD student enrollment without new funding Vinay Ranganathan and Joshua Yang Reporter and Forum Editor In light of the plans submitted by Stanford University to expand housing units and campus facilities, the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) is set to face a sharp increase in student enrollment without any expectation of increased funding from housing tax revenue. According to the General Use Permit (GUP) application submitted in 2018 to the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors detailing Stanford’s expansion plans, the university would add 2.275 million square feet of housing and facilities to the existing campus by 2035.

With this expansion would come 2,172 new staff and faculty housing units serving as homes for hundreds of families with school-age children attending PAUSD. However, as Stanford’s proposed housing units would be considered educational facilities, they would be exempt from all property taxes, the main source of funding for PAUSD. PAUSD administration and representatives from the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors are currently working to provide a mitigation plan for the expansion, opening negotiations to find a source of funding for the added students.

Without a mitigation plan, all students would be affected, according to PAUSD Superintendent Dr. Donald Austin. “Without mitigation, we would have more students without increasing funding,” he said. “Without an increase in funding, we would be challenged to maintain our class size ratios, number of programs [we offer] and depth of [such] programs.”

PAUSD Board Member Todd Collins agreed, also citing class size as a factor likely affected. “If one extra kid comes to Gunn, we don’t change the number of people we hired; nothing else changes,” he said. “But if you add 500 kids, then a lot of things have to change, because if the schools are full you’re going to eventually have to build a new school for them, you’re going to have to hire new teachers for their classes and you’re going to have to have additional administrators to manage all that. Ultimately, you’re going to have to expand your

district office staff, so you’re going to have everything scaling up.”

Indeed, Stanford’s GUP plan currently already entails the construction of a new PAUSD campus. According to an online page published by the district, an estimated influx of 275 new students living along the Sand Hill Road corridor would warrant the construction of a new elementary school closer to the homes of these added students.

Austin has put forth a resolution attempting to address the funding issues, especially those posed by the creation of a new school, which he estimated would cost $40 million. “There are three pieces to our resolution,” he said. “Number one is we’d like to preserve our community schools. [Stanford’s] proposed location has no existing school near it yet, so we’d like a piece of land from Stanford [to build the elementary school]. Number two, we would like some money towards the creation of [this] school. Third, we would like some money going with the students that are generated through the General Use Permit.”

Both Austin and Collins strongly advocated for varying annual sums to be paid to PAUSD instead of a one-time lump sum, with the amount paid each year calculated based on the annual number of students entering PAUSD from Stanford’s housing units. “We really want this flexible funding formula that accommodates the range of outcomes that could happen and sustains [PAUSD] over time so that kids will benefit now and in the future,” Collins said.

Collins estimated an annual cost of $5.3 million to PAUSD as a result of the expansion, but cautioned against expecting a set number of students. “I’d say [estimating 275 new students] is now in the ditch,” he said. “I don’t think anybody can credibly say it’ll generate as few as 275.”

The reason behind the lack of a stable estimate is due to ever-changing negotiation conditions. Earlier this month, the Board strongly advised that Stanford quadruple the current number of proposed housing units in their GUP. Stanford—p.3

The Gunn Confessions Facebook page became the latest sensation to hit the Gunn community last month, prompting not only widespread attention but also controversy. With 808 followers, 643 likes, and 4,491 confessions (and counting), the page has ignited discussion over the benefits and drawbacks of such social media usage.

The page’s administrators collect anonymous “confessions”—which consist of secrets, questions and unpopular opinions—and post these confessions on the page for all to see.

Because the page could easily become a toxic forum for students to hurt others without consequence, potentially hurtful posts are filtered out. “Inevitably, posts slip through sometimes, and when that happens we do our best to remove them as soon as someone messages the page about it or if mean comments start to appear,” one of the page’s anonymous administrators said. The list of banned content on the Google Form for submitting confessions includes hate speech, cyberbullying and negative accusations.

Though the page was created for Gunn students and serves as an outlet for students to share their struggles, parents and administrators, including Principal Kathleen Laurence, have also noticed the page and expressed concerns about the consequences of the page. “I want to support students but the confessions are anonymous so we can’t help [those students] and that is what I am most concerned about,” Laurence said.

Similarly, Gunn parent Stacey Ashlund stated her apprehension over students’ mental health upon discovering the confessions page. “The stigma of mental health cannot be fixed overnight but students are hopefully seeking help when coming across certain posts,” she said.

Ashlund also hopes there is an area of the Facebook page that lists mental health resources available to students when necessary; this list is now pinned at the top of the page, including the Crisis Text Line and the Suicide Prevention Hotline.

Some, however, have had negative experiences with the page. For example, problems arose for chemistry teacher Casey O’Connell when misleading claims were given a platform to be published. “[A post] said I had psychoanalyzed [a student] by diagnosing them with depression and saying that is why they did not complete their homework,” O’Connell said. According to O’Connell, the confession was inaccurate. O’Connell messaged the Facebook page saying, “I never psychoanalyzed a student because I am not a legal psychiatrist and [am] unable to make that diagnosis.” O’Connell requested the post be taken down, and the page administrators obliged.

Despite this incident, O’Connell believes the page could be beneficial to the Gunn community. “I think a well-moderated anonymous group like Gunn Confessions should exist at every high school,” O’Connell said.

Assistant Principal Harvey Newland echoed O’Connell’s thoughts. “If [the page] stays lighthearted, it is okay,” he said.

Some of the posts discuss heavier topics such as mental health or sexual assault, and students have rallied around these submissions and offered positive and uplifting messages in the comment section of these posts.

As of now, no student has come forward to Gunn administrators stating they have a problem with the Facebook page. In addition, the Gunn Confessions Facebook page administrators have no intention of taking down the group.

2

News

Monthly Highlights: In The Heights “The incredible attention to detail [in the set] was really impressive. It was really well put together and immersive.”

—Audience member Aditya Sinha (11)

“One of my favorite parts of this show was getting to know my cast members and seeing how amazing they all were. I could not be prouder of anyone up there.”

—Lead actor Arman Moshlei (12)

—Compiled by Charlie Bush

Photos by Melissa Ding

Affluence of PAUSD parents influences college admission decisions Ryan Li and Yael Livneh News Editor and Centerfold Editor On March 12, federal prosecutors indicted over 50 individuals, including two Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) parents and a Gunn alumnus, for involvement in

cheating on standardized testing and admissions processes into top tier colleges.

According to the affidavit submitted by prosecutors to the United States District Court of Massachusetts, parents allegedly paid college consultant William “Rick” Singer to fake exam scores and bribe college athletics instructors to admit their children into prestigious universities like Stanford, Princeton and Georgetown. Suspects regularly donated to Singer’s Key Worldwide Foundation. In return, Singer found ways to circumvent the admissions system, attempting “(1) to bribe college entrance exam administrators to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams [and] (2) to bribe varsity coaches and administrators at elite universities to designate certain applicants as recruited athletes or as other favored candidates, thereby facilitating the applicants’ admission to those universities.”

To College and Career Counselor Linda Kirsch, the fact that students use aids like legacy status and internal connections to get into prestigious schools is nothing out of the ordinary. However, Kirsch was surprised that much of the corruption within schools caught in this scandal happened beneath the admissions officers level. “Instead of interacting directly with admissions officers, the primary perpetrators of the scam had lower-level staff, like athletics coaches, recruit students,” Kirsch said. “It’s interesting to see the people they picked up on—why that group?”

Although completely bypassing the college admissions process is rare, affluent students at Gunn and around the country still utilize an abundance of resources to increase their chances of getting admitted. According to guidance counselor Jorge Chavez, many of the students he provides counseling for have parents who pay for outside college counselors, tutoring and preparatory classes. These well-off parents can afford better counseling, tutoring and other resources to help their children get a leg up.

Part of Chavez’s job is finding ways for lower-income students to gain access to resources similar to their more affluent peers. “I’m assuming that this [instance] is parents wanting to support their children in the best way they possibly can,” he said.

“But there are times where I would wonder from our end, what is it that we are missing but somebody is going out to look for?”

Kirsch agrees that affluence has become a major deciding factor in college admissions. “It relates to how much money the family is also investing in all of the tutoring, which again is separating the haves and the have-nots,” she said.

Senior Siddharth Jain, who went through the admissions process, believes that the cheating revelation was just an extension of privileges that wealthy students already have. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “It’s been happening for the past 30 years. Rich people have donated buildings to colleges they send their kids to. Something similar is happening here.”

According to college consultant and Gunn parent Donna Pioppi, the emphasis on wealth is not uncommon throughout the Bay Area and other affluent regions around the country. She says that parents in other areas, such as around Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., have similar college admissions firms. Still, the conduct of those involved in the recent scandal still came as a shock to Pioppi. “I am a member of professional organizations that have very well-laid-out codes of ethics of what you can and cannot do,” she said. “I know that for me and many of the other college counselors that I know, we were horrified, absolutely horrified.”

Pioppi can see why parents focus on prestigious colleges, but believes that this mentality is not always the best idea for students and parents alike. “I think, often, parents fall into the idea that what is best for their child is one of the top 20 or 30 most selective schools in the country,” she said. “And I’m not always sure that works for every student.”

There are also many alternatives to the typical four years of college, and Chavez encourages students to explore such possibilities. “Community college is a great alternative to traditional four-year university,” he said. “There are many pathways to reaching success.”

News THEORACLE 780 Arastradero Rd. Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 354-8238 www.gunnoracle.com

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Caroline Ro Managing Editors Megan Li Kristen Yee News Sohini Ashoke Ryan Li Tejpal Virdi Forum Jennifer Gao Liza Kolbasov Joshua Yang Features Julia Cheunkarndee Joy Huang Grace Tramack Centerfold Yael Livneh Chelsie Park Sports Eric Epstein Bridgette Gong Elisa Moraes-Liu Lifestyle Laurel Comiter Noa Rapoport Online Stephanie Jackson Andrew Zhao Changing the Narrative Grace Williams Photo Editor Sofia Sierra-Garcia Graphics Editor Mina Kim

Friday, March 29, 2019

Funding concerns arise from Stanford proposal STANFORD

According to the Board of Supervisors, this increased expansion would offset a lack of housing for staff and work to bring down housing prices in the area. However, as County Supervisor Joe Simitian noted during a March 14 town hall meeting, these conditions would do nothing to alleviate the projected financial strain on PAUSD. In addition, GUP negotiations are being held confidentially, a decision the community is divided on. An opinion column co-written

by Collins in Palo Alto Online called for the transparency of negotiations, citing the vast impact the community would feel as a result of the GUP. In contrast, Austin supported the confidentiality of negotiations as it alleviates unnecessary public scrutiny. “We trust our county supervisor, Joe Simitian, to be our advocate,” he said. “Personally, I see that sometimes confidentiality is good in the negotiation process; it allows for problem solving in a space without being attacked for every thought that’s proposed.”

Another issue for the district has been its delay in realizing the GUP was being negotiated in the first place. “The way we all found out about [the GUP] is that Supervisor Simitian called me up and all the other members of our board and said, ‘Hey, there are two weeks left to get in comments on the environmental impact process for the Stanford GUP, and you guys haven’t put any comments yet.

Are you going to put it in the comments—you guys should get on top of this,’” Collins said.

“To which my response—and I think the response of every other board member and the superintendent—was ‘what’s the GUP?’ We had literally no idea this process was going on and the impact that it might have on us.”

According to Stanford Vice President and Chief External Relations Officer Martin Shell, the university is seeking a GUP in order to continue research and study. “In order to further its academic mission, the university needs new

Oracle/SEC Liaison Bridgette Gong Oracle/TBN Liaison Collin Jaeger Graphics Artists Nicole Lee Grace Liu Jocelyn Wang Photographers Melissa Ding Sophia Lu Reporters Annika Bereny Charlie Bush Kate Mallery Josh Mei Kepa Neesen Vinay Ranganathan Sophia Stern Eric Tang Jessica Wang Angela Wong Katie Zhang

The Oracle strongly encourages and prints signed Letters to the Editor and Comments. Comments are generally shorter responses, while Letters are longer pieces of writing.

Letters and Comments may be edited to meet space requirements and the writer is solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

Please include your name, grade and contact information should you choose to write one.

Letters to the Editor, Comments and ideas for coverage may be sent to oraclegunn@gmail.com or posted on our Facebook page. These letters need not be from current students.

I like the layout of The Oracle and how every spread is different from the next. I also like how it’s visually appealing and it’s not just pages full of text. I liked reading about the social justice pathways for freshman.

—Pearl Tan, 9 I enjoyed reading about the different people in the school who knew a lot of languages. This was especially interesting because I knew some of those people. Also it was fascinating to see how they learned the languages and retained them. Also, this was a very well-organized issue. All of the images and text was easy to read and interpret.

—Yaara Tzadikario, 9 It was very diverse and included a lot of student opinion and felt very relevant. I’d also like to see more stuff about politics and more things about student artists. I enjoyed reading the spotlight on the artist article. I remember it because the artist said that she enjoyed art even though she wasn’t going to become an artist.

Tech Editors Natalie McCurdy Devon Lee Adviser Kristy Blackburn

that because virtually all of our institutional memory of those battles was lost and forgotten,” he said.

According to Collins, the 2000 GUP concluded with Stanford offering either a piece of land for construction of an elementary school or a one-time payment of 10 million dollars. “[The land was] nowhere near where anybody lives, and so [PAUSD] took that 10 million dollars instead, which is what Stanford, I’m sure, intended,” he said.

Since the GUP is outside the jurisdiction of PAUSD, the district only has a narrow window to unofficially negotiate directly with Stanford.

“We set a drop-dead date of April 12 between us and Stanford for either coming up with something that we can agree upon, or leaving it to the county to work out,” Austin said. “My hope is that by the end of this month we can reach an agreement. Ultimately, we can’t reach a side deal with Stanford because they’re in the development agreement process with the County of Santa Clara. The best we can do is to come up with an agreement that Stanford will submit to the county.”

Despite the obstacles ahead for PAUSD, Austin still maintains a positive outlook. “I expect to work through this in good faith and hopefully we’ll have good news for the entire community soon,” he said.

INBOX

Business/Circulation Ryan Manesh

Copy Editors Calvin Cai Madison Nguyen Nikki Suzani

research and teaching facilities that allow for deeper exploration of new and existing fields of study,” he said. “Stanford is proposing to add on-campus housing concurrent with the building of academic facilities to better serve the campus community and relieve pressure on the challenging local housing market.”

Shell also contended that tax revenue from Stanford lands provided a significant contribution to PAUSD funding. “Stanford has devoted significant portions of its land in the Stanford Research Park and at the Stanford Shopping Center to commercial uses that also generate tax revenues for Palo Alto schools,” he said. “In fiscal year 2017-18, these commercial properties on Stanford lands generated about 10 percent of Palo Alto Unified School District’s income.”

However, Collins noted that tax revenue generated from Stanford land does not actually come from Stanford. “[Stanford] very carefully describes it as taxes generated by Stanford land,” he said. “That’s because it’s almost all generated by buildings that are owned by other people, like Stanford Mall—which is not owned by Stanford. Stanford owns the land and leases it to the mall, but all the taxes are paid by [the mall’s owner] because they own the building and that building has all the value. Stanford’s total tax payments to PAUSD are under two million dollars a year.”

Stanford has attempted to expand its campus through a GUP in the past: the last GUP was in 2000, and Collins can easily draw para llels bet ween the two proposals.

“Part of what motivates the way we’re approaching this is the recognition that we’re fighting almost e x ac t ly t he s a me battles now, 17 years later, and we’re not well-equipped to do

Read about the SEC elections at gunnoracle.com

Staff

Assistant Business/Circulation Peter Oh

3

—Mar. 1, 2019—

—Noah Biolsi, 10

The Oracle is well written and there’s obviously a lot of effort put in. I really enjoyed reading the “Athlete of the Month” article Keep up the good work!

—Joyce Lian, 11 I liked the different graphics, and I enjoyed the perspective of drinking at parties. I also think more stories that feature Gunn students would be interesting.

—Nina Ceaser, 9 I liked the various infographics throughout the paper, since I could look at them and get the meaning quickly.

— Benedict Goh, 11

The Oracle won sixth place in Best of Show at the 2018 National Scholastic Press Association Conference on Nov. 1-3.

Forum

4

COLLEGE BOARD TEstING COSTS SHOULD BE MINIMIZED

Angela Wong Second semester routinely brings intense waves of stress and tension to high school students, especially juniors, who are pressed for time to prepare for standardized testing and college applications, all while maintaining their grades and their involvement in extracurricular activities. Amidst all of the challenges that students experience as they prepare for college, money should never be one of them. The College Board, which develops and administers the SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) exams, has essentially monopolized high school testing, and the expenses to take these exams have been on the rise in recent years. If they’re truly the non-profit organization that they claim to be, the College Board should lower SAT and AP test prices to create an academic environment that encourages low-income and minority students to pursue AP classes and retake the SAT. Ultimately, this would level the playing field in standardized test preparation and college readiness.

In 2012, each AP exam cost around $92, whereas the individual cost today ranges anywhere from $115 to $145. These costs differ throughout the country, as some high schools may choose to tack on additional costs to pay proctors. These costs may not add up to much on a singular basis, but for a high school student aiming for highly competitive top-10 universities where accepted applicants generally take anywhere from eight to 13 AP tests, there is pressure to stack tests. With College Board’s fees for late registration, changes in test dates and centers and cancellations, AP testing can cost a student around $1,710 throughout high school. SATs are less expensive: including the essay portion, each exam costs around $64.50 in 2019. Even so, students are advised to retake the exam a few times to maximize their chances of receiving their desired score. These prices add up to an even greater amount with college applications that cost close to $100 each. For students applying to about 20 universities, the total cost can be overwhelming.

While some students are offered financial aid for these costs, a family of two (a single parent and one child) must have an annual income of less than $30,451 to qualify, according to the College Board. The qualifications differ by family size, so a family of three would need to make less than $38,443 annually. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, however, the median household income in the U.S. was $61,372 in 2017.

Therefore, many families may not be able to qualify for the financial aid, despite the possibility of financial struggles.

Unfortunately, as studies have shown, these financial obstacles at home intimidate and discourage low-income students from enrolling in AP courses or taking AP exams at the end of the school year. For example, in 2008, the Houston Independent School District noticed only a small percentage of their Hispanic and African American students—many being from low-income families—were taking AP exams after they completed their corresponding advanced courses.

When the district decided to begin covering all of the AP exam fees, the number of AP tests taken increased 143.5 percent between 2009 to 2017, and the number of tests with passing scores went up 94 percent. School districts across the nation and the College Board can take away from this eightyear study that many students have the interest and drive to challenge themselves academically and succeed—they just need to be able to do so affordably.

Graphics by Mina Kim

In addition to not being able to afford these exams, many low-income students cannot prepare as well as their higher-income peers.

Low-income families are less likely to enroll in test preparation courses or purchase test materials than richer students, further widening the gap that low-income students must bridge to score highly. According to a 2014 Washington Post study, there is a direct correlation between SAT scores and family income. Students from families earning over $200,000 annually scored an average of 1,714 (out of 2,400) on the SAT, while students from families earning under $20,000 scored nearly 400 points lower on average.

The College Board routinely advertises test preparation tools, such as study guides and DVDs, and even proposed a partnership with Khan Academy for online SAT coaching. However, the College Board’s annual reports in 1955 and the mid-1970s reinforced the idea that coaching schools are “nothing more than the triumph of hope over reality,” and that “if the board’s test can be regularly beaten through coaching, then the board is itself discredited.” The Washington Post reported on several documents the College Board posted on their website, which have since been deleted, claiming that one third of coached students experience no score gain or score loss in SAT scores. Yet, in recent years, this organization has completely flipped their views as their lucrative partnerships with test-prep companies are flourishing. Though test preparation materials may not be as effective as they are marketed to be, the manner in which they are advertised to the public may discourage low-income students from taking or retaking tests. They may feel as though they will not be able to improve without the know-how and information included in official test preparation materials. Furthermore, this example is also a testament to the money-minded way in which the College Board is run.

The College Board has begun to mend the inequality of test preparation by offering free online study tutorials, but they should focus on making standardized testing more accessible to all students. By allowing and encouraging students from all family incomes and backgrounds to take these exams, a sturdy baseline for seeking higher education will be set. From their total 2015 revenue of $916 million, $408 million were derived solely from test fees and instructional materials. They also pay their executives around $355,271 every year, with former College Board President Gaston Caperton receiving a compensation of $1.3 million from the organization in 2009, according to their public records. If the College Board truly wants to take pride in their “non-profit” title, they should be allocating a much greater fraction of their profits to lowering the overall costs of their tests. Doing so would surely be at the benefit of the many students seeking college opportunity and success, rather than the interests of their executives.

While countless students agree on the burdensome costs of standardized testing, others have supported the skyrocketing test prices. After all, taking AP courses and scoring over a three on the exams can save money by earning college credit. However, each university—not the College Board—makes its own decisions about awarding AP credit. Furthermore, numerous school districts across the nation have extremely low AP passing rates, and students receive no credit for tests they do not pass.

The College Board’s expensive exam prices undoubtedly grant more college opportunities and high school success to higher-income students. In the years to come, if this organization ends unnecessary additional fees and offers more affordable testing, students can be relieved of at least one obstacle in their transition to college.

—Wong, a sophomore, is a reporter.

Forum

Friday, March 29, 2019

5

NO

YES

Does Gunn Confessions encourage beneficial discourse?

Charlie Bush

Peter Oh

Known by almost every Gunn student, the Gunn Confessions Facebook page is an anonymous forum that allows anyone to post a “confession”—anything from a school crush to a humorous rumor to a genuine question. The page has over 800 followers, with some comments on posts breaking 70 reactions. The page took just one afternoon to completely blow up across Gunn’s campus, and since then over 4,000 confessions have been published. With its talk-of-the-school status and current prominence in Gunn’s culture, Gunn Confessions is obviously a sensation.

Because it helps students relieve stress and provides a safe space for students to seek help, the pros of this page greatly outweigh the cons.

Most Gunn students are familiar with the high-stress environment and highachieving precedents established at school. The American Psychological Association stated that 68 percent of teens surveyed reported to frequently experience extreme levels of stress during the school year. From data reflecting Gunn specifically, the 2017-18 California Healthy Kids Survey at Gunn shows that 12 percent of juniors stated they missed school in the past 30 days because they “felt very sad, hopeless, anxious, stressed, or angry.” This notoriously stressful environment necessitates methods of destressing, one being humor.

Humor serves as a method of stress relief as it takes one’s mind off of stressful subjects and relieves tension. According to authors of an American Addiction Centers article relating to stress relief methods, “humor functions as a distraction, interrupting the chain of thought that results in stress.” For those submerged in stress in their daily lives and wanting to relax, Gunn Confessions can be a place to get lost in the posts and comments. Gunn Confessions also allows students to make light of common struggles together and support one another through humor.

Another piece of evidence from the 2017-18 California Healthy Kids Survey at Gunn showed that 14 percent of 11th graders and 10 percent of ninth graders considered suicide in the past 12 months. With students often feeling as if they have nobody to talk to about their mental health concerns, they hide their depressive feelings and feel isolated in their own issues. However, an anonymous online forum serves as a great medium for talking about issues and seeking help. There have been multiple past confessions relating to depression and self-harm, and the genuine support from various students across campus has poured into the comments sections, from phone numbers to hotlines to advice on how to improve their mental health. The anonymity of Gunn Confessions allows apprehensive students to speak up for themselves and allows them to better themselves, letting them see how many of their peers actually care for and support them.

On a lighter note, Gunn Confessions can simply serve as a place to ask questions: students can ask questions about school, colleges, classes and more. People often feel as though asking questions may make them seem ignorant or stupid. Without a name attached, people can ask anything without being scared of how they will be perceived.

Gunn Confessions is a place any student can go to in their free time to alleviate their stress and seek help when they don’t want to speak to anybody face-to-face.

Also, new regulations are being enforced by the anonymous page admins, such as no cyber-bullying, hate speech or derogatory comments, meaning there will be no offensive and inappropriate posts found on the page. With these new regulations in place, the page is moving in a direction towards truly helping students, answering their questions and bettering their lives as a whole.

—Bush, a junior, is a reporter.

Graphics by Grace Liu

Gunn Confessions has been trending and popular around Gunn ever since early March. However, the Facebook page clearly has many flaws which can affect others more than students would like to believe. The anonymous way of speaking on such a big platform can be a gateway for students to talk falsely about other students and make rude and hateful remarks about a person online without having to deal with the consequences. Although the account does have moderators, they may miss the confessions which can cause these situations to occur.

Furthermore, while comments on certain people being attractive is, in a way, a compliment, such comments can have a major impact on other readers. Someone’s looks are, most of the time, not under the person’s control and many students may feel the need to compare themself to someone who is said to be attractive. This situation is a slippery slope that has people thinking they are not good enough or pretty enough, which is far from the truth. If someone is never mentioned on the page at all and sees other people getting confessions on how attractive they are, this can make that person sad that they are not being talked about more, especially if they are talked down upon at school. On the other hand, students who are overly talked about may feel uncomfortable being talked about on a such a large platform.

Some confessions are also not appropriate for a school setting and could be potentially describing illegal activities. Examples of these include peeing on the second floor on the N-building, talking of male ejaculation in soap dispensers and discussing what part of the female body is the most attractive. This speech is clearly inappropriate for school and should not be endorsed on the internet. Instead, the account moderators should be more stringent about what is allowed on the page in order to ensure these type of comments aren’t seen by the general public.

Some may argue that Gunn Confessions gives a platform for all students to speak out on personal problems and say anything they want, and that they have the right to do so because of the freedom of speech. However, this is untrue. With Gunn Confessions, not all submitted confessions (which oftentimes aren’t even confessions at all) are actually posted. This is because the admins of the account say they moderate the page heavily by not posting spam or other unwanted messages. The problem this creates is that the account is not actually showing all of the confessions students actually have, which gives a false representation as to how Gunn students are actually thinking.

Another argument in support of the page is that students are stressed and need a page like Gunn Confessions to serve as an outlet. However, there is nothing proving that this page actually helps with relieving stress—rather, it serves as just another way for students to procrastinate and avoid doing their schoolwork. Ironically, this would likely make students even more stressed, because they now have to stay up longer finishing assignments after getting distracted from scrolling through the thousands of different confessions.

Yes, Gunn Confessions clearly can be a way for someone who seriously needs help to get it anonymously. However, the cons still outweigh the pros, especially when there are many better ways to get help when needed.

—Oh, a sophomore, is an Assistant Business Manager.

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Forum

Summer camps push

students to learn, grow

Expensive summer programs augment financial inequality

Stephanie Jackson

ole L

With news of the crackdown on parents illegally paying millions for their children to attend top universities, it would seem like the days of flaunting wealth in order to secure admission to college are over. Still, students at Gunn are likely to continue paying upwards of $5,000 for month-long summer camps that provide them with resources they are only able to get due to their affluence. But how is attending an expensive summer camp in order to be able to put it on a college application any different from paying one’s way into college?

Students should realize the over-privileged position their money puts them in and reject expensive summer camps in favor of those that are free, easily accessible and merit-based.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the 2017 median household income in the US was $61,372. An out-of-state student from such a household wanting to go to a camp like the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) would have to pay $6,000 of those $61,000, or 10 percent of their total family income, just to attend. Meanwhile, a student from Palo Alto, a city with an average income of $137,000 according to the Census Bureau, would be lucky enough to only have to pay 3.6 percent of their family’s total income, making such programs far more affordable. The financial burdens, or lack thereof, for each family creates summer camps where attendees are homogenous in income level, and these rich kids are allowed to play together while less fortunate students are left behind.

Some might argue that financial aid should be more than enough to cover for low-income students. However, camps may only offer minimal quantities of financial aid packages, creating competition between less wealthy students. At best, this means that well-off students outnumber those that are less so. At worst, it affects the mental health of students who can no longer go places they’ve dreamed of because of a lack of funds. Furthermore, financial aid doesn’t go far enough to bridge the divide, as many students also need to get summer jobs in order to support their family.

Even if aid offers students an entirely free camp—which is an unlikely occurrence— they’re still losing all of the money they could have been making from their job during that time period.

Aside from the financial aspect, expensive summer camps don’t always provide the booster that teenagers are looking for in their college applications. According to the Dean of Admissions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stu Schmill, boards across the country have agreed to look more at an applicant’s character than the prestige of their summer programs. This means that making an impact over the summer would be weighted

Nic

The memories made during the summer programs I attended between sophomore and junior year were the best part of the experiences. There are a lot of positive aspects of attending summer programs, specifically those that are academically challenging, such as meeting new people with differing perspectives and taking courses that expand the boundaries of your learning. These summer programs, however, come at the cost of a competitive application process and routinely high prices for attendance once accepted. However, when weighing the costs—in a literal sense—and benefits, I’ve found that these programs are worth their respective prices.

My experience with competitive summer programs started at the Georgetown Law Institute. At first, I was intimidated by the thought of being stuck in the same class for month with a bunch of kids who all wanted to be the best lawyers out there. I expected everyone else in the class to be miniature Harvey Specters from “Suits” or Annalise Keatings from “How to Get Away With Murder.” In reality, however, the people that I met in this class were passionate, smart individuals who were not interested in being ultracompetitive (with the exception of a few students who made it their crusade to impress our teacher with Latin legal jargon).

In between researching the death penalty and patent law, I had time to visit the neighborhood of Georgetown and visit some of the District of Columbia. I felt like I was getting a taste of what college would be like, especially with the sense of independence I had with my education; I was able to take control of my own study schedule, which allowed me to discover a lot more about what helps me learn. The courses I took focused on the detailed and complicated aspects of law and challenged other students and me more than we had been by the standard school curriculum. Overall, I was glad that I decided to attend the Georgetown Pre-College Program because it helped me prepare for my next program that summer.

After Georgetown, I flew to Cambridge, Massachusetts to take a course at the Geier Twin Law Institute at Harvard, focusing on the history of racial politics in the United States. I would start each day with a lecture from our professor, followed by an hour-long Socratic Seminar-style discussion on the same topic.

We would then be given our day’s reading list and be sent to one of the many libraries on campus to read each of the articles assigned and write a two-page summary of what we had learned that day.

Overall, I spent around seven hours a day on work for my class while the rest of the day was open for us to roam about freely on campus or even travel across the river to Boston. For me, being able to study in such a college-like environment and push myself when doing my individual research helped me become a little less afraid of moving away and going to college.

I did find that the Harvard Summer Program was a bit more competitive than the program at Georgetown because our professor offered to write letters of recommendation for those students who did well in her class. It was clear which students were really striving for that letter throughout the month-long camp, but that aspect did not take away from my experience as a whole.

If I am going to be honest, I turned into a whole new person when I was at this program: I started working out, eating kale and getting really into all the work that I was putting into the class. The amount of independence that students are given at these summer programs really grew on me, and I think that it was interesting to see how that translated into the kind of person I want to be in college.

ee

Nikki Suzani

more heavily than expensive camps. Programs like YCS-Interact, Second Harvest Food Bank, Dreamcatchers, Streetcode and Animal Assisted Happiness are all excellent resources for teenagers who want a leg up in the admissions game but are also looking to create real change in their community. Another great resource for volunteer work within the Bay Area is the Stanford Haas Community Volunteering page which lists multiple different organizations that accept student volunteers. At the end of the day, these alternatives benefit both the volunteers and the less fortunate.

However, let’s say a student is interested in a subject that a pricey summer camp covers.

In that scenario, rather than attending that camp and perpetuating the divide between the rich and the poor, the student should instead look for more affordable summer camps that field the same topic. One excellent example is the Telluride Association Summer Program (TASP), a six-week humanities program that allows students to discuss global issues and leave the program with a greater sense of their ability to shape the world and discover their own place within it. The program also subsidizes job pay, meaning that students who need to provide for their family over the summer are still able to do so. For students who are interested in STEM, Stanford Institutes of Medical Research (SIMR) is another internship that offers stipends to students. A quick search for “free [insert field] summer camps” will yield hundreds of results that are accessible and affordable even to low-income students.

Ultimately, students at Gunn need to be cognizant of the opportunities that they have been granted and make a conscious decision to level the playing field. By intentionally foregoing pricey camps in favor of those that benefit others without affluence, we can help broadcast the message that the admissions game should never be fueled by money. Students should take the time this summer to give back to the community that has built them up and allowed them to succeed, hopefully stepping up their admissions chances and truly making meaningful change.

—Suzani, a sophmore, is a Copy Editor.

—Jackson, a senior, is an Online Editor.

Grace Liu

Features

Friday, March 29, 2019

7

The men behind the golf carts: Jorge Sanchez, Travis Schollnick form close friendship as campus security Angela Wong Reporter As the first bell of the school day rings, everyone has a different agenda: students zip up their backpacks as they head to their classes, while teachers start to decorate their whiteboards with notes. Others, like campus supervisors Travis Schollnick and Jorge Sanchez, start up their golf carts as they open a new workday.

Informally referred to by students and staff as Travis and Sanchez, the two help keep the school safe and make sure every student is behaving responsibly. Lighthearted but diligent workers, the men work from as early as 7:30 a.m. to as late as 4:00 p.m. Their hours run later when there are after-school activities like football games and dances on campus. Wearing black Gunn High School polo shirts and baseball caps, they continuously roam around the campus and parking lot throughout the school day on golf carts that speed up to 13 miles per hour.

This daily routine is nothing new for Sanchez; he’s been a campus supervisor for 12 years.

Throughout his childhood in San Jose, golf carts were commonly utilized for transportation. He began learning how to properly drive and manage the carts in his middle school years, when he volunteered in the cafeteria serving lunch to students and staff.

The same goes for Schollnick, who has been at Gunn for almost three years; his experience with golf carts began his sophomore year of high school.

At Valencia High School in Southern California, he joined the Student Executive Council in 2002 as a clerk in the school store. That same year, his principal, Dr. Paul Priesz, believed every student on the council should have the opportunity to obtain a golf cart license. And so, a few test drives later, Schollnick took advantage of that.

Both of them believe their love for creating a safe environment for students drove them to their current careers. Sanchez, for example, has worked at different high schools across the Bay Area, but still finds the ordinary day at Gunn incredibly special. “There’s almost always something exciting happening around Gunn,” he said. “This high school is amazing, and the students are so great that, even as adults, there’s something we can always learn from you guys.”

Schollnick agrees that the school is unique and tight-knit. “The community, the students, the staff—it’s just this one big family,” he said. “We all care for one another. Everyone’s here for each other, you know? That’s what makes working at Gunn so different.”

However, Schollnick’s high school experience at Valencia was less exciting than his current work at Gunn. As a “C” average freshman thrown into a new learning environment, Schollnick was unsure of who he was and what his aspirations were— that is, until he joined the council, where he would find his eventual best friends for the next three years, as well as the golf cart license that drove him to where he is today. Literally.

His experiences as both a student and a high school campus supervisor have shaped his perspective on how to maintain school safety. “School safety is a community effort,” he said. “Everyone has to do their part in creating a safe environment.

If you see something, you have to say something. It’s our job as much

as it is [students’].”

On the weekends, Schollnick works quick morning shifts as a general airport security guard at the San Jose International Airport. With a patrol vehicle and a bomb-detector dog, he travels around the airport to protect passengers and staff from harm, crimes and other threats.

Schollnick believes his interests in protection and communication are what led him to have two safety-oriented careers. “In both jobs, I have to deal with people and keep everyone safe. One job feeds off another, so what I learn here [at Gunn], I use there [in the airport],” he said. “However, I deal with both students and adults, so there is a level of change I have to do on my end on how I approach different situations.”

When he’s not on duty, students can find Schollnick perfecting his paintball accuracy, working out at the gym, playing a wide array of video games or chomping down some burgers at In-N-Out with Sanchez after work.

Sanchez prefers to relax over the weekend by spending time with his family and fishing by ocean shores and lakes a few times a month. He first began fishing with his grandparents on the weekends during grade school, and it has now become one of his favorite pastimes. “Fishing is a fun, stress-relieving activity,” he said. “We catch all kinds of fish in saltwater and lakewater and take them all home. I don’t fish in only one place.

That’s the thing about California. Everything is driving distance away.”

While Sanchez can rely on his car to bring him to his favorite fishing spots, his golf cart is another story. As their only means of transportation around the campus, the carts are prone to many incidents every week; it’s common to find their carts broken down or with a few flat tires.

Chuckling, Sanchez jokes about his reputation for always rolling over stray nails near the construction sites on campus.

“Travis is going to get mad at me,” he said. “I keep rolling over the nails every day, getting flat tires. I don’t have an eye for nails like Travis does. He can fix that, fortunately.”

As a team, the men have a close connection between them. On most days, the two can be found together in one golf cart, especially during lunch, when one quickly finishes their food while the other drives. After three years of working alongside each other, they revealed how amazing it has been to have each other as co-workers and friends.

For instance, despite the fact that Schollnick is relatively new to the school, Sanchez has already made quite the impression on him. “He’s a good guy whose heart is in the right place,” he said. “The guy knows what he’s doing, so I have a lot to live up to. It feels like I’ve known that guy forever even when I obviously haven’t.”

As campus supervisors, the students’ well-being is one of their top priorities.

Thinking back to their high school years, Schollnick shares advice he wish he were told freshman year. “Learn to laugh with yourself,” he said. “People tend to take a lot of things at heart, but laugh it off and move on.”

Sanchez agrees on the importance of having fun in high school. “Have fun, be safe and be respectful,” he said. “We are here for you. Travis and I will support you in any way we can.”

Graphics by Nicole Lee Photos by Sofia Sierra-Garcia

Campus supervisors Jorge Sanchez (left) and Travis Schollnick (right) have fun together while keeping the school safe.

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Features

Senior Ashley Stahmer After browsing scores of Pinterest boards for tattoo ideas, senior Ashley Stahmer made a monumental decision that she had been dreaming of since her freshman year. For her 18th birthday last November, Stahmer visited Players Ink in San Jose and received her first tattoo: an off-centered, black Scorpio constellation on her inner right wrist.

For Stahmer, this decision was a way for her to express her personality and her love for astrology. “Most people [would] be like, it’s a constellation at first glance, but once I’m able to explain it, people can kind of get more [of a] sense of who I am as a person, instead of just surface value,” Stahmer said. “I also am really into astrology and am also a Scorpio.”

Although Stahmer was uneasy at first, her good-humored tattoo artist calmed her nerves. “My tattoo artist was so funny when I was getting the tattoo and said that I already have seven piercings, and since I’m an athlete, I’ll probably deal with it better than most people,” she said.

“He was like, ‘You need to breathe,’ and because I was sitting on a swirly stool, he was like, ‘If you pass out on me, I am going to laugh at you before I help you.’”

Stahmer did not receive any judgment from her family

or peers after getting her tattoo. “I got my mom to go with me, and she really supported my decision,” she said. “My friends asked me questions about it at school, and they think it’s really cool.”

In the coming months, Stahmer plans on getting inked a few more times, one of which being a matching tattoo with one of her closest friends. “It’s just a really cute and small design of a sun with waves, and the matching one is a moon with waves,” she said. “And then I’m also thinking of getting a small tribute to some of the hardships I’ve gone through when training through swimming and dealing with plateauing, but I’m not sure what tattoo I would get to attribute to that.”

For people considering getting a tattoo for the first time, Stahmer has some valuable advice to give: “Once you get used to the pain, it kind of becomes rhythmical, and you don’t really notice it,” she said. “If you freak out about it, then it’s probably going to hurt more, but if you just do the breathing exercise they teach you then you don’t notice it. If you feel a strong value, like a strong memory, or something that truly demonstrates who you are and your personality, you should get one. If it’s something that you’re doing just for fun or on a drunken whim, I wouldn’t suggest it since your future and your job might be affected, and you’ll end up regretting it.”

—Written by Jennifer Gao

Senior Jimmy Farley

serve as outlet for displaying creativity, personality

Science teacher Sarah Borgen On a random Saturday just a few years ago, chemistry teacher Sarah Borgen made the spontaneous decision to get her first tattoo with three of her closest friends. Since then, she has gotten six more tattoos and is currently planning her next one.

From a young age, Borgen always knew she wanted a tattoo at some point in her life. “My mother was not too pleased with my desire to get a tattoo, but she’s all right with it now,” she said.

However, Borgen wasn’t always sure when she was going to get one. “It was kind of just a, ‘I need to get my first tattoo, and then I’ll never stop getting them after that,’” she said. “I said, ‘Might as well do this,’ so I did it. I just got a random cat, and I love cats.”

With her profession, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Borgen has a tattoo relating to chemistry—a caffeine molecule on her left forearm. Caffeine is unquestionably one of her favorite things in life, and students can always find her with a cup, or even multiple cups, of coffee in class.

Senior Jimmy Farley got his first tattoo on his 18th birthday earlier this March. His scripture tattoo on his bicep reads: “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

Farley had thought about getting a tattoo for a couple years prior, and he used that time to decide what he wanted to get when he turned 18. “I just always really wanted a tattoo ever since I was a sophomore in high school, and my mom never let me get it before I turned 18,” he said.

He remained on the search for a while before committing to a design. “I always really liked scripture tattoos, and I just wanted to find a quote that was going to fit me for the rest of my life,” he said. “I finally came across this one, and I knew I wanted something about positivity and it just really fit, and I knew, ‘That’s the one.’”

Farley hopes that his tattoo will bring positive meaning to him for years to come.

“Positivity is always there—you just have to go get it,” he said. “You have to change how you’re thinking if you want good things to come to you. It just reminds me to not be negative or to doubt myself, because there’s a silver lining to everything.”

For anyone who is thinking about getting a tattoo, Farley recommends starting small, as you can always add to tattoos lat-

At school, Borgen hasn’t had a tough time with students seeing her tattoos. In fact, it has never gotten to the point where her tattoos have really affected her daily life at all. “It doesn’t feel weird to show them off at school, but it is funny how long it takes people to notice them,” she said.

“I’m still getting kids who ask me if my tattoo is new or not, and it’s the fourth quarter now. A lot of students ask, ‘Did you draw that on yourself?’”

While Borgen has mostly had positive tattoo experiences, one tattoo incident particularly stands out on her “negative experiences” list. “I was scheduled to get a tattoo with an artist, but she cancelled my appointment,” she said. “A week later, she tattooed the tattoo I had drawn for myself on someone else. I never got that tattoo.”

From personal experience, Borgen suggests not getting any cliché tattoos that many people ask for. “When I got my first tattoo, one of my friends got an infinity sign tattoo, and all the tattoo artists in the shop roasted her,” she said.

Like the caffeine molecule, Borgen’s next tattoo will be science-related. “My next tattoo is going to be based off of homologous and analogous figures from wing structures in evolution,” she said.

—Written by Madison Nguyen

er down the road. He also advises against rushing into the process to make sure that the tattoo is not regretted in the future. “I’d say that if you really want a tattoo, you really have to be sure that you really want it for the rest of your life,” Farley said. “You really have to think about that for some time. Also be sure that it doesn’t just fit for one period of your life and that it always has meaning to you, no matter your current situation.”

—Written by Eric Epstein

Graphics by Mina Kim Photos by Sofia Sierra-Garcia

Features

Friday, March 29, 2019

9

Students discuss high school life and obstacles through podcast Chelsie Park Centerfold Editor Project Oyster—the coincidental brainchild of three juniors brought together through the Business Entrepreneurship and Math (BEAM) Program—is a podcast that follows the ups and downs of high school, the experiences of being a teenager and mental health.

The trio, made up of Hanna Suh, Sophia Lu and Vaardan Shah, initially formed under the startup idea of a sports nonprofit, as they had all previously met on the cross-country team. However, the idea soon transformed to become a podcast. “It was a project for [BEAM] because the class is all about marketing, so we had to come up with a potential startup idea, and for us it was a podcast,” Suh said. “Second semester, we had the option to make it into an actual startup, so we decided to go forward with it, and now we have four episodes so far.”

While Project Oyster started out as a school project, it has since become more meaningful than a mere assignment for all three co-producers. “We’ve grown closer and now [the podcast has] turned into something that all of us care about; it’s no longer just a school project,” Lu said.

The title of the podcast was discovered on a color generator while the group was pondering names for their start up. “I Googled ‘cool color names’ and then oyster was one of them, and I was like, ‘Wait,’” Lu said. “We were supposed to already have had a name, but we were procrastinating on it. And then we were like, ‘Oyster—how about that?’ and Hanna

was like, ‘We should add “project” in front of it so now we sound cooler.’”

The podcast’s name has now come to signify having people open up, as the podcast often features guest speakers. “Like looking for pearls inside oysters,” Shah said.

With each 10-minute episode, Suh, Lu and Shah hope to entertain, uplift and connect with listeners, as well as spark conversations about mental health.

“We hope that [students] can develop an emotional connection with the host and with the stories that people share and feel less alone,” Lu said. “Our goal is to help teenagers.”

Additionally, the trio believes that Project Oyster offers a unique perspective on student life and mental health in the Silicon Valley. They are also working towards expanding their audience and exposure. In fact, Project Oyster is currently working with Palo Alto City Council member Tom DuBois to expand the podcast. “[DuBois] partnered us up with this organization called Project Safety Net, which is designated to help teenagers’ well-being,” Lu said. “Hopefully, they’re going to help us expand our business more, and we can expand to other schools as well, outside of Gunn.”

Suh believes that partnering with Project Safety Net will facilitate and open discussions about mental health. “I think just part of our goal is to talk about mental health and make it less stigmatized,” Suh said.

“At least in our perspective, talking about [mental health] and broadcasting it is a big step forward, and we just hope that students can tune in and [it can] feel relatable.”

Moving forward, the trio would like to reach beyond topics outside of mental health. “We don’t want to be branded as just [talking about] mental health, because there’s also a connotation that comes with that,” Shah said. “Certain things that are for mental health are not always viewed the same, but we advertise ourselves as just offering stories that go into these different areas.”

Lu agrees that they would like the podcast to include a mixture of lighthearted and serious topics so as not to be branded as a podcast which only focuses on the struggles of mental health. “We have a mixture of the funny stories, but then we also want to be able to cover more serious things so that we can actually help benefit people’s lives,” Lu said. “We want to be something more than just entertainment. We also want to have an impact.”

The podcast comes out every two weeks and is currently available on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podbean, iTunes and the Apple podcast app. While these are the five main platforms people listen to, the trio is hoping to include more. “We’re also trying to expand to Google Play, and we’re also thinking about YouTube, but those are the five we’re on right now,” Suh said. “I just hope everyone enjoys it. Listen to it—also, we’re open to feedback.”

To anyone who wants to be featured as a guest speaker, email studio.projectoyster@gmail.com, direct message the Instagram @projectoyster or message Suh, Lu or Shah. Additionally, you can buy stickers featuring the Project Oyster logo at www.tinyurl.com/projectoysterstickers.

Sophia Lu

Hannah Suh

Vardaan Shah

Project Oyster founders Hannah Suh, Sophia Lu and Vardaan Shah discuss the details of their podcast. For more information about Project Oyster, go to https://tinyurl.com/projectoyster.

Photos by Sofia Sierra-Garcia Poster by Project Oyster

Art can come in numerous forms, shapes and sizes, and sculpting is just one of those many mediums.

Sculpting is the art of creating or representing something by means of carving, casting or other shaping techniques.

Senior Joseph Kim enjoys sculpting in his free time. He originally began his art portfolio with paintings and drawings, and attributes his shift from two-dimensional forms into sculpting to his desire for more artistic freedom. “When I’m actually counting or tying stuff, I feel like I’m adding more of my personal touch to my works,” he said.

When Kim begins a project, he starts with whatever idea pops into his mind Photo courtesy of Joseph Kim and adds to it later. “I [used to] not start [creating art] until I had a solid idea, but now I [start] a project and go with the flow,” he said. “I feel like it’s more true to myself.” Additionally, Kim believes that ideas for art should not necessarily only be the ones that were derived through hours of deep thought. “It’s not like I sit down and brainstorm ideas about art because that’s unrealistic,” he said. “I have a life to live.”

Kim posts a plethora of sculpting examples to his Instagram. One of his

SCULPTUREs

JOSEPH KIM

students explore interests with unique creations

In Automotive Technology (Auto) class, students are given the freedom to be creative outside of a classroom setting. During his time in the class, junior Nilav Maulik has repaired a golf cart and worked with other students to build a model of a vintage car.

Maulik decided to take Auto after a friend recommended it to him. Previously, he had taken Industrial Tech at Jane Lathrop Stanford (JLS) Middle School. In class, one of the main projects students work on is maintaining the race car of Mike Camicia, the auto teacher.

“Mr. Camicia's primary race car is a pink Mazda Miata, which is based on the ‘Vroom Vroom the Penguin Car’ from the Madagascar movies. Keeping that in racing condition is our top priority,” he said.

One of the largest projects in Auto is building a model of a vintage car from the 60s, the Surf Woody. “The project was started by two students around 2000, who tried to build a life-sized version of a 1960s model car,” Maulik said. So far, they have built the car’s interior, along with the chassis, drivetrain, transmission and suspension. “Everybody in some way or another has pitched in on the car,” he said.

This year in Auto, Maulik, as well as other students, also fixed a couple of Model T's which ran at the Homecoming Halftime show, redid the throttle cable assembly on a Mazda Rx7 and built a wooden bed for a ‘55 Ford pickup truck.

Previously, Maulik also repaired a golf cart. “The golf cart had some issues with wheel alignment,” he said. “This affected the travel in the suspension and handling.” Students worked to fix this and made the cart functional once more.

“We had to machine a piece of steel that dropped the suspension about four inches and neutralized the camber,” he said.

Auto gives students the opportunity to be creative and use skills like problem-solving, which is one of the reasons why Maulik enjoys the class. “Auto is one of the most unique classes at Gunn, because it doesn't feel like a class at all,” he said. “It's more of a playground for people who like solving problems, thinking on their feet and, well, cars.”

MODIFIED CARS

NILAV MAULIK

10 Cente

Graphics by Yael Livneh Photos by Melissa Ding, Sophia Lu and Sofia Sierra-Garcia

To check out more of Joseph’s artwork, follow @josephkimart on Instagram.

—Written by Eric Tang

ELECTRIC SKATEBOARDS

VICTOR ANDREI

—Written by Sophia Stern

Photo courtesy of Victor Andrei

—Written by Noa Rapoport

Many students pursue different endeavors, participating in activities like sports to theatre to engineering. Junior Victor Andrei, who is currently on the Gunn Robotics Team (GRT), likes to use his hands to make creations. He and junior Chase Miner have been working on making an electric skateboard that will be finished in the coming months.

His idea stemmed from seeing many people ride electric skateboards. “I saw people riding around the electric skateboards and I thought, ‘It would be cool if I had one of those,’” he said. Seeing how expensive they were online, Andrei decided to try one on his own.

Andrei’s skateboard is made of different materials like aluminum, fiberglass and wood. For him, speed and price are two of the most unique factors that the skateboard has. “So my electric skateboard goes pretty fast at 30 miles per hour and has a range of 16 miles,” he said. “It isn’t super expensive compared to 800 bucks on the market. I think that it is pretty reasonable.”

Andrei equates much of his success to his experiences on GRT. “A lot of skills that I used making the skateboard like machining metal and heavy machinery that I learned from GRT was really useful for making this,” he said. “I would suggest to anybody at Gunn who’s interested in anything robotics or businesswise to join GRT, because it has really good opportunities.”

The final product of his skateboard is something that he is most looking forward to. “I think seeing the final product and all the work that you put into it, like seeing the whole thing coming together and the product, is really cool,” Andrei said.

Andrei plans on continuing do-it-yourself inventions like this in the future and hopefully in college.

favorite sculpture creations is of a shape that represents a balloon, but has an unusual texture for an actual balloon. “I was playing with the idea of irony,” he said. “If you look at it, it looks like a balloon, but when you actually touch it, it’s hard...I really like the piece because I spent so much time on it.”

As daunting as sculpting may sound, Kim urges sculpting novices to expand art forms and experiment with different materials. “Don’t be afraid to step out of the box and use different materials,” he said. “You just have to do what you like doing, because it gets you far.”

erfold Friday, March 29, 2019

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Features

T he Ultimate Tree-o

Ledgerwood, Maclean plant IN-TREE-GUING ACORN Stephy Jackson Online Editor Behind the rusty fences that guard the construction zone and near what will be the new drop-off area, there is a young oak tree sapling slowly reaching the height of the nearby trees. Though just a standard tree to most passersby, it is rooted in science teachers Eric Ledgerwood and Alec MacLean’s hearts. The acorn that the small tree grew from was passed down from Ledgerwood to MacLean nearly six years ago.

The original acorn came out of an activity for Ledgerwood’s Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES) students. “I collected acorns from the big oak tree on campus in the front of the school, and I basically just germinated them here in the classroom,” Ledgerwood said. “I gave them to my AP Environmental Science

“It had been in my yard for years, and when I dropped it off and said goodbye to it, it was like giving away a puppy.”

—Science teacher Alec MacLean

students to go out and plant a tree someplace in the world.”

After collecting many of these acorns, he stored some in the science classroom preparation area, where MacLean later came across them. “Mr. Ledgerwood had a whole bunch of them in pots in the prep area, and he didn’t really have any plans for them,” MacLean said. “I’ll grow anything anywhere, so I took this thing home, and that was probably five, six years ago.”

MacLean kept the tree in his yard, trimming and pruning it to help it thrive. “It was quite healthy and happy in my yard,” MacLean said. “I’d go through and I’d trim it up because oak trees like to go sideways a lot. I’d prune it up, and it just got taller and taller, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it.”

When MacLean passed by the construction area on campus and saw workers plant-

ing trees, an idea sprouted in his mind. “I saw them planting out there and I went, ‘Oh,’ and I just connected all the dots,” he said. MacLean then contacted Assistant Principal Margaret Reynolds about his idea to plant his tree at Gunn. “I said, ‘Would you be interested in having it planted?’ and she loved the idea,” MacLean said. “She talked to the district arborist, and they all thought it was a great idea.”

Almost a year later, MacLean emailed Reynolds with a reminder about the plan.

“She got back to me and says, ‘Can you bring it in tomorrow?’” MacLean said. Over half a decade later, the acorn was finally returned to its roots. “I brought it in and parked it out by the trailer,” MacLean said. “It had been in my yard for years, and when I dropped it off and said goodbye to it, it was like giving away a puppy.”

MacLean and Ledgerwood see this tree as a piece of history for people to remember many years from now. “Long after everybody’s forgotten our names, there may still be a tree here on campus,” MacLean said. “I sort of do have this little fantasy of people discovering its history again long from now.”

Ledgerwood believes that the seed’s development acts somewhat like a time capsule. “I think anything you see literally starting from a seed and then becoming something that has the potential to be around for 200 plus years is pretty incredible,” he said.

From an acorn to a new sapling growing in the construction zone, it seems that the story has come full circle. “The plan just fell into place,” Ledgerwood said. “I love it when a plan comes together. It just kind of magically happened.”

“I think anything you see literally starting from a seed and then becoming something that has the potential to be around for 200 plus years is pretty incredible.”

—Science teacher Eric Ledgerwood

Science teachers Alec MacLean and Eric Ledgerwood stand proudly next to their oak tree.

Graphics by Mina Kim Photos by Sofia Sierra-Garcia

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Friday, March 29, 2019

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Sports

Q&A with head athletic trainer Gagan Cheema The Oracle: Have you always known you wanted to be a trainer?

Gagan Cheema: Yes. In school, I started off in a different health care discipline, but a lot of the prerequisites followed athletic training. Having known what an athletic trainer does—because in high school I had to see our athletic trainer a lot—and as soon as I was familiar with what kinesiology was and the kinesiology discipline, I sort of knew, “Okay, this is the path I want to take because I want to be a health care practitioner, but I also love athletics and sports.” So I think I knew from an early point in my collegiate career that this is where I wanted to go.

TO: What do you think is the best way to prevent injury?

GC: The best way to prevent injury is a combination of different exercises. Sometimes there’s a little misconception that you don’t start exercising hard until your season begins. The best way to prevent injuries is to continue at least some sort of program, although it varies between when you’re in and out of season. Pre-season and postseason workouts are important, whether it’s the strength or conditioning workout or mobility training, to make sure that you’re moving correctly and you’re working at some level of athletic physical activity, and that’s just to maintain a healthy body as far as bones and musculoskeletal and soft tissue goes. Make sure that you have consistency and you almost make exercising part of your life. It doesn’t have to be as hard as you do during a season, but just get some sort of physical activity in and make sure your mobility is strong and your strength is strong.

TO: What is the most common form of injury?

GC: The most common, I would say, are probably ankle injuries, ankle sprains.

We tend to see a lot of muscle strains at the beginning of the season, especially for first-time student athletes who might not have played or conditioned at the same intensity previously.

TO: What is the most rewarding part of your job?

GC: Working with our students and helping them overcome any injury, illness or ailment to get them back to their sport safely. For a lot of our student athletes, athletics is a big thing and a big part of their identity, so if I can help them get back from any injury that they have, I think it’s rewarding to see them from when they begin with me to see them progress and then back to 100 percent.

TO: What is the most challenging part of your job?

GC: I would say sometimes the emotional aspect of it: to see how distraught a student might be because they’re not able to play.

It is challenging to see students you know not feeling well and feeling sort of down about not being able to play their sport.

But then it’s good for me because then I get to help make a plan of care with them and get them going and see them happy and returning back to what they love to do.

—Compiled by Devon Lee

TO: What is the most serious injury you’ve ever treated?

GC: During one of our football games here, the other team did not have an athletic trainer, unfortunately, and a player sustained a head impact injury off a tackle. I think he got caught up in the bunch, and it was on top of the head, so it was a compression injury on the spine, and he had sustained a cervical neck fracture along the spine.

Any type of spinal fracture and concussion-related injury is really, really high-risk.

Unfortunately, he had to be taken for emergency care immediately. However, with our protocol and process, we made sure everybody was on the same page and communicated well to the other school’s officials and administration, and all of that was handled correctly. We followed up, and everything was okay later.

Sofia Sierra-Garcia

15

Sports

Friday, March 29, 2019

Math teacher chris karas For many, running in a marathon may seem like a daunting feat to achieve, but for math teacher Chris Karas, it is an activity he has enjoyed participating in for years.

When Karas stopped playing soccer, he needed to pick up a new method of exercising. “I used to play a lot of soccer, about three days a week,” he said. “After I quit soccer, I could tell I was getting a bit out of shape, so I decided to start running a couple miles here and there,” he said. “I started to train for a half marathon and when I got to that, I decided to try for a full marathon.”

While training for his first marathon, Karas never felt the need to run the full distance. “I never ran a complete marathon [in training] before the actual race,” Karas said. “I think the farthest I ran while training was about 22 miles. What they say is that the race itself carries you the rest the way to make that 26.2 miles.”

Since running

his first marathon, Karas has participated in five other marathons.

Karas believes the hardest part of the marathon is the ending. “Often, the last mile is the toughest because you think that you’re at mile 25 and you have one mile to go, but you actually have 1.2 miles to go,” he said.

“When you run that last bit, it never seems to end. Mentally, that is a tough part of the race.”

Though some may think that only the best athletes can complete a marathon, Karas believes that the key to finishing the race has little to do with physical training. “It’s all mental,” he said. “If you can run four to five miles in one run, you can run a marathon. It’s just mentally, you have to train yourself to keep running a little bit more each time. The first marathon I ran, running three miles was a dif-

ficulty for me, but once you convince yourself to keep going, you will get to a certain pace where you can continue like that [indefinitely].”

While Karas treasures each race he has participated in for its unique experiences, he feels that the best moments of any marathon are the same. “The best part [of the race] is when you finish, and you might be totally exhausted, but there’s that feeling of accomplishment knowing you did something that a lot of people will never and won’t be able to do,” he said. ­—Written by Laurel Comiter

s n o h t a r a m n i e t a p i c i t r a p s r e b Staff mem

Chris Karas

Paul Dunlap

Maria Powell

Photos courtesy of Paul Dunlap, Chris Karas and Maria Powell

SCience Teacher Maria Powell Science teacher Maria Powell stood on tiptoes to reach for something between lab stations two and three in her biology classroom—crowded with freshmen doing the bacterial transformation lab—and felt the muscles of her right calf tear. “It felt like a zipper unzipping,” she said.

She could not move, so science teacher Laura Pennington gave her a wheeled office chair. Powell spent the rest of the period moving on the chair to give instructions on the lab.

Powell had been training for nine months for a marathon without missing a day, and it was only three and a half weeks away. When she visited a doctor, blood was pooling around her ankles, and she could barely use her legs. “It was really upsetting because I hobbled in thinking it was all over,” she said. “I didn’t want to start over.”

Fortunately, she recovered in time to attend the race. “It was surreal,” she said. “I couldn’t have imagined that, in that amount of time, I could have gone from [having a] non-functioning leg to running like that again,” she said.

“That was kind of cool.”

That was her first marathon in 2012. Powell’s youngest child had just graduated from high school the year before, and she decided to train for the event with her free time. Ironically, she hated running when she was young, but she started training because her fellow science teacher Angela Merchant invited her to a half marathon event at San Miguel in 2008. Since then, she has run around ten half marathons, along with other shorter races.

Powell is attracted to running because of how peaceful she feels when she runs. “Nobody can bother me when I’m running,” she said. “I can’t really answer the phone or respond to texts. [When I started running], it was like the first time in my adult life that I had time just to myself.”

One of her favorite races was the Wharf to Wharf Race, during which participants run for six miles from Santa Cruz to Capitola along the coastlines.

Her training depends on the races she is preparing for.

She sets stricter time schedules if she is running a half marathon, but is more lax for 5K and 10K runs. Despite her experiences with racing, though, she prefers to run

outside alone in her neighborhood. “When you’re on foot, you get to know every nook and cranny of your neighborhood, and you see things that you don’t see when you’re driving by,” she said. She is also very disciplined when it comes to her running schedule. “When I’m on a schedule, I just do it,” she said. “If I don’t get home until nine, then I run in the dark. The only thing that stopped me was injury.”

After she finishes her races, Powell checks her pacing and notices her immediate needs. “It’s not any kind of thoughts of being triumphant or anything, just taking stock,” she said. “You know, are all my parts still working? Am I too cold? Am I too hot? What’s for lunch?”

Powell recommends running to anyone who wants to feel a sense of peace or well-being through running. “If you can run five miles and you think that that’s okay, then you could run six. If you can run six, then you can run seven, right? Maybe not tomorrow, but in a week or two,” she said.

­—Written by Joy Huang

English Teacher Paul Dunlap For English teacher Paul Dunlap, running is a great way to release stress and finish off the day. “After a busy day of facilitating discussions, thinking about big literary—and life—issues and reading papers, running is a great way to release stress and pent-up energy,” Dunlap said. “The physical exertion is so different than what I do for a living that it is a great complement to my work.

I love the feeling of re-teaching myself how to breathe effectively with each run. Running is the purest way of being present and in your body. I love the feeling of knowing my strengths and limitations and trying to push past them.”

Though marathons can be exhausting, the build-up to the start of each race is filled with excitement and suspense. “The moments leading up to the starting gun—there is so much positive anticipation,” Dunlap said. “It’s usually cold, so everyone is rubbing their arms and hopping up and down. Someone sings the national

anthem, which never sounds so amazing, the announcer counts down in the mic and then the gun goes off, but you can’t run yet. There are so many runners, you walk with an exaggerated running stance across the start line and hit your watch and go.”

With such high-intensity running on the day of a marathon, Dunlap adheres to a practice regimen to help him train for the big day. “The event is so challenging that, even on days when I don’t want to train, the thought of getting to the marathon date undertrained is more terrifying than just lacing up my shoes and hitting the trail or street,” he said.

Since training for a marathon is so exhausting and challenging, Dunlap trains with his high school friend, who continues to motivate him through the rough moments. “He and I [keep] each other on track with our training, and we celebrate the accomplishment together,” he said.

Ever since Dunlap completed his first marathon, he has run eight more full marathons and approximately 30 half marathons. With lots of experience in running and training, Dunlap has advice to give to people who are afraid of the intense activity: “This may sound sick, but it is supposed to be fun,” he said. “If it’s not, examine what you’re doing and why. You can challenge yourself while being kind to yourself. Start small. If you haven’t run in a while, start with a walk-run. Build up to a mile, then two, then a 5K, then 10K, then a half marathon. If that hasn’t slaked your thirst for self-inflicted suffering, find a good training plan, tell a few people you trust, sign up and do it!” ­—Written by Katie Zhang

16

Sports

gunn athletes dispel harmful sports stereotypes

basketball players are tall, male & unacademic

Sports stereotypes, while rarely given much thought or consideration, are still widespread. These biases in athletics may range from gender to race, and they oftentimes create a negative and narrow-minded climate around the sports environment that may impact both players’ self-esteems and their athletic performance. As a result, much work needs to be done to reduce the prevalence of stereotypes in sports today.

Societal norms have shaped the distribution of men and women in sports. For example, a study conducted by Chepyator-Thomson and Ennis in 1997 found that boys tend to avoid “feminine” sports with emphasis on grace and aesthetic, such as aerobics, while girls shy away from male-dominated sports that are focused on strength and force, such as football. The stigma towards men and women playing in sports commonly associated with the opposite sex is rooted in sexism and outdated concepts of masculinity and femininity. In all, we should be more mindful of our perception of athletics and create a more respectful environment for sports.

—Written by Julia Cheunkarndee

One of the many stereotypes surrounding basketball is the idea that the sport is mainly for boys and men. “If you see the difference between the crowds at the guys and the girls games, it’s very obvious, and you can see that everyone gravitates towards watching the guys,” girls varsity basketball team captain senior Amber Fu said. This disparity between fanbases also applies to professional players. “When you hear about the March Madness right now, you hear about the brackets in the news, while you never hear about the girls teams,” Fu said.

Another common stereotype basketball players face is that they have to be tall to play. At a little over five feet in height, Fu often has assumptions made about her. “People expect that if you’re not tall, you have to be super small and super fast, or else there’s no way to get around defenders,” she said. However, through dedication, Fu has been able to figure out what works best for her in-game.

“Over time and over practice, you know what works and what doesn’t against players that are bigger than you, and it gets easier, like shooting, dribbling and passing,” she said.

Varsity basketball player sophomore Yotam Elazar has also seen basketball players portrayed as “mindless jocks”—something he knows is not true from experience. “I know that, on behalf of my teammates, they are also doing a very good job of balancing academics and athletics.”

Many also believe that basketball is an African American-dominated sport. Elazar acknowledges that there is truth behind the stereotype, but it definitely doesn’t mean that other people cannot excel at basketball. “Obviously you can see that it’s kind of true,” Elazar said. “In the [National Basketball Association (NBA)] and college, a lot of the players that you see are African American, but at the same time, that doesn’t prevent people from competing with them because there are also a lot of players that are not African American in the NBA who are competing at the highest level in the world.”

—Written by Calvin Cai

Photo courtesy of Amber Fu

cheerleaders are

skinny, dumb & blonde

Captain of the cheer team senior Brenda Cornelio doesn’t believe a lot of people see the full picture when they think about cheerleading. “Most people only see the cheer side to cheerleading where we stand on the sidelines and cheer up the crowd or support the team playing,” she said. “What most don’t see is the competition aspect.” This year, the cheer team qualified for Nationals and competed against other teams from all across the country. Cornelio believes that one of the most harmful misconceptions around cheerleading is that it’s not a sport. “We condition just like any other sport and we practice really hard just like any other sport,” she said.

Freshman Dana Souter worries that stereotypes will discourage people from trying out. “The basic high school cheerleading stereotype is often that cheerleader girls are skinny, dumb and blonde,” Souter said.

She emphasized how cheerleading is a sport where anyone can succeed, and how nobody has to conform to the stereotype in order to join. “To combat stereotypes such as these, it’s important to encourage diversity in sports and clubs,” she said. “Trying out for an activity that you’ve never done before or is outside of your comfort zone is a good place to start.”

—Written by Annika Bereny Photo courtesy of Brenda Cornelio

golfers are

rich, priveleged & not real athletes

Another sport that is often stereotyped and considered undeserving of its status as a sport is golf. “I think there is an obvious stereotype with golf, that golf is an elitist sport played only by rich, privileged people,” vice captain of the boys varsity golf team senior Jamie Hamilton said. “I believe there is some truth to it.

If you look around in the United States, a lot of golf is played in private clubs that only a small percentage of people have access to. That is not to say that there aren’t many great public courses, because there are.

However, the stratification is not inherent to the game of golf.”

Golf’s lack of intense physical exercise also came to question its place as a legitimate sport. “Many people don’t consider [golf] as much as a sport, and I do admit it’s not as physical,” freshman Sameer Singh said.

“But most people who have never played would never be able to hit a ball up in the air.” Singh hopes that showing the more competitive side of golf will get more doubters to look at golf in a different light.

—Written by Annika Bereny

Melissa Ding

Photos by Sophia Lu and Sofia Sierra-Garcia

Lifestyle

Friday, March 29, 2019

acebook Use declines for younger grades With billions of users worldwide, our generation to use it for posting stuff about your life—that’s Facebook is a cornerstone of social media what Instagram is for and why more people use it.” and the go-to platform for Tasty videos, Priest agrees that many are moving on from Facebook to picture albums of extended family, meme groups, satirical news other forms of social media. “There’s this weird stereotype and Messenger games. For many students, it is also the go-to about the type of people who use Facebook, so my classmates platform for school resources. Through class or course groups tend to graduate to another form of social media that is more like Advanced Placement (AP) Economics or common in this day and age,” Priest said. “Facebook has AP United States History, students have become known as a platform for older people.” banded together on Facebook to create Junior Erica Marghescu agrees with Jiang and a space where students can ask quesPriest’s sentiments and believes that such a move"I think as the tions, share information and obtain ment towards other platforms can be explained advice from their peers. However, it by the layout and format of the different types generations go on we seems that the usage of Facebook for of social media. “I think as the generations tend to favor simplicity, school-related reasons, or the usage go on we tend to favor simplicity, and the and the Facebook feed of Facebook as a whole, is declining, Facebook feed always has so much going on especially for underclassmen. that’s not necessarily related to what we want always has so much Senior David Jiang regularly uses to see, whereas the Instagram feed only shows going on."

Facebook to keep up with sports and you posts from people you follow,” Marghescu school-wide events, and to connect with said. “So people are straying further away peers. “I use Facebook for school because from Facebook and towards simpler platforms it serves as a source where I can get all my like Snapchat and Instagram.” information on upcoming school events and also a Marghescu and Jiang both use Facebook to stay place where I can communicate with my classmates,” Jiang said. up- to-date on school activities, yet they both believe “I joined our class Facebook group so I could stay updated on that other social medias like Instagram or Snapchat what’s going on.” may take over. “We have groups for courses at school where Contrary to Jiang’s usage of Facebook for school, freshman people can post questions and give help,” Marghescu said.

Alyssa Priest seldom uses Facebook at all. “I don’t really use “That’s a pretty useful aspect of Facebook that would be difficult Facebook, and if I do it’s for social media and rarely for school,” to find in Instagram or Snapchat because group chats are a lot Priest said. “If I want to know what’s happening in school, I’ll less organized and harder to navigate.” generally ask my classmate or pay attention to the morning Jiang remarks how valuable the course groups on Facebook announcements. Normally I don’t know about school events have been to him. “I got invited to some groups by my friends until the last minute or not at all.” and others I just found,” Jiang said. “I think the groups have Both Priest and Jiang believe that the usage of Facebook been very helpful—they are very much needed.” has declined for underclassmen. “I think underclassmen tend to lean towards Instagram or Snapchat more than Facebook —Written by Chelsie Park Graphic courtesy of Pixabay because Facebook is ‘old school’ now,” Jiang said. “Facebook is seen as more old school to them because it’s less popular in

“New Clothes” Facebook group requires policy reform

New Clothes

Elisa Moraes-Liu

The New Clothes Facebook group is a forum where Gunn students are able to conveniently buy and sell used clothes. However, there are cons to the large clothing platform.

Many sellers have a “no-tryon” policy, and buyers are often unaware of the quality and size of their purchase until the transaction is complete. This can result in issues such as transactions made without knowledge of stains or defects on the pieces of clothing.

Another issue that is prevalent for sellers is lack of commitment from buyers. People often say they want to purchase an item in the spur of the moment, but don’t follow up. This makes the sellers assume they have a committed buyer, only to have them change their mind at the last minute. This not only creates inconveniences for sellers, but also prevents committed buyers from getting the clothes they want.

Lack of effective communication between sellers and buyers also causes inconveniences at both ends. It can be hard to find a convenient time to meet with each other to allow for the exchange to

go smoothly, or some buyers and sellers may not show up at the time or place originally agreed on.

In order to fix the prevalent issues on New Clothes, both buyers and sellers must maintain close communication and transparency during the sale process. To satisfy sellers, buyers should maintain a commitment to purchasing a product once they have expressed interest in it. To play their part, sellers should give buyers the opportunity to try on clothes so that they can inform themselves of any issues the clothes might have, such as stains or rips. Additionally, prices should also remain fair regardless of a buyer’s relation with sellers.

New Clothes presents a platform for the convenient sale and purchase of cute, trendy outfits and other miscellaneous items. However, it is important to maintain a fair environment to reduce the problems buyers often face. Buyers must also be respectful in their commitment to buying from a seller. If you are interested in an item, you should make sure you are committed to buying it before reaching out to the seller, because last-minute changes of mind create inconveniences.

Before selling on New Clothes, it is also important to make sure the items are in the condition advertised on the group.

If people follow moral and ethical codes while selling items, it will allow the New Clothes environment to continue to thrive and be a reliable clothing purchase platform for students.

—Moraes-Liu, a junior, is a Sports

Editor.

Graphics by Mina Kim and Jocelyn Wang

17

PROM DRESS FACEBOOK GROUP PROMOTES SEXISM

Sohini Ashoke “I can’t believe she’s wearing the same dress as me.”

For most of my life, I’ve witnessed the notion that women’s outfits must be exclusive in order to be perceived as beautiful, reinforced by countless movies, TV shows and even in my own life. Take the Gunn Prom Dress Facebook group, for example. When I was first added to this group in my junior year, I believed that it was intended for Gunn students to see their friends’ prom dresses and leave positive comments.

However, the first post I saw was by a senior who explained in the caption that she didn’t want anyone else to wear the dress that she was planning on wearing.

At first, I was a bit shocked—how is it anyone’s place to say what someone can and can’t wear? I was slightly offended, but shrugged it off and moved on.

After seeing about three more of these posts, though, I started to wonder if this was the group’s purpose. Not only did I feel it was unfair to claim a dress that any person has the right to wear, but this behavior was downright sexist, and I realized it stems from the ridiculous expectation that women need to look fancy, put-together and unique in order to be considered beautiful. At events like prom, men are rarely judged on how they look and are never ridiculed for wearing the same suit as another man. This is true even in other environments. For example, in the 2016 Presidential Election, there was unnecessary media discussion around Hillary Clinton’s outfits, but rarely about her opponent's. Women are held to a standard of individuality because of a subtle yet prevalent belief that their beauty will be compared to another girl’s who is wearing the same outfit as them.

This notion is a microcosm of a broader societal problem among women—the assumption that when women are faced with conflict between each other they resort to catty, passive-aggressive and competitive behavior. This stereotype is perpetuated through various types of media, especially TV and some “chick flick” movies. Rarely in pop culture are women portrayed as being diplomatic or even civil when faced with a problem with another woman.

Instead of uplifting and supporting other women, girls are taught that they must be in competition with others on who looks more beautiful, reaffirming the sexist idea that another woman’s beauty is the absence of your own.

Currently, the Gunn Prom Dress Facebook group is allowing non-inclusivity to be spread through a continuation of these kinds of isolating posts.

This conviction needs to be terminated and replaced with a positive and supportive outlook towards women’s fashion. Instead of viewing prom as a competitive fashion show, girls should focus on building each other up and using the night to have a good time!

—Ashoke, a senior, is a News Editor.

18

Lifestyle Fact or fiction: The Oracle debunks campus rumors, suspicions Did English teacher Diane Ichik a wa a nd science teacher Casey O'Connell date?

Although no high school is complete without the volatility of teen romance, one of the hottest pieces of recurring gossip over the years involves romance that was actually shared between two of Gunn’s most adored teachers.

According to English teacher Diane Ichikawa, she and chemistry teacher Casey O’Connell dated for a couple of months.

“This has gotten you guys interested in ancient history because this happened before you guys were born,” she said. “[It was] nearly 20 years ago.”

O’Connell recognizes the learning curve involved in dating and encourages students to use relationships to learn about themselves. “Students should give themselves grace and go easy on [themselves for] how awkward it feels and the uncertainty of it,” he said.

Ichikawa also hopes that students make mature decisions. “Don’t lose yourself in the process of trying to be with another person,” she said. “But if there’s chemistry there, don’t be afraid to take the risk.

Who knows? You just might be the topic of school gossip some 20-odd years later too.”

Fact

Is English teacher Mark Her nandez obsessed with “The Bachelor” ?

Jocelyn Wang

Was there a fight over a bench?

Turf wars have existed for all of human history. Since the dawn of man, disputes over territory have been major causes of physical conflict. A fight of this sort occurred just last month on campus.

“Bench Wars,” as the event was called by students, was a lunchtime altercation between two groups of freshman girls. Each was aiming to sit down at the same bench in front of Bow Gym. When the group who normally sat there saw that their bench had been taken, they turned to violence, which included pushing and hair pulling.

“I kind of felt dumb because it was a really dumb situation,” an anonymous source said. “I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

Reflecting on the fight, the source believes that it caused unnecessary beef between the two groups; everything had been relatively peaceful before they decided to battle over the seating space.

The source also had some advice on how to avoid conflicts of this sort: “Be the bigger person in those kinds of situations,” the source said. “Don’t stoop down to the other person’s level.”

Fact

After a tough day of putting up with students, English teacher Mark Hernandez finds comfort in the hit realit y T V show “The Bachelor.” After having the show recommended by colleagues, Hernandez recently decided that it was time to dive in.

Hernandez tentatively dipped his toe into “The Bachelor” pool before committing for the long-term. “I came to the show for the right reasons, came looking for a show to fall in love with,” he said. “I was a little nervous at first, but I let down my walls and fell in love with the show.”

Hernandez was initially cautious of the show, having experienced past history and heartbreak with reality TV shows. “I’ve been hurt before by other shows,” he said. “They were a bit phony and weren’t authentic.” With “The Bachelor,” however, Hernandez has found a show he sees a future with.

“As soon as I started watching, I felt an instant connection; I could see myself watching ‘The Bachelor’ for the rest of my life,” he said.

Fact

Are seniors Chanmi and Ian Shin twins?

Ever since seniors Chanmi and Ian Shin became friends in eighth grade, they’ve let everyone think they are related. “Everyone thought we were either siblings or dating,” Ian Shin said. “That just kept going, and then we thought it would be funny to just perpetuate that myth, so we just said yes.”

Besides having the same last name, there are other reasons people believe the two are related. “We look pretty similar, and we’re always hanging out,” Ian Shin said. “We both have glasses,” Chanmi Shin added.

The both of them have had some fun keeping the rumors alive. “When people would ask us, ‘Are you siblings?’ we would say, ‘Maybe’ or ‘Yes’ for fun,” Chanmi Shin said. “When it was National Siblings Day we’d just post ‘Happy National Siblings Day!’ with a picture of us, and then people would believe the post.”

Fiction

—Compiled by Josh Mei, Kepa Neesen and Vinay Ranganathan Photo illustrations by Nicole Lee and Sofia Sierra-Garcia

19

Lifestyle

Friday, March 29, 2019

Spirit animals represent connections to past cultures In the past 15 years, Google trend graphs show that searches for “spirit animal” have multiplied, and the social media hype of discovering one’s identity with online quizzes has been growing rapidly as well. It gives people something to talk about with friends, and in the case that it matches with how one views themselves, it provides feelings of relatability. Spirit animals have been popular due to the cuteness associated with personifying an animal and the ironic nature of it.

Spirit animals are a representation of who someone is or what he or she wants to be. They go back almost 50,000 years to the Native American and Australian Aboriginal people, who believe in Totemism, or the idea that humans have inherent spiritual connections to the physical beings around them. More recently, in the 20th century, the philosophy that man, nature and animals are all manifestations of God has resulted in humans feeling more connected to animals, as the beliefs assert

that all three come from the same origin.

Although this does not necessarily validate the belief of spirit animals, it does show the rich history of the concept. In 1954, even Einstein believed in this idea, saying, “We followers of Spinoza see our God in the wonderful order and lawfulness of all that exists in its soul as it reveals itself in man and animal.” One aspect of this ideology has developed into the present-day idea of spirit animals. How? Tumblr.

Like the birth of many long-lasting memes, spirit animals were popularized

by Tumblr, a microblogging and social networking website. In October 2010, one blogger used the term “spirit animal” when commenting on a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) to express her connection to the subject of the video. Just a month later, the writer of a New York Times article used the term to describe an animal she felt connected to. Websites like Buzzfeed often post quizzes that will tell you what your spirit animal is based on how you answer

questions.

As the term became more popular­—making its way into the Urban Dictionar y and across numerous social media platforms—spirit animals have lost their connection to the Native American culture and have sparked controversy. To start, some believe that spirit animals in popular culture are a commercialization of something that should be respected more but have instead given rise to the cultural appropriation of Native Americans.

However harsh this analysis may be, perhaps we should all think twice on the true origins and belief of spirit animals before posting our quiz results on Facebook.

Sofia Garcia Sofia Sierra Sierra-Garcia

—Written by Tejpal Virdi

W hat is your spirit animal?

1. What do you do on a Friday night?

2. Would you rather eat…

A. Study for the 2020 DECA regional conference B. Hang out with friends C. Study for the ACT D. Promise to “hang out” with friends and then flake

4. Where do you go at lunch time?

A. The art room B. Off campus C. Brunch line D. MY BENCH

A. Hot cheetos B. Thai food C. Hamburgers D. Boba

A. Tell them their opinion is “FAXX” B. Walk away and act passive aggressively C. Hit them with the facts of why their opinion is wrong D. Go to Bol Park to “resolve your problems”

5. When you are in a class and you have no idea what is going on you…

A. Sit in confusion silently B. Annoy your friend C. Go on Gunn Confessions D. Go to the bathroom for too long

Mostly A’s: Pikachu

Mostly B’s: Lizard

The surprised Pikachu is extremely innocent and confused by everything. They are so adorable and make great friends.

Lizards are slightly reserved, but can be outgoing if necessary. They are also flexible and adapt well to their surroundings. They often surprise you with their quirkiness and sense of adventure.

3. When someone disagrees with you, you…

6. How do you choose your romantic partners?

A. Abs and money B. Regular dating and courtship C. Through elaborate mating rituals D. Whoever’s ready for action is good

Mostly C’s: Dragon This legendary dragon is a powerful engine of destruction. Virtually invincible, very few have faced this awesome creature and lived to tell the tale.

Mostly D’s: Snake Snakes aren’t afraid to break the rules. They are fierce and won't hesitate to get back at people who have wronged them.

They are also extremely people savvy and self-aware.

Compiled by Kate Mallery

Graphics by Grace Liu and Jocelyn Wang

20

Wellness

In the pursuit of wellness:

During the 2009-2010 school year, Palo Alto lost six students to suicide. Our community lost another four students in the 2013-2014 year. Following these tragedies, our school, district and community made various efforts to better understand what the causes were and take preventive measures.

Nearly a decade after the first suicide contagion, The Oracle is taking a look at what has changed between now and then. In the Pursuit of Wellness is an investigative reporting initiative that aims to answer the following questions:

iI. ARE WE MAKING A DIFFERENCE? Liza Kolbasov, Grace Tramack and Jessica Wang Forum Editor, Features Editor and Reporter This article is the second of a three-part series called In the Pursuit of Wellness, an investigative reporting initiative on Gunn’s efforts towards mental wellness. In this installment, The Oracle investigates the effectiveness of the wellness initiatives introduced in the previous installment.

Over the years, significant research and data analysis has been carried out in order to examine the effectiveness of various wellness initiatives. The Wellness Outreach Team collected data and assembled a report on the impact of wellness efforts in the district throughout the 2017-18 school year.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT STATISTICS PROJECTS In December 2018, math teacher Daisy Renazco asked her statistics students to study an area of improvement for student life. Of the variety of topics chosen, some focused on student wellness. “From my perspective, the fact that students are interested in studying the topic of wellness is a success in itself,” Renazco said. For the project, those students conducted a number of surveys on the student body about the wellness services.

Following discussions about the results, many of Renazco’s statistics students concluded that the suicide prevention program Sources of Strength was a useful wellness initiative. The peer leader network trained by Sources of Strength effectively provided support. “What I thought was really awesome was that students recognized that the Sources of Strength program would be a good place to put work into,” Renazco said. “When students get overwhelmed, they turn to their friends.”

According to a random sample survey conducted by junior Tara Devaraj, 87.5 percent of students talk to their friends first about emotional trouble. As students tend to trust their peers more, even students not involved in the statistics project believe that student-led programs are more impactful. “Students have done a better job at dealing with their fellow students’ mental health than the administration actually has,” an anonymous student said.

Senior Meghna Singh has been involved in Sources of Strength, is co-president of the Reach Out, Care, Know (ROCK) club and was the Wellness Commissioner during her junior year. She has found ROCK to be an important bridge between wellness initiatives and students. “There’s definitely a really good core community filled with people who look out for one another who are supportive,” she said. “It’s really nice to have that community, and it also overlaps with the people in Sources of Strength because we all promote the same messages.”

Singh also said that she has received positive feedback for the petting zoo that ROCK organized before finals since 2015, as well as the rock painting event that the Wellness Center hosted. “The whole point of why we do what we do and try and reduce the stigma is so that we’re initiating these conversations,” Singh said. “I think a lot can happen when people are open about their experiences, whether it be good or bad, and then pass those conversations on to everybody.”

wellness center USAGE According to the Wellness & Support Services Mid-Year Update presented for the March 27, 2018 Board of Education meeting, from August 2017 to January 2018, there were a total of 3,973 visits to the Wellness Center. Of those, 1,616 were for the Health Office, 832 were for a snack or water, 635 were for an appointment with a mental health counselor or a therapist, 547 were for a 15-minute breaks and 268 resulted from the need to talk to a counselor without an appointment. The remaining 75 visits were for assorted reasons, including working on or participating in

I. What have we done to prevent suicides and improve mental health?

II. Are these measures really working?

III. What can we do better moving forward?

This series will span three issues of The Oracle. You can find the first installment in our previous issue and the final one in our next.

a wellness project or group.

Despite the variety of visits, Renazco’s statistics students discovered through the project that the Wellness Center is still underutilized by the entire student body. “What they found was that the proportion, or percentage, of kids that are going to the Wellness Center is actually small, based off of their random sample, but that the small sample use it regularly,” Renazco said.

In a random sample survey conducted by Renazco’s statistics students, 56.25 percent of students had never visited the Wellness Center in the past month, while about 41.67 percent had visited one to five times and 2.08 percent had visited more than five times. Some of the reasons cited for not using the Wellness Center were not needing to or not thinking it was useful.

Singh frequents the Wellness Center for her meetings, as well as just to grab tea and snacks. Since it opened in 2016, she has been pleasantly surprised by the number of students who use it. “This school year, especially, I've heard more people talking about wanting to go see the counselors in the Wellness Center or at least talk to them and know that that's an option,” she said.

According to Singh and the Wellness Coordinators, the number of people using the Wellness Center has steadily increased each year since its opening. Wellness Coordinator Genavae Dixon hopes to eventually reach the entire student body. “I think we could always have more students here,” Dixon said. “I think that we want all 2,000 students to at some point walk in the Wellness Center and feel safe doing so.”

social emotional literacy and functionality Under different forms and names, social-emotional learning (SEL) programs at Gunn have evolved and changed in response to student feedback. Currently, Social Emotional Literacy and Functionality (SELF) is a districtmandated program aimed not only towards improving wellness but also helping students develop soft skills and connections with adult mentors.

Some students have argued against the value and impact of SELF. “It’s boring, and I personally just haven’t gotten anything out of it, especially last year and the first semester of this year,” the same anonymous student said.

They have not attended SELF this semester, citing its ineffectiveness as the reason for doing so.

SEL Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA) Courtney Carlomagno believes that SELF will become more accepted by the student population in the future. “It’s a big change, and every change takes adjustment,” she said. “I also think right now it’s hard that only two grade levels are in it, and it’s not all four years yet. Freshmen and sophomores see juniors and seniors having free time or choice time in Flex, and that’s been difficult.”

Many of the complaints against SELF are also related to time commitment and stress levels. Carlomagno wishes to emphasize how the goal of SELF is to help students develop social skills while concurrently promoting their wellness. This additional curriculum makes it different from academic classes. “Social-emotional learning is about the development of soft skills: learning how to communicate, learning how to problem solve, learning how to work in groups,” Carlomagno said. “It’s kind of like the hidden curriculum so, yes, there is a wellness piece, but I think it’s important to note that SEL is really more skill-based, and it’s about learning how to interact with the world around you.”

Like Sources of Strength, SELF also aims to connect students to adult help. SELF mentors are currently set to stay with the same cohort group for all four years, establishing a secure mentor-student relationship. So

far, SELF survey results have shown this to be effective.

“What [TOSA Tara Firenzi] and I like the most is that the data shows that students are identifying as being more or as connected to their SELF mentor as their regular teachers,” Carlomagno said. “That’s really the biggest deal to us, because they see [their SELF mentors] once a week versus their other teachers, which they see three times a week.”

Overall, the hope is that SELF will continue to positively influence student wellness at Gunn.

OVERALL IMPACT From national training programs to district-mandated classes, wellness initiatives have had varying impacts on the student body. While some may be more effective than others, Carlomagno believes that any positive influence is progress. “I think we have a lot of cool, different wellness offerings,” she said. “Even for the ones with 200 kids versus the ones with 30 kids—however many kids we’re touching—we’re making a difference for at least a handful of those kids.”

Despite the impact Singh has witnessed from working on wellness for four years, she still finds students who don’t believe in the benefit of the initiatives. “I’ve heard a lot of comments like, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to do anything,’ or ‘You’re wasting money,’” she said. “I think that this just comes from lack of awareness. People don’t realize that everyone has mental health; it’s just on a spectrum.”

Singh also believes that it is important to remember that wellness initiatives aim to help both students and the community. “It’s unfortunate when there is pushback, because we’re really trying to spread positivity and awareness,” she said. “It’s coming from the best place possible: just caring about our fellow peers and caring about the teachers and community as a whole.”

If you are worried about yourself or a friend, to be directed to professional help, contact: •

• • • •

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255, 24/7 access to trained counselors School counselor/psychologist Your doctor suicidepreventionlifeline.org and click “Get Help” for yourself or for a friend If the threat is immediate, call 911