March 2024 Issue

Honor Code to be updated

By H annah Shahidi

Prefect Council will update the language of the current Honor Code to modernize it and lessen ambiguity following preliminary discussions with members of the administration, according to Upper School Dean Sharon Cuseo.

e Honor Code has not been revised since it was rst written by Prefect Council in 1992 as an initiative led by former Head Prefect and Editor-in-Chief Spencer Rasco ’93. Prefect Council’s goal is to edit its language and read the updated version at Convocation for the 2024-2025 school year, according to Head Prefect and Print Managing Editor Davis Marks ’24.

e initiative was rst proposed by Marks during the 2021-2022 school year. Since then, Prefects have had conversations with the administration to discuss the possible adaptation. Marks said the initiative will focus on changing the written language in the Honor Code to be more relatable while maintaining its original ideas.

“ e Honor Code was created to establish a common set of values for our community, so when students are unable to remember it, it is failing to live up to its mission,” Marks said. “ e project is rooted in a desire to x this issue by looking at the Honor Code and exploring how we can update the language to resonate more with students. e goal is not to write an entirely new Honor Code but [to] revise it in a way that upholds these important and traditional values while allowing students to better embody them.”

Cuseo said the goal of the revision is to make the Honor Code more direct and comprehensible.

“ e implementation of the Honor Code was entirely student-driven,” Cuseo said. “Students went around and visited other schools that had [honor] codes, and they pieced things they liked together.”

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Classes of 2028 and 2030: Administrators and students discuss admissions data from the 2023-2024 application cycle. A2

GROUND-BREAKING VISIONS: e school purchased Weddington Golf and Tennis in 2017 and announced plans for River Park in 2019. After City Council approval, a date for beginning construction has been set.

River Park construction set to begin in April, seven years after purchase

By Eden Conner

Following its 2017 purchase, River Park is currently slated to begin construction April 4. Los Angeles (LA) City Council approved the project Nov. 14, issuing a conditional use permit for the school. As the school applies for permits from the Department of City Planning, they will start pre-construction activities like fencing, light grading and work on the clubhouse.

ough the political battle for River Park ended following the LA City Council’s decision, opposition groups continued their ght against the project by taking legal action. Head of Communications and Strategic Initiatives Ari Engelberg ’89 said people opposed to River Park are suing the city for alleged mistakes made in the conditional use permit in order to halt construction.

“Opposition groups continue their ght,” Engelberg said. “It’s the city’s process that resulted in the conditional use permit being issued and they want to appeal that. ey’re suing the city argu-

Screen Sensation: William Liu ’25 outlines his opinion on the potential disadvantages of the Apple Vision Pro.

ing that certain aspects of the conditional use permit process were erroneous. As a result, the conditional use permit to see up should be invalidated.”

In addition to community members holding up the development process, Head of School Rick Commons said that there were several other factors that contributed to the delay.

“It’s been seven years since we purchased the property and it’ll be another two and a half years of construction,” Commons said. “So it’s really gonna be a decade from purchase to operation. Part of that is the slowness that COVID-19 created, but then there was also a lot of intense work in working to get the community to feel like they could support it, and that made it possible for the politicians to support it and for the city to give its approval.”

Engelberg said that over the last six years, the public was allowed to continue using the golf and tennis facilities, with the sole purpose of showing the community that the school has residents’

Posting with Mates: Community members re ect on the culture of food delivery at school and possible economic e ects.

Record tardies reported

By Connor Tang

Student tardiness in recent months has tripled since the fall, according to Student Discipline and Attendance Coordinator Gabriel Preciado.

Los Angeles (LA) experienced historic rainfall in the month of February, according to the LA Times. e inclement weather caused multiple roads, including Benedict Canyon Drive and parts of Mulholland Drive, to shut down. As a result, a larger number of non-school commuters from the San Fernando Valley and the Studio City community are traveling to the west side of LA via Coldwater Canyon Avenue, causing greater tra c congestion.

best interests at heart.

“We felt that one of the strongest ways of sending the message to the community that we’re serious about making sure that the community can continue to enjoy the facility is to allow the community to continue to enjoy the facilities,” Engelberg said. “We left golf and tennis open for six years, even though for most of that time, the school was losing money running [Weddington Golf and Tennis].”

When construction begins, boys’ tennis will practice at Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC). Boys’ tennis player Matthew Reiter ’25 said that LAVC does not have courts to t both the tennis teams, and as a result, the varsity team will lose many members.

“Right now we have a 20 to 25 person [varsity] team,” Reiter said. “Since construction is going to start, we have to cut o half of our team and put them on [junior varsity] and have a 12 person [varsity] team.” Following its 2017 purchase, River Park is currently slated to begin construction April 4.

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In September, 98 students were marked as late to their rst class, according to attendance ofce data. e numbers increased twofold in the second quarter, with 186, 235 and 176 absences in the months of October, November and December, respectively, even with ve days o in November and 11 in December due to school breaks.

In the months of January and February, there were 372 and 432 students late to their rst class, respectively, a change nearly double the number of recorded tardies in the rst and second quarters. Preciado said the recent tardiness of students has been unprecedented.

“It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” Preciado said. “It’s an odd situation that we’re experiencing right now, with weather conditions and road closures. It’s one of the worst that I’ve ever seen in my 22 years here.”

Despite the increase in tardies and detentions, which occur when six tardies are accrued in one quarter, Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said the administration has been lenient toward tra c-related lateness.

“We’re not jamming anybody who is late because of tra c,” Slattery said. “Life happens, and tra c happens. Unless you’ve been abusing the attendance policy, nobody will get that mad.”

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Academic advisor: e satire sta provides satirical summaries of courses in the Chronicle’s annual curriculum guide.

HOOPS HISTORY: e girls’ basketball team became state champions for the rst time since 2010, just hours before the boys’ team earned this title

Prefects to change school code

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“It didn’t have a complete flow, and when you read it, it looks like students trying to sound fancy. We would love for it to be direct and relatable. For example, things like ‘violating the person of others’ and ‘violating the person of the school’ are weird ways to phrase bullying [and] disgracing the school.”

President Rick Commons led the school in rewriting its mission statement in 2014 with the intention of making it more memorable to students. Cuseo said she hopes for the rephrasing of the Honor Code to serve the same purpose.

“Prior to the revision of the mission statement, our mission statement was long and boring,” Cuseo said. “When we added ‘joyful pursuit of educational excellence’ and ‘purpose beyond ourselves,’ it became memorable, and people would quote it. e mission statement became more associated with Harvard-Westlake, and we would love for the same thing to be true of the Honor Code.”

e proposed revision of the Honor Code will be discussed by the Faculty Academic Committee (FAC) before obtaining final approval. Marks said though the process of revising the Honor Code will include the input of administrators and faculty, it will be led by students.

“The creation of the existing Honor Code was a studentcentered process, so the modification should be as well,” Marks said. “We started by having preliminary conversations with Commons, [Head of School Laura] Ross, [Head of Upper School Beth] Slattery and [Head of Middle School Jon] Wimbish, but ultimately, students will be the people revising the language. It is important that this process involves both campuses.”

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School issues tardies due to Ventura tra c

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In the previous school year, Preciado said he worked with the administration to implement a ‘grace-period’ policy in the morning, which would prevent students from being marked tardy due to traffic. However, Preciado said the given leniency was flawed because a greater number of students were marked tardy than before, and as a result, there remains no such guideline today.

“The grace policy last year resulted into what we see now, more tardies,” Preciado said. “People got into the same mode of like, ‘Okay, I can come in five minutes late.’ We’re dealing with that type of culture, where if students are given a grace period, they’ll always kind of abuse it.”

Since the increase in traffic,

students have used alternative routes. For example, some walk to school from Halkirk Street — the nearest residential street to the north entrance — to bypass traffic on Coldwater Canyon Avenue. Others have made illegal left turns onto Dickens Street, which outlets onto Coldwater Canyon Avenue before the intersection on Ventura Boulevard, where most of the traffic is centralized.

to pass the flow of traffic, as well as others who make an illegal left turn off ofHalkirk Street.

While working the morning shift on Halkirk Street, Upper School Security Guard Rick McCormack said he has noticed a trend in poor driving behavior, both from students and non-school commuters. He said drivers have used the central turning lane on Coldwater Cayon Avenue

“First of all, the left turn on Halkirk is illegal from seven to 10,” McCormack said. “It's a big safety problem because drivers who turn often get close to getting into an accident with the people that are speeding down the median. A lot of the problems that we’re seeing are sacrificing safety for expedience.”

Additionally, McCormack said that the e ff ect of increased tra ffi c has raised concern with residents of Halkirk Street.

“It upsets some of the neighbors,” McCormack said. “Some of them have complained to the school and some

of the guards.”

ere have already been 278 tardies reported from the attendance office in the month of March, as of March 13. On Tuesday, March 12, there were 56 reported tardies in a single morning, a number Preciado said was triple that seen on a single day in the first or second quarter, with consistent numbers throughout recent weeks.Preciado said he will continue to work with the administration to find solutions to an unusual situation.

“When the students that are never late are tardy almost every day, that’s how you know there’s a problem,” Preciado said. “It could be the weather. It could be that students are waking up late and are rushing to school. But at the end of the day, it’s a discipline thing, and Mrs. Slattery [and I] will continue to work on the numbers to make it more lenient.”

Admissions releases acceptances

By Z  G 

e school received almost 1,300 applications for grades seven through 12 this year. e school is not releasing data on acceptance rates at this point as matriculation has not yet been finalized.

In particular, a record number of male-identifying students applied for admission to the incoming seventh-grade class, with a total of 343 applications. e five-year average for seventh-grade applications from male-identifying students is 313.

Head of Admission and Enrollment Chris Sanders said despite the increase in applications from male-identifying students, the school aims to have an even balance between genders.

“Even though we received a record number of applications, our goal was still to have a gender-balanced class,” Sanders said. “We always seek to have as close as possible to a 50-50 gender distribution, and we still are aiming to achieve that for seventh grade. Essentially, it just meant that it's more competi -

tive for boys, since there were higher number of applications.”

Sanders said the higher number of applications may make more families interested in applying to the school.

“It’s a natural tendency for people to be intrigued [in what] a lot of people are interested in, so I suspect this will create renewed interest [at] the [schools] that a lot of these admitted seventh graders are matriculating from,” Sanders said. “I assume they'll be curious about the activities and the academic profiles of these students, as families try to figure out how to give their children some sort of leg up in the process. at is another reason why our goal as an admissions committee was to make sure that we had a diverse class so that families would essentially bring their authentic selves to the process and not try to game the system.”

Archivist Alexis Arinsburg ’98, whose son will be entering the school as a new seventh grader next fall, said her family is happy about his acceptance.

“He was excited and also re -

lieved,” Arinsburg said. “It is a long process to get to the [final] finish line. He is excited to start his own Harvard-Westlake journey when he comes here.”

Tess Rosenfeld ’25 said she hopes that the application rate for female-identifying students rises in proportion to that for male-identifying students.

“We should empower more girls to apply to top schools," Rosenfeld said. “[ e school] is a great place for all girls, and I hope that more young girls will feel welcome to apply here in the future."

Nicola Dadlani ’25, who has a brother in seventh grade and a sister who is applying to the school for seventh grade next year, said she is excited for her sister to start the application process next year.

“I am really impressed by the amount of people who want to come to Harvard Westlake,” Dadlani said. “My brother is really enjoying his first year in seventh grade this year and I am excited for my younger sister to have the opportunity to join us next year.”

CHAOS ON COLDWATER: Starting in January and February, record numbers of students started receiving tardies for arriving late to their rst class due to tra c on Ventura Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Drive. In February, there was a total of 432 students late to their rst class.

CONNOR TANG/CHRONICLE

Gabriel Preciado

Juniors elect four Head Prefect candidates to give speeches in nal round of elections

By H annah Shahidi

Assistant

Arts

and Entertainment Editor Sasha Aghnatios ’25, Ellie Borris ’25, Gideon Evans ’25 and Victor Suh ’25 will advance to the second round of Head Prefect elections, Head Prefects Bari LeBari ’24 and Print Managing Editor Davis Marks ’24 announced in an email March 14. e four candidates were chosen from a pool of 12 candidates who gave speeches to juniors on March 13. All four candidates currently serve on Prefect Council as Junior Prefects, which has not occurred since the Head Prefect election in 2020.

Each candidate gave a prepared introductory speech and answered both an unprepared and prepared

question from LeBari and Marks. Evans said he had been preparing for his preliminary speech since the beginning of the year.

“ e candidate statement [packet] was sent out two weeks before the actual election, and I started working on that rst by brainstorming ideas for those questions,” Evans said. “I had an idea for my speech since the beginning of the year. e story that I told with my grandpa [in my speech]was always something that I’ve thought about in comparison to my high school experience.”

Borris said he was happy to get the election results because he wanted the other Prefects to advance as well.

“It took me about 30 minutes

to actually [write] the rough draft of my [introduction] speech, but a lot of time was put into re ning it after that,” Borris said. “After hearing the election results, I was super happy as I love my fellow Junior Prefects, and it was awesome being able to move on together as we were all rooting for each other.”

Evans said the audience’s response gave him con dence while giving his speech.

“Hearing the audience gave me this massive sense of relief during my speech, and it made me feel good,” Evans said. “It felt like the community was behind me. I was a little nervous to go rst, but it was also nice because I got to hear the rest of the speeches.”

Alexa Chang ’25 said she voted

School hires new wellness director

By Nathan Wang

Marci Reichert will join the school as the new Wellness Director in July. Reichert brings four years of experience as the Health and Wellness Programs Manager at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans and eight years of experience as a counselor at Lakeside School in Seattle. At the Isidore Newman School, Reichert led a community well-being initiative encompassing pre-K through 12th grade.

Head of School Laura Ross said Reichert’s new role at the school will be to build a collective program to connect the seventh through 12th-grade wellness curriculums.

“Over the last seven years, we’ve been building up our [wellness] infrastructure,” Ross said. “We’ve added deans, counselors and learning centers, but there’s never been anyone thinking about seventh through 12th grades. We were looking for someone who had both a curriculum specialist background and parent education who could help train teachers in [social and emotional learning] skills. We’re excited for [Reichert] to come work on both campuses.”

Reichert said she is excited to work in an environment that is more open-minded.

“I worked [at a school in] Seattle, which is more similar to Harvard-Westlake than [Isidore]

Newman School, where I’m at,” Reichert said. “ ere is a di erent climate of well-being on the West Coast than there is in the South, particularly in health and wellness. ere is a lot I can’t do here that I will be able to do when I go back to the West Coast because it’s just more progressive when it comes to wellness. is role, in particular, excites me [because] I liked the fact that [the school] seems student-centered. I love that students have a strong voice in a lot of ways.”

Ross said Reichert’s experienced career in counseling qualies her for the new position despite the di erences in the schools she has worked at.

“One of the reasons we hired her [was that] she had done this before,” Ross said. “[A challenge is] listening and understanding our unique community and situation because there’s no one size ts all. You can’t take the curriculum she built at another school and [say] that’ll work perfectly.

e community that we are in is a pretty special one.”

Reichert said she hopes to replicate her experience at the Isidore Newman School and foster a welcoming environment at the school.

“[At Isidore Newman School], I’ve created an environment [that] is student-friendly,” Reichert said.

“I’m hoping I can do that at Harvard-Westlake because part of do-

ing good work is knowing who the students are and creating an environment where they trust you. It’s going to take a lot longer at Harvard-Westlake because getting to know students is pivotal.”

President Rick Commons said the creation of the wellness director position further contributes to the school’s emphasis on mental health.

“[ e addition of a wellness director] is a response to our recognition, especially with the tragedies of last year, that we have got to prioritize student mental health and wellness ahead of everything else,” Commons said. “In order to do that, we need to have somebody strategically thinking about every decision we make in the co-curricular life of the school and in the counseling that takes place.”

Ross said the school’s current wellness research will give Reichert existing mental health resources to utilize.

“We’re working with the JED Foundation right now, and we have a task force that is already looking at [the fall wellness surveys],” Ross said. “Luckily, we’re gonna be able to hand her a blueprint because this stu is too important to [say], ‘Just come in and learn.’ She’ll partner with the counselors, the deans and the learning specialists because they’re the ones that see [student mental health] every day.”

•

for candidates who are not current Prefects because she appreciates new voices on Prefect Council.

“I read most of the candidate statements beforehand to get a better sense of what all the candidates wanted to do,” Chang said. “Something I noticed is that seniority on Prefect Council plays a role in who gets elected for the second round. I voted for two people who are currently not on Prefect Council. I value new people going into student government because if it’s the same people each year, sometimes, there’s a lack of perspective.”

e nal round of elections will take place in Taper Gymnasium on March 20, and sophomores will be able to cast votes.

School to hire new rabbi

By Sienna Dall’Olmo

e school began the process of hiring a new spiritual leader for the 2024-2025 school year, a position that has not been lled since the passing of Rabbi Emily Feigenson in March 2020. For the last four years, Reverend Anne Gardner has been the sole religious gure at the school.

President Rick Commons said the new leader will work alongside Gardner as someone who has experience in working with Jewish students.

“What we’ve decided to do is pair someone with Gardner, who is not necessarily a rabbi, but somebody who has expertise in working with students who are Jewish or identify as Jewish, and who has expertise in Jewish life and culture,” Commons said.

After the passing of Feigenson and the simultaneous retirement of Father Jae Young, the school decided to hire a chaplain who could represent all people of all religions. Garnder identi ed that the school would bene t from hiring someone with knowledge of rabbinic studies, according to Commons.

Jewish Club co-leader Oren Hartstein ’24 said he and his co-leader, Charlotte Newman ’24, were consulted by the administration about the decision.

“Jewish Club was made aware that the school intended on hiring a rabbi,” Hartstein said. “ Newman and I were both aware of the decision and consulted on if we thought a rabbi would be a welcome addition to our school, [but] the decision itself was made by members of the administration.”

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WELCOMING WELLNESS: e school hired a wellness director to add to existing mental health initiatives. She will begin her position

LOUD AND PROUD: Junior Prefect Gideon Evans ’25 takes the stand for his introductionary speech during the Preliminary Head Prefect Election round in Rugby Auditorium. is year, twelve candidates submitted statements and spoke in the Preliminary Election Round on March 13.

New digital SAT debuts on campus amid shift to computerized testing

By A lex L ee

e Upper School proctored its rst digital SAT on March 9. e test was entirely run on student-owned computers and featured an adaptive format. When students performed better on initial sections of the test, a harder section would be o ered on subsequent portions of the exam. If a student performed poorly on the rst section, then later portions would be less di cult.

To prevent cheating, the SAT program launched a lockdown browser that prevented students from navigating to other tabs.

August Kohn ’25 said her experience with the digital SAT was smooth due to the lack of any personal information forms or scantrons getting in her way and the time-saving nature of the new test format.

“I have previously taken the ACT and enjoyed the shorter length of this new test,” Kohn said. “Also, before the exam started, there were no long papers to ll out with my information because the exam was on my laptop which made the process much smoother.”

submit [the test].”

Sean Ozalpasan ’25 said the online testing format provided advantages that the paper test did not.

“I de nitely think the digital version is easier because you can use Desmos on the Math section,” Ozalpasan said. “You have the ability to annotate passages [on the Reading section] and [can] eliminate answer choices. If you are stuck on a hard problem, these features help take your mind o of minuscule details that distract you, and you can really focus on the di cult part of the question. It was also great being in and out of the testing room in less than two and a half hours.”

Kohn said she ran into Wi-Fi issues, but they had little impact on the test and were quickly resolved later.

“Because the exam is online, it’s nerve-wracking because you can lose your work if you accidentally shut your laptop or your computer malfunctions,” Kohn said. “I had a little scare because my computer lost Wi-Fi, so when I submitted my score, it told me my test was invalid. Once my proctor helped me get back on the wi , I was able to successfully

Laura McNary ’25 said the second portion of the test seemed unfair as it punished students who performed well on the rst section by increasing the di culty in later sections.

“ e adaptive format goes against the fact that the test is supposed to be standardized,” McNary said. “I think that it should be the same difculty for all students because it’s supposed to give the same metric of progress for all students.”

Information Technology and Testing Coordinator Gabriela Herrera said the digital SAT was administered without di culties, and despite the change in format, registration numbers remained the same.

“ e only issue we had was that a couple students had broken computer screens,” Herrera said. “Students need to bring their personal laptop in good working order to be able to run the exam. But otherwise, nothing about the new format seems to have discouraged students.”

School student wins accolade for stopmotion lm at annual West ix festival

By Everett L akey

Hank Schoen ’24 won the Director’s Choice Award at West ix for his lm “Savta” on March 15. West ix, the student-run lm festival facilitated by the school, which selects student lms throughout California every year for a screening and award ceremony. Awards are chosen in a variety of categories representing the various aspects of lm, such as directing, editing and sound design. e Director’s Choice award is given to the lm that directors enjoy the most.

“Savta” tells the story of the family traditions of Schoen’s childhood and the experiences he had with his grandmother using animated paper cutouts and narration from Noah Moling. Schoen was the only student from the school whose lm was selected to be shown at the festival.

Schoen said he wanted viewers

to relate to his own experiences and re ect on the small but meaningful moments in their lives.

“It’s not really a story about my grandmother, but more memories and anecdotes about her character,” Schoen said. “I wanted the audience to connect with their own family and their own childhood, to the memories that they’ve had with their family members and relate to the joy that they took in the small things.”

Video Art teacher and West ix Faculty Advisor Reb Limerick said that the lm immediately stood out to the festival directors because of the animation style.

“ e voice-over was one of the rst things that caught our attention,” Limerick said. “He chose a young actor to kind of embody his younger self. I just remember the rst time watching it through I was so moved and delighted by it and impressed by all the work he had put into telling this beau-

tiful story. Even though I couldn’t guarantee it at that moment, I had a feeling that the lm might be part of West ix this year.”

West ix Director of Media and Promotion Jacob Lutsky ’24 said there was a large number of submissions reviewed this festival.

“ is year, we got around 298 eligible submissions,” Lutsky said. “It’s about 90 minutes of [screening], so it was 16 lms this year. We look at what the judges say and give an award to the lm that the judges pick. [Ultimately], we had a really great balance of comedies, dramas and documentaries.”

Micah Parr ’25 said he enjoyed watching the lm at the festival and was glad it was selected.

“‘Savta’ was a really well-made lm, and was de nitely deserving of being in the festival,” Parr said. “I’ve worked with animation before, and I know how much time it takes to do something like that. It’s really honest and sweet.”

Juniors seen o campus without privileges

By Mejo Liao

Juniors have been caught violating the o -campus lunch privilege, which is reserved for seniors, according to an Honor Board report issued by Prefect Council on Feb. 20. e report detailed a speci c incident involving a junior who was caught leaving campus repeatedly during lunch.

“

e student was suspended and lost junior privileges,” Prefect Council said in the report. “Leaving campus is a senior privilege, and Mr. Preciado can track who is leaving [campus] through iHW.”

Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said that students who are caught leaving the campus without permission will be sent to the Honor Board because it is a violation of school policy. She said that freedom is purposefully given to students in increments as they progress through the Upper School.

“ is [is] an Honor Board case because you’re not allowed to do it,” Slattery said. “Wait your turn.

If you’re a sophomore you can come for your rst obligation of the day, but you have to stay the whole day. A junior can come for their rst obligation and leave after their last obligation, but they can’t leave for lunch. But then seniors

can do all of those things, and that feels like the fair way to give freedom progressively to people.”

Junior Prefect Victor Suh ’25 said that there has been a increase in the number of juniors leaving campus as a result of students no longer valuing school customs.

“It’s tradition that seniors have the right to leave campus,” Suh said. “We have a class who is starting to push away the internalization of tradition. Over time, underclassmen have gotten better at building up relationships with people in the senior class. And when you are closer to people who have the privilege to go o campus, naturally, there will be more instances of seniors encouraging juniors and sophomores to stick by them and take advantage of that privilege as well.”

Head of Upper School Security Earl Saunders said juniors should not be leaving campus because it is an exclusive way to reward seniors for their responsibility.

“When you become a senior you’re ready to go into [the] adult world, you should be more mature to be able to handle the responsibility of leaving campus and coming back at a certain time,” Saunders said. “So when you’re a senior we’re going to give you a little more

play because nobody’s going to hold your hand.”

Suh said that being present at lunch is crucial for students to build crucial relationships among their class.

“I’ve always seen lunch as the only way that I could get a visual diagram of the social dynamics of our campus,” Suh said. “I know that break time is short and during Conference Time people are usually working on something. Lunch is really the only place where you can see that many people in one place at the same time. I would not have gotten the chance to meet as many new people if people weren’t forced to attend.”

Nevertheless, Saunders said he warns against students making assumptions when juniors leave campus because a lot of them have valid reasons to leave.

“ ere [are] also a couple of kids that are getting o campus and then everybody targeted them, thinking that we were letting them because we were being nice,” Saunders said. “ at wasn’t the case. People see someone getting o and they assume, ‘Look at the juniors going o campus,’ but what do they know? What if they have a doctor’s appointment or medical issue?”

THE BEST FLICKS: Guest speaker and prominent British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir speaks to the crowd at West ix. e panel consisted of student directors Madison Ba o ’24, Jacob Lutsky ’24 and Yuuki Lubin ’24.

NATHAN WANG/CHRONICLE

L. Wood August Kohn ’25

LEAVING FOR LUNCH: Head of Upper School Security Earl Saunders stands at the main security kiosk. Saunders caught multiple juniors leaving campus.

College tour changed

By Celine Wang

e Upper School Deans revised the annual spring break college tour itinerary, replacing the Midwest tour with the East-South tour and leaving the Northeast tour unchanged.

e New England tour will visit the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Syracuse University, Colgate University, Amherst College, Drexel University, Lehigh University, Lafayette College, Villanova University, Trinity College, the University of Connecticut, Boston College, Boston University and Northeastern University.

e East-South tour will feature George Washington University, American University, Johns Hopkins University, Wake Forest University, Davidson College, the University of Maryland, the University of Virginia, the University of Richmond, Duke University, Emory University, Oxford College of Emory University and Georgetown University.

Upper School Dean Sarah Miller said the purpose of the tour is for students to understand their personal goals and inclinations for college.

“A typical college tour itinerary will include a targeted region of the country that has a wide variety of schools,” Miller said.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

Fifty independent schools attend diversity recruiting fair hosted by school DEI team

By Sienna Dall’Olmo

e school hosted the 2024 Southern California Diversity Recruiting Fair at the Upper School on March 16. e fair had an additional online component for faculty joining in virtually from di erent parts of the country March 18.

e recruiting fair is an annual opportunity for faculty, sta and administrators from marginalized groups in the local area to learn about working in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at independent schools. is year, 50 independent schools in Los Angeles (LA) sent representatives to the event on be-

half of their schools.

e event began with a panel led by Assistant Head of School for Community and Belonging Janine Jones, where adults spoke about incorporating DEI practices in teaching, and students discussed their experiences as minorities at independent schools.

Student panelist Anaya Olivas ’25, who represented the school, said her experiences have taught her the importance of navigating her identity through forming connections.

“I think having someone you can see yourself in is really important because there are a lot of struggles

Prefect Council sends out course reviews to assist class selections

By Colin Ho

Prefect Council sent out an online form to create student course reviews based o student feedback Feb. 14. e course reviews were made for students to give their honest opinions on classes that they have taken in order to allow their peers to select courses of the correct rigor and subject based o others’ experiences, according to the email.

you may experience that a ect your school life and which are signicant to your identity,” Olivas said.

“Knowing there is someone at school that will understand you and support you just based o that shared identity [is important].”

After the panel, prospective faculty visited individual school booths and spoke to current faculty about DEI job positions in Taper Gym.

Jones said the fair is crucial for creating a more diverse educational environment throughout LA education systems.

“ e fair is a signi cant event for West Coast independent schools because a diverse learning environ-

“

ment is a critical component of student success and marker of educational excellence,” Jones said. “In order to create such an environment, it is imperative that schools have a diverse faculty and sta e fair gives schools an opportunity to hire more faculty and sta that look like the students they serve.”

e school’s DEI team created the recruiting fair in 2018 with the hopes of furthering the school’s implementation of its mission statement, which emphasizes creating a purpose beyond the school itself, according to the school’s website. e rst fair took place in 2019.

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The goal was to give students information on the classes o ered at school based on other students’ rst hand experiences.”

Sarah Anschell ‘26

Although the results were originally meant to be sent out this year, Head Prefect and Print Managing Editor Davis Marks ’24 said that Prefect Council has decided to collect data over a longer period of time in order to obtain a more comprehensive view of each course.

“Prefect Council wants to ensure that the course reviews are as comprehensive and accurate as possible, so we want to turn this project into something long term,” Marks said. “We got a lot of student responses this year, but by collecting responses over the next year or two, we will be able to ensure that the course reviews re ect the courses and are able to help students as much as possible when making decisions.”

“It’s already looking like something that’ll be continued going forward,” Anschell said. “ e goal was to give students information on the classes offered at school based on other students’ rst-hand experiences. We asked questions about how stressful di erent classes are, how much homework they assign and whether or not the student who took the class would recommend it.”

Cole Firshein ’26 said they

Sophomore Prefect Sarah Anschell ’26, who helped create the survey, said she expects that the new course reviews will be a yearly occurrence.

Abolitionist literature researcher takes residence at Kutler Center

By Eila Shokravi Professor of Literary History and Author

James Basker was selected as this year’s Kutler Center Scholar in Residence. Basker is the president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and teaches at Barnard College and Columbia University. Basker recently released his fourth book, “Black Writers of the Founding Era: A Library of America Anthology,” last year. e book features more than 120 African American writers, consists of 200 literary pieces and creates a new vision for the nation’s

founding era. Basker said he decided to study American history because of the lack of knowledge of the subject across America.

“I began to see in the 1990s that American history is a subject that su ers from neglect, indi erence and poor performance,” Basker said. “Tests show that it’s not well learned. I’ve committed myself at Gilder Lehrman to try to improve the teaching and learning of American history across the K-12 system and the general public.”

Director of the Kutler Center and Summer Programs Jim Patterson said Basker’s time at the

school allowed him to explore the humanities.

“My academic background is in science and math, so history is less familiar to me,” Patterson said, “It is remarkable that there is this wealth of history and literature written by Black people during the founding era that has not been a part of our conversation for so long. It’s incredible that he brought this to light and is bringing it to Harvard-Westlake and other schools around the country.”

Noa Blackman ’25 said hearing from Basker allowed her to consider new historical perspectives.

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were grateful for the course reviews and will use others’ personal descriptions to inform their class choices.

“ e questions on the review forms were also more in depth than the course [surveys given] by the [administration],” Firshein said “You get more insight into the class and the classroom environment. It’s important for students to be able to read un ltered, honest reviews because being able to see the workload and understand more of what the students experi-

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ence in the class can be extremely helpful when deciding what courses to take.”

Assistant Director of the Learning Center and Learning Specialist Ray Visaiz said it is important for students’ mental health to select classes that are right for them.

“I think students selecting courses that are more of a t with the level of rigor that they are prepared for is very helpful because they know what to expect,” Visaiz said.

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DISCUSSING DIVERSITY: Student representatives from various independent Los Angeles schools discuss their schools’ methods to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the annual 2024 Southern California Diversity Recruiting Fair hosted by the Upper School on March 16.

P reviewing N ew C ourses

e school introduced eight new updated courses and electives for the 2024-2025 school year. Here is a look at four of them.

Introduction to Computer Science

By A nabelle Cheung

A new elective called Introduction to Computer Science will be available for the 20242025 school year and will be taught by Upper School Math Teacher Juan Lopez and Upper School Math Teacher Kanwaljit Kochar. e course is tailored for beginners, so no prerequisites are required.

Lopez said the course begins by introducing fundamental computer science concepts, using learning strategies designed for beginners.

“ e course intends to utilize interactive learning tools

and platforms to make abstract concepts more tangible,” Lopez said. “Students will receive instant feedback on most projects, and visual programming environments can prove especially e ective for beginners.” e course uses active learning techniques such as coding labs, peer reviews and interactive quizzes, according to Lopez. Lopez said the course will o er additional resources to cater to students’ interests.

“A great goal for the course is to increase the number of optional resources and stretch challenges for students who wish to explore topics in greater depth,

By Everett L akey

Memory, Self and Society will be a new course available to students in the 2024-2025 school year. It will be taught by English teacher John Garrison and will explore the role of memory from a cultural, psychological and literary perspective through a variety of media.

Garrison said that the course will o er an opportunity for introspection and to write in a similar style to college essays.

“We come to understand that our memories are what make us who we are,” Garrison said. “ e course will have a tactical

catering to their speci c interests and learning speeds,” Lopez said.

Ava Hanasab ’26 said she is interested in the new class as it provides an opportunity for beginners to try out programming.

“Computer science is present throughout everyday life and it’s used in almost every industry, so I think it’s important to understand it,” Hanasab said. “It would be a great asset and an opportunity to possibly grow my interest.”

Brandon Hui ’26 said the class seems interesting because of the problems and challenges it presents.

“I think [Introduction to Computer Science] is a good

class for high schoolers because it could help us gain critical thinking skills and would boost problem solving abilities,” Hui said. “It is worth considering for people interested in computers and learning to code.”

Beyond Code: AI, Ethics, and Society

Jack Ryan

e new Directed Study

Beyond Code:

AI, Ethics, and Society will be available to students during the 2024-2025 school year. Students will learn about the relationship between

aspect. For the rst part of the course, we’re going to be writing a lot about our own memories and about [things that] have inspired us. [Students] will be able to work with fellow students and work with me to craft really rened memory pieces that can be the building blocks of winning college essays.”

Nikki Dadlani ’25 said she was compelled to sign up for the course because she enjoyed having Garrison as an English teacher this year, and because the class will be an opportunity for introspection.

“ e reason I chose to take [Garrison’s] class is that I think he’s an awesome teacher, and I’d

technology, morals and society in the world of arti cial intelligence (AI). Director of Institutional Research Michael Barker will supervise the course with Director of Teaching and Learning Daniel Gutierrez. e second-semester course is open to all grades at the Upper School. ere are no class prerequisites as previous experience in coding is not required.

Barker said he wants to take a hands-o approach to the course and center material around student-led discussions.

“I hope to set up learning opportunities like discussion-based or interest-based gatherings where people can come and talk

like to have him again my senior year,” Dadlani said. “I’m on a self-improvement journey right now, and I think that this class will help guide me on that and help me become a better person through personal statements and self-re ection. Also, it will be cool to learn about memory and how to enhance my memory.”

Chris Marin ’25 said he is considering taking the class because of its emphasis on re ective and contemplative writing.

“I think being able to write about yourself is just such an important skill,” Marin said. “You have to be able to look deep within yourself, and nd your

about a particular thing or explore it on their own without having to do any homework related to it,” Barker said. “I would hope that anybody that signs up for a course like this would have the freedom to explore AI through a lens that’s particular to them.”

Gutierrez said students will be able to interact with speakers from a variety of professions about AI in their respective elds.

“We hope to have a diverse roster of speakers who can talk to students about how generative AI is a ecting di erent industries, such as advertising,nancial services, education and medicine,” Gutierrez said.

aws and your strengths. It will be really fun to be able to do that in class and to have that space in a school environment. I feel like he wants us to enjoy the class and something out about ourselves.”

Milo Messinger ’25 said he is interested to see whether the course can change how the school views student interaction with AI.

“Harvard-Westlake and the entirety of academia’s response to AI has been very immediate, and in my opinion, not very well thought out,” Messinger said. “I feel like people in academia have been seeing AI in the wrong way, as something students [use to] cheat rather than [as] an additional tool to help students thrive. It’ll be intriguing to see how this directed study could in uence that sort of thought within the con nes of Harvard-Westlake.”

japanese language and Culture

Erin Ryu

Directed Study: Japanese Language and Culture is a new class that will be o ered to students next year.

Students in the class will be able to explore Japanese architecture, history, literature, art

and pop culture. e curriculum is open to all upper school students and will meet twice a cycle.

e course will be taught by Middle School World Languages Teacher Shuang Yang. Yang said the course will expose students to various parts of Japanese culture, including tea ceremonies, festivals, cuisine, guest speakers and multiple eld trips to museums and Japanese gardens.

Yang said she was inspired to create the class by students’ interest in Japanese culture.

“ e biggest motivation for me to propose this course is students’ [requests],” Yang said.

“I decided to teach this course because I think [it] will increase the representation of Asian culture and language.”

Yang said the class will introduce students to the Japanese language and encourage them to re ect on their own lives as they study how the in uence Japanese culture has around the world has evolved.

“Students will learn the basics of the Japanese language and obtain the tools to be able to continue to improve their language skills on their own,” Yang said.

“

ey will examine Japanese culture through the lens of their culture, compare and discover the

[cultural exchange] between the United States and Japan as well as changes in [Japan] over time.”

Ellie Liou ’26, who is interested in taking the course, said it is important to emphasize the various cultural identities present at the school.

“I love that Harvard-Westlake is introducing Asian languages, and I know many friends who are excited to take the [course],” Liou said. “[ e school’s] support of Asian languages and culture programs allows for a greater understanding of Asian culture and can provide opportunities [in] understanding the Asian American identity.”

PROTECTING

(AP)

Students contribute to local river cleanup

By Erin Ryu

Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES) students visited the Los Angeles River for their fourth environmental service trip of the year March 9. During the trip, students went on a nature walk, weeded out invasive mustard plants and planted native plants.

Upper School Science Teacher Nadine Eisenkolb said service trips are important because they expose students to nature and help them understand their impact on the world.

“I cannot get students to care about the environment without taking them into [it] and having

them experience it,” Eisenkolb said. “[I] also want students to see [that] there are other people outside of the school who care about these things and spend their Saturday mornings helping the environment. Civic and communal engagement is important to teach our students in addition to environmental stewardship.”

George Ma ’25, who attended the service trip, said he was able to recognize the environmental impact of each volunteer’s contributions.

“I realized the passion [that

the] volunteers had [for] dedicating a major part of their lives to ght the same issue,” Ma said. “I also realized how important these actions are, [even though] they might go unnoticed. I felt useful and proud because what we did is going to impact our surroundings.” APES students are required to attend one out of the six service trips o ered per year, according to Eisenkolb.

Charlotte Whang ’25 said these service trips allow students to recognize how they can contribute to and participate in combating the envi-

MESA observes Persian New Year

By Colin Ho

e Middle Eastern Students Alliance (MESA) hosted its annual Nowruz celebration on the Quad on March 19. Nowruz is the rst day of Persian New Year, which falls on the rst day of spring and is celebrated by many people identifying with Iranian and West Asian heritage.

MESA Leader Lila Daoudi ’24 said celebrating cultural events is important to cultivate a diverse school environment.

“Exposing people to di erent cultures is good for producing globalized citizens,” Daoudi said.

“Being able to foster foreign understanding creates new avenues for connections. We [celebrated] Nowruz [at school] by bringing traditional Middle Eastern food and explained the origins and values of the holiday. It was an opportunity to engage with other students, so we could tackle our shared issues for change to be realized.”

Upper School History Teacher and MESA Faculty Advisor Dror Yaron said representation of Middle Eastern students has grown dramatically since he began at the school.

“[Now], there are students from various parts of the [Middle East],

not merely from Iranian or Persian backgrounds but also Arab students and Muslim students,” Yaron said. “MESA used to be mostly Jewish, and what has occurred [now is that members] are mostly of Persian backgrounds with some Pakistani and Arab students.”

Dhara Jobrani ’26, who is half Iranian and half-Indian, is grateful that the school has created a greater community for Middle Eastern students.

ronmental problems discussed in their classes.

“In APES, we learn a lot about the ‘illnesses’ of the environment, [like] climate change, pollution [and] waste,” Whang said. “It can get depressing sometimes. For me, it’s important to be involved in trips like these to remind myself that there are ways to counteract some of the damage that has been done to the environment. Participating in trips fosters optimism for the future of the environment. It’s great to realize how many other people also care about the same things as I do, and it’s [gratifying] to be able to see the little plants that we all worked together to nurture.”

“

Teacher salaries increase

By Everett L akey

e school announced that teacher salaries will increase again for the 2024-2025 school year during a faculty meeting. e school introduced variable wage rates six years ago, changing the preceding constant rate of around 3%, according to History Department Head Celia Goedde.

e school has increased salaries to match the pace of post-pandemic in ation and high costs of living, according to Head of School Laura Ross. Ross said increasing teacher wages reects the school’s desire to maintain exceptional faculty.

“It’s getting harder to recruit and retain top people with the cost of living,” Ross said. “Our goal is to have the most competitive salaries in Los Angeles so that if someone wants to come teach here, they feel like they are able to make that choice [without] having to think about compensation. I talked to other schools that have so much turnover, and that’s not something we deal with a lot.”

Math teacher Josh Helston said the school has been successful in ensuring teacher salaries keep pace with in ation.

“[ e school] does a very good job of treating and compensating us fairly for the work that we do,” Helston said.

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Being able to foster foreign understanding creates new avenues for connections. We [celebrated] Nowruz [at the school] by bringing traditional Middle Eastern food.”

Lila Daoudi ’24 l wood

“[At home], I celebrate Nowruz by spending time with family and cleaning my home to get ready for the new year,” Jobrani said. “I also clean out my closet and lter through my friends to see which ones are worth carrying through the new year. It is important to have diversity to get a good scope of opinions and expose kids to new cultures and open their minds to new ideas.”

Yaron said Middle Eastern issues and traditions have received more attention in the last few years.

“ ere’s been more attention to Nowruz, to Ramadan, to Middle Eastern Culture and to some degree, Middle Eastern causes,” Yaron said. “Before, Middle Easterners at school were invisible, and, if anything, were more a liated with Jewish students, who were interested in [speci cally] Israel as part of the Middle East.”

Fundraiser for cancer research held

By Lyla K avanagh

A group of students hosted a bake sale to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) as part of their Student Visionaries of the Year (SVOY) Program on the Quad on March 14.

e team, WCKD Cancer Fighters, sold homemade baked goods, and the pro t went directly towards researching a cure for cancer and improving the quality of life for patients and their families. e team raised more than $900 during the bake sale.

rough SVOY, students form fundraising teams and compete to raise the most amount of money for LLS over the course of seven weeks. Assistant News Section Editor Nathan

’24 are leading WCKD Cancer Fighters. Team members Lorena Um Kim ’25 and Callum MacLachlan ’26 contributed baked items to the sale and Assistant Features Editor Alex Dinh ’25 and Micah Parr ’25 managed the bake sale stand.

“ e program is basically a friendly competition between teams in Los Angeles to see who can raise the most money,” Wang said. “All the proceeds that we’re selling today, like the rice krispies, the brownies and the cookies [are] all going to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society for cancer research.”

Wang started WCKD Cancer Fighters with Song because he felt compelled to help the people and communities a ected by the disease.

“I know that there are a lot of people in our community

who are su ering from leukemia and lymphoma, especially children,” Wang said. “Seeing that encouraged Song and I to lead this team and do this bake sale because we know this is going toward a good cause, and we know that our e orts are improving our community.”

Song said the money raised will aid the search for a cure relating to blood-related diseases.

“I’m passionate about raising money for this cause because I know what it’s like to lose a family member [to] a disease without a modern cure,” Song said. “By donating, we are one step closer to a cure, not just for leukemia and lymphoma but also other diseases related to blood cells.”

MacLachlan said his personal experiences with cancer motivated him to participate.

PLANTS: Advanced Placement

Environmental Science students partnered with the Studio City Neighborhood Council and TreePeople to improve native plant and bird life along the Los Angeles River. Students removed invasive plants and replaced them with native species.

Students organized a

L. Wood Charlotte Whang ’25

Confounding Crossword

Aidan Deshong ’24 worked tirelessly to assemble the sixth crossword of the school year. Will you be as lucky as a leprechaun?

DOWN

2. “We

Assistant Adviser: James Lane

Streamlining Student Feedback

Midway through the school year, teachers are required by the administration to have their classes fill out a standardized student feedback form. Featuring a range of questions concerning homework load, teacher feedback, class participation, the promotion of diversity in the classroom and other topics, these surveys are meant to gauge students’ perspectives on their classes and ensure their feedback is passed on to teachers. e feedback form is supposed to provide accountability for teachers and promote educational success, but it currently falls short of this goal.

Current survey questions are too generic. Every class, from art to science to English, completes an identical survey with the same list of questions. Much of the survey is inapplicable to certain classes. For example, highly academic, structured classes like math or science have different course expectations than electives like art or music. What does a question about how well their coursework represents diverse perspectives even mean for Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus AB students? What does a student say to a question about whether their teacher returns assessments on time for holistically graded or non-test-based classes like art and music? Math and art are polar opposite subjects with different course structures, teaching and grading philosophies and student experiences, and they should not be evaluated by a one-size-fits-all approach to feedback.

Another issue is that not enough teachers or students take the survey seriously. Teachers are supposed to step out of the room to avoid biasing student responses, but not all of them follow this rule. Most teachers send out the surveys at the end of class and let students leave after submitting them, which encourages students to rush through the questions to leave class early. Some students blindly click through the multiple-choice questions without considering their answers and

skip the optional free-response questions, decreasing the quality of the feedback. Many students are also skeptical of honestly answering the written questions because they fear their teacher will be able to identify them by their writing style or because so few even answer them in the first place.

For most classes, the feedback forms are like a black box. Some teachers don’t review their feedback in class or explain whether it has motivated them to change their teaching style. It will inevitably feel hard for students to feel invested in their responses if they don’t think they matter.

e administration should encourage teachers to discuss common themes in student feedback and to make changes that address those concerns. Students need to know that their opinions will be reflected in the classroom if we want to facilitate student participation in the learning process. Prefect Council has already done something like this, sending campus-wide emails about new activities and changes to school policy to ensure students feel like their voice matters.

Additionally, instead of using one all-encompassing student feedback form, individual academic departments should design surveys that reflect their own needs. e art survey might be more concerned with students’ creativity and self-expression than the math survey, and the history survey might be more slanted toward questions about analytical thinking and representing diverse perspectives than the science survey would be.

Revising the survey system is crucial to ensuring students take their responses seriously and to guaranteeing more effective, insightful feedback. If we truly believe that listening to students matters, then we must prioritize ensuring their perspectives can be heard through their feedback.

IFix the admission system

By Olivia Phillips

t was March 8, 2021. I anxiously paced around my room, attempting to stay calm as 5 p.m. ticked closer. In just a few minutes, I would learn not only where I would go to school for the next four years but also the connections I would make, the education I would have access to and the opportunities I would have presented to me. I wasn't waiting on a college decision — this was me at 14 years old, hoping to get accepted to Harvard-Westlake.

In a lot of ways, the school's admissions process reflects those at colleges — students submit standardized test scores, write essays and conduct interviews. The school, like most prestigious colleges, aims to form a holistic picture of each candidate. However, one area in which the school has fallen behind top colleges and many prestigious independent schools is their approach to financial aid.

Many prestigious colleges around the nation have adopted a need-blind approach to financial aid in which a students’ financial position isn’t taken into account at all. Notable examples include the eight Ivy League schools, Stanford University, University of Chicago and Tulane University. Furthermore, various similarly-endowed independent high schools have implemented need-blind admissions, such as Cate School and Horace Mann School. The school has certainly made strides with financial aid — it offers students a comprehensive aid package, meaning that students on financial aid will have access to the same opportunities as students paying full tuition. It has also increased the number of students receiving financial aid from 17.4% of the student body in 2011 to 20% in 2024. Yet, family income is still a factor in students' admissions results. Even though students, regardless of their ability to pay tuition, are considered in the same applicant pool in the first round of the admissions process, financial aid later becomes a factor. The school currently

only allows for a finite number of students on financial aid each year, meaning that the difference between an acceptance and rejection could come down to a student's socioeconomic status.

This is something that has a direct, distorting effect on the environment that the school fosters. Ninety percent of families in Los Angeles qualify for financial aid. However, 80% of the school’s population comes from the other 10%, according to Director of Financial Aid Greg Gonzalez. School is a place where students learn skills needed to succeed in the real world. Yet, students are confined to a small, privileged sphere where most families can spend over $40,000 in tuition a year. Learning about the outside world becomes difficult to do with peers from homogenous socioeconomic backgrounds.

TThe school is the wealthiest independent middle and high school in California, with net assets totaling $583 million in 2023, according to their 990 forms. With such a massive budget, the school should further prioritize financial aid and hold themselves to the standards pioneered by other independent schools. Students should be selected based on merit and given the extensive resources that the school has the capacity to provide, regardless of their ability to pay. While this is a difficult threshold to reach and cannot be implemented immediately, the school should set this as an objective for the near-future. Need-blind admissions would be an ambitious goal for the school to set, one that would require a lot of time and even more money to implement. However, I am presenting it as just that — a goal. The school should work towards setting this objective and should continue expanding their financial aid budget. The school should direct more of their sizable pool of funds towards installing a need-blind admissions process — it should be established as a goal for donors, administrators and admissions officers to work toward.

Excuse all recent tardies

By M ax Turetzky

Isat in my car, dgeting in the driver’s seat as the clock on my dashboard ashed 8 a.m.

I was late again. I had been sitting in the left-turn lane on Ventura Boulevard, a major collector road opposite the Upper School, for more than 15 minutes. Some 20 cars still idled in front of me, waiting their turn for the tra c light to turn green. It’s an experience that most have related

to strongly over the past couple of months, ever since unprecedented and sustained tra c jams started slowing cars to a crawl, keeping countless students from arriving on time.

e recent surge in tra c stems from a series of road closures near the Upper School due to heavy rains in January and February which caused multiple mudslides and sinkholes.

Address issues with local infrastructure

By Hannah Shahidi

he school canceled inperson instruction due to ooding and heavy storms in the Los Angeles area on Feb. 5. Intense rainstorms throughout February made the month the wettest in more than two decades, according to NBC. e storms resulted in dangerous mudslides and numerous street closures — both Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland Drive, for example, were shut down, with certain parts of the latter still being closed.

e problem lies in the fact that California infrastructure is simply unable to handle intense ooding because of how outdated it is. Flooding has become an increasingly worrisome concern in the state over the past few decades — all 58 counties of California have records of severe ooding damage to infrastructure, making ooding the most widespread natural hazard in the entire state, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). Extreme weather events are issues that affect all California residents; local and state legislators should pass policies to re ect the severity of the infrastructure problem. Of course, water infrastructure is not the only issue on the minds of policymakers. Changes require lots of time, money and e ort to put in place, but the issue is so widespread that the energy needed to put in is worth it.

Mulholland Drive has been shut down between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Drive for over a month since a mudslide damaged a stretch of the road. e Skirball-Mulholland northbound 405 o -ramp has been inde nitely closed since mid-February because of a sinkhole. Both of these closures have rerouted tra c through Coldwater Canyon Drive, a major thoroughfare for Los Angeles (LA) tra c, making it inconvenient and time-consuming for students to get to school.

For the past month and a half, the streets leading into the Upper School have been an urban planner’s worst-case scenario.

Most days, the intersection at Ventura Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Drive is practically in gridlock, and the left turn lane on Ventura Boulevard stretches back nearly half a mile. Coldwater Canyon Drive turns into the Upper School’s parking lot, and it su ers similarly dire tra c jams. Tardies and late check-ins on the school's attendance app iHW have considerably increased since February. When road closures and

e climate is rapidly changing all over the world, making extreme weather events much more common. With this change comes the need for more secure infrastructure. Because California is often experiencing heat-related weather events such as wild res and water shortages, it is easy to overlook less common issues like ooding and rainstorms. However, assuming that water-related events are not severe is a dangerous misconception because it leads to a lack of legislative focus on modernizing water infrastructure. Indeed, these issues pose signi cant risks for all California residents. One example of this is the looming threat of a possible ARkStorm, modeled by experts from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a number of universities. e potential storm would cause large periods of intense rainfall, high winds and extensive ooding, resulting in immense destruction of property and public areas. If a storm of this magnitude were to hit California, we would see a large loss of human life, habitat destruction and great costs for the state to rebuild and recover. For example, in 2017, Sacramento experienced a series of atmospheric rivers that demolished infrastructure, according to

garbage day made an especially frustrating tra c nightmare Feb. 28, around 44% of students were late to their rst class, according to Student Discipline and Attendance Coordinator Gabriel Preciado. He based this estimate on iHW student check-in data.

One tardy might not mean much, but stacking up seven tardies in a quarter results in a detention. Even then, being late is frustrating regardless of the consequences. It's embarrassing and anxiety-inducing to sneak into class during a teacher's lecture. We shouldn’t accept tardies as a natural or acceptable result of the ongoing tra c. Instead, the school should accommodate and try to minimize students' stress until roads reopen.

First, the school should erase tardies for students who have been late to morning classes since February — a pardon, so to speak — so they aren’t held at fault for a situation beyond their control.

Second, the school should reinstitute the 8:05 a.m. grace period while also extending it extend it to 8:10 a.m. at policy was ended at the beginning of the school

the Sacramento County. e projected cost of damages alone for an average ARkStorm is $725 billion, according to Forbes. ough such storms are rare and di cult to predict ahead of time, they are "perhaps inevitable," according to the USGS. Given the catastrophic impact of a storm like this, our cities should be better equipped to handle and recover from one. e issue of unpreparedness a ects such a great amount of the population. More than one in ve residents — roughly seven million people — are at risk of their households ooding due to extreme storms, according to the PPIC. is equates to around $900 billion in domestic homes and other buildings that could be destroyed by intense storms. Despite this, less than 7% of homes in California have ood insurance. e consequences are even worse for those in low-income communities, which are often comprised of people of color. Lower-income residents are more likely to live in historical housing in special ood hazard zones, whose drainage systems are much less e cient than those in more afuent neighborhoods. Among these households, less than onequarter of households have ood insurance, despite being at an increased risk of ooding, according to the PPIC.

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year to discourage lateness, but it should be revived until the tra c dies down. We should still emphasize that classes start at 8 a.m. and that students should try to arrive by then, but it does us no good to punish students for the crime of sitting in tra c.

Without action from the school, students will only have two options to ensure they arrive by 8 a.m. e rst option is waking up earlier, a solution absolutely no one would enjoy. In a previous Chronicle article, I wrote about the e ects of sleep deprivation on teenagers, and encouraging them to get up even 10-15 minutes earlier can have serious consequences for their well-being. e second is for students to drive faster, an incredibly dangerous alternative. is is especially hazardous at a high school, where most students have driven for one or two years maximum. Speeding is bad enough, let alone for inexperienced drivers, and students who are sick of getting tardies and don't want to wake up earlier might just choose this option.

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Rethinking ADMISSIONS TESTS

Make the tests required

By Eden Conner

The admissions process is not a clear-cut system. Unlike a standardized test question, which guarantees an answer in choices A-D, there is no perfect way to judge merit when deciding who deserves a spot at a university. In the realm of college admissions, this applies to standardized testing. It is not perfect, but standardized testing remains the most e ective method for universities to admit both a diverse and talented cohort of students to their school.

Over the COVID-19 pandemic, several universities went test-optional, and some even went test-blind as accessing testing centers became di cult due to quarantine. Since then, some schools have continued to remain test-optional, but others began reinstating their testing requirement. eir decision was based on research that proved standardized testing was a strong indicator of students’ academic success in college. Indeed, students with higher standardized test scores have higher success rates in college, according to Opportunity Insights. ose in favor of abolishing testing argue that students of high socioeconomic status are given an unfair advantage over those lacking access to college admission assistance. However, this argument fails to account for the fact that the entire admissions process gives an unfair advantage to wealthier students who can a ord expensive college coun-

STATS AND FACTS

Aselors, tutors and programs that boost their extracurriculars. Standardized testing, while awed, combats economic disparities in the admissions processes.

Standardized testing, while awed, combats economic disparities in admissions processes.

Rather than competing with students who have access to far greater resources, standardized tests o er the chance for students coming from schools that are underfunded and under-resourced to shine. Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth College Lee Co n announced that the school would revert back to their standardized test requirements. He said this decision was made so that the school could better understand and evaluate students in context — students who scored well below a 1400 on the SAT could still be judged at a high level based on where that score was coming from. is means that even though a sub-1400 score might not be impressive for a student who attends a prestigious high school and has access to greater resources, the same score can make a student attending an underfunded and under-resourced school stand out, thereby helping them in the admissions process.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

SKeep them optional

By Shiara Navarro

tandardized testing has long been accepted as an integral part of the college admissions process. Tutors, practice tests and study guides consumed students’ lives as they prepared for college, with overachieving students hoping to score as highly as possible. However, the situation has changed — colleges around the nation are removing their testing requirement in the hopes of creating a balanced and diverse student class.

e SAT and ACT exams were created in the 1900s as a means for college admissions o ces to test and compare students’ readiness for college. However, since 2020, colleges around the nation have decided to remove standardized tests as a factor in the college admission process. Now, more than 80% of colleges and universities in the U.S. are test-optional, meaning that students have the choice to submit test scores or not along with their application, according to Inside Higher Ed. is change was, at rst, due to the COVID-19 pandemic when testing sites could not administer the exams in-person.

Since then, the decline of standardized testing has continued, with schools removing themselves from the previous consensus that these exams were important and needed in making admission decisions. However, this year, top schools such as Yale, Brown and Dartmouth have decided to

Should university admissions be test optional?

Yes: 58.3%

No: 41.7%

Don't let tech replace our social lives

By William Liu

pple has stepped out of its comfort zone. In a stark departure from their annual update in iPhone camera size, the company released its highly-anticipated Apple Vision Pro on Feb. 2. Despite its hefty price tag, the device gained a spotlight in the technology world, with YouTube reviews trending on the internet and orders quickly accumulating. When one became available for testing on campus, students didn’t hesitate to ood the sign-up form. I was also interested in what the new product would o er — but not for long.

e Apple Vision Pro is a headset device that allows users to run applications that either exist as a part of their surroundings or transport the user to a separate digital world. e Apple commercials strategically focus on the product’s usage in a private setting to avoid the broader question of its social implications. In most of their commercials, a user, relaxing on a couch in their living room, is either exploring the

various oating windows existing in the real world or fully escaping to sensational destinations. Applications give the opportunity for users to immerse themselves in ski resorts, mountain ranges and meditation rooms all from the comfort of one’s seat. ese are exciting features, but the mere availability of them raises serious questions regarding how people will manage their time. In a world where a constant digital escape is possible, users might increasingly nd reality boring.

In a world where a constant digital escape is possible, users might increasingly nd reality boring.

e Apple Vision Pro is not limited to virtual reality (VR), where a user is fully immersed in an alternate, digital world. Aug-

start requiring the SAT again.

Not requiring the standardized exams is a step in the right direction as they are not a reliable measure of students’ college readiness or future academic success, like the exams advertise. For one, standardized tests advantage students from higher income families. Students of higher socioeconomic status are able to a ord tutors, prep classes and other materials that their counterparts cannot. In fact, students coming from families in the top 20% of earners more often scored above a 1300 on the SAT and a 29 on the ACT than students from the bottom 20% of earners, according to Annenberg Media. Students of higher socioeconomic status can a ord tutors, prep classes and other materials their counterparts cannot, while those of lower socioeconomic status often have to depend on themselves and class content to prepare. ough some schools o er to purchase prep classes for test takers, these opportunities are rare and limited. Because of this, a student’s performance on standardized exams becomes more of a measure of their preparation than their intelligence.

e SAT also has racist orgins. e exam was rst created in 1926 to discern people of color who would "decrease American intelligence," according to Inside Higher Ed. Test questions were manipulated to favor white people and increase their scores.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

Does tutoring play a big role in SAT/ ACT success?

Yes: 86.1%

No: 13.9%

Do you think standardized testing is equitable?

Yes: 66.1%

No: 33.9%

* 115 students polled

Assistant Opinion Editor William Liu argues that the Apple Vision Pro's virtual and augmented realities may threaten to replace our face-to-face social interactions.

mented reality (AR) allows users to perceive the outside environment in real time while simultaneously having applications oat around their space. is magnies the social dangers of the device. Since users know they can still go about their daily tasks regularly while wearing the headset, they’ll be content to wear it for extended periods of time.

Our society is already experiencing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. According to NPR, young people aged 15-24 are already experiencing 70% less social interaction with their friends. Much of this is due to the rise of internet devices, which allow us to communicate with others without having to step outside. Many use the digital world as an escape from genuine, face-to-face conversations.

If online platforms on handheld devices are already capturing the attention of millions of citizens worldwide, it’s hard to imagine the impact of a device even more alluring and immersive. With

the ability to open up several tabs of social media, go through email and even do meditation at any point, users might take the device o less and less. Many of the activities that would usually require going outside — such as hiking to a mountaintop for a view — are now more or less accessible by merely projecting an image with the Apple Vision Pro. ere are also severe practical concerns. If a driver decides to operate a vehicle with the device on, they could potentially cause a serious acci-

dent. Users are not literally seeing through the goggles — they’re viewing their surroundings through a set of cameras that project a screen — so any malfunction or device shuto could be very problematic.

To prevent potential accidents on the road, stricter government regulation is needed. Policymakers need to prioritize these potential safety concerrns.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

Thë Çålïførñïå Prïmårÿ

Members of the community re ect on the process and results of the state primary elections that took place in early March.

By H annah Shahidi

California residents voted in the primary election March 5 to determine who will be on the November ballot for local, state and federal offices. President Joe Biden won the Democratic Party nomination with 89.2% of the vote, while former President Donald Trump won the Republican Party with 79.1% of the vote, according to the Associated Press.

Among other elections for the Senate and House of Representatives, a special Senate primary also took place to elect a new senator to complete the term of late Senator Dianne Feinstein. Democratic Representative Adam Schi and Steve Garvey, representing the Republican party, will advance to the general election this November.

Center in Brentwood, said he is more invested in passing local measures because they are decided by slimmer margins than in national elections.

Fiona Kim ’24, who voted in the election, said although local politics are often overshad owed by national politics, local elections are important because they are more connected to smaller communities.

“It’s easy for everyone to care a lot about presidential elections because that’s what’s always on the news,” Kim said. “It’s also important to do a lot of research on local politics because these are people that you can actually contact and will make more of a di ence in your life.”

Seth O’Brien ’25, who did not vote but worked as a volunteer at the Crestwood Hills Recreation

“I de nitely care less about the presidential election than local elections in Los Angeles, especially since the national election is so polarizing and, being from California, the electoral vote isn’t impacted by my vote,” O’Brien said. “Local elections have an impact on my day-to-day life and local measures, which usually get voted on by a pretty small segment of the population. [They] have a more significant effect. I’m more focused on voting on local issues, especially with the [District Attorney]. I would like someone to be elected in place of George Gascón.”

Rex Grube ’25 said he supports Biden for reelection because of his democratic policies.

“Even though I’m not old enough to vote yet, I really hope that Biden will win re-election,” Grube said. “I consider myself to be pretty centrist, but I feel like the Democratic Party is actually trying to bring positive change to our nation, especially considering migrant and gun reform.

I can’t believe that a man who’s been indicted four times and has over 90 felony counts is the front runner for the Republican Party.”

In January, Kim traveled with a group of students to visit the 2024 Iowa Republican Caucuses. Students on the trip attended rallies for various presidential candidates and conducted interviews with local voters. Kim said being able to attend the trip allowed her to see di erent perspectives on national politics

and elections.

“Going to Iowa this [winter] was very eye-opening because I got to go to a di erent region where people have totally di erent priorities, and I got a better understanding of the country as a whole,” Kim said. “It also helped me have more empathy for people who have di erent interests than I do. It was also really interesting to understand that America is a bunch of little regions but together we’re a single country that needs to have a sense of unity.”

In the fall, Kim helped organize a voter registration event at the school to help register students to vote in upcoming elections. Kim said students preregistering to vote is important even if they are not interested in politics.

“It’s important to preregister so that you can vote even if you end up not wanting to later on,” Kim said. “I preregistered about a year ago, and it’s a great way to start the process of getting involved even if you’re not old enough to vote yet. Even if you don’t want to get into politics, you should still be aware of how policies can influence what’s going on locally, especially since young people can make such a big difference by voting.”

O’Brien said he enjoyed the experience of being involved in an election through volunteering.

“My responsibilities were checking people in, looking up their voter record and making sure that they’re eligible to vote,” O’Brien said. “We either help them use the new LA County machines to vote, or we also help people if they have issues with their mail-in ballot. It’s a cool experience to be involved with a part of our nation’s electoral process.”

O’Brien said he expects Trump to win the presidential race against Biden this November.

“Looking at polls now, especially polls compared to 2016 and 2021 with the same few candidates, Biden’s approval rating looks pretty low,” O’Brien said. “Moderate voters don’t seem to be particularly gravitating towards Trump, but I would still project that he is going to win in November.”

In the election, voters also voted to pass various measures, one of them being Measure HLA, the City Mobility Plan for Street Improvement Measures initiative, according to the Los Angeles Times. e ballot mandates sidewalk widening,

the creation of more bus lanes and other transportation accommodations. One result of the ballot measure is the addition of a bike lane on Ventura Bou levard, meaning there will only be one lane for cars on the street.

Sam Pulaski ‘24 said he was in support of passing measure HLA because of the bene ts of the initative and wanted to ensure his voice was heard by voting.

“As a citizen of Los Angeles, I like to have my voice heard and I feel like local elections are more impact ful than national elections,” Pulas ki said. “Even if one vote doesn’t really matter, it’s nice to partici pate in a system and think that my voice does matter a little bit. Also, [Measure] HLA is something that I’m particularly passionate about, and I wanted to vote yes.”

want to live in.”

History Teacher Jennifer Golub-Marcus said she appreciates when her students show an interest in politics and current events.

Pulaski said he supports the plan because he wants to live in a city where public transportation and biking are viable options for getting around.

“

“In Los Angeles, transportation is terrible,” Pulaski said. “It’s really hard to get around and tra c is awful. Roads are also dangerous for pedestrians and bikers. e HLA measure doesn’t actually a ect taxes at all. e only di erence is that now they’re now legally required to implement changes. I am someone that drives a car, and I don’t like that. I would like to live in a place where I can take the bus or even bike to where I want to go. Voting to put that requirement onto the city will eventually make it into the place I

“My sense is that there is curiosity among kids when it comes to politics and elections, but there’s just such an overwhelming amount of information, so sometimes it’s harder for them to get involved,” Golub-Marcus said.

“I try to incorporate discussions about current events in class periods. I had a bunch of students come in and talk about the State of the Union Address and the polarity of the rebuttal [speech]. I always enjoy hearing student’s perceptions of what they see going on Grube said it is important for people to know what policies their elected legislators are “I consider myself very politically engaged,” Grube said. “I read the news every day and I am really interested in politics and our government. Everyone should be properly informed before making their vote, and I don’t think there’s anything more important than being aware of what your representatives and other senators have been responsible for doing, as well as their motives for doing so.”

Golub-Marcus said she is interested in bringing in local political leaders to speak to her history classes in the future.

I don’t think there’s anything more important than being aware of what your represntatives are responsible for.”

Rex Grube ’25

“

ere are probably lots of opportunities to engage with local politicians in our curriculum that we don’t take advantage of,” Golub-Marcus said. “I have a friend who teaches at Gar eld High School, and she brings in local union leaders to speak to the students. It’s important that kids get real world experience and get to hear from local officials because they’re so active in the political landscape. I think that would be great to bring that more into my curriculum.”

L. Wood Fiona Kim ’24

Frøm Dåwñ tø Düsk

By Saisha Kumar

It’s 5 a.m., and Ahmad Adaya ’25 wakes up to the sharp sound of his alarm. Outside, it is pitch black, but Adaya promptly prepares his breakfast of bread and dates, the only foods he will consume until evening. He then nishes his prayers and takes a sip of water before returning to bed to sleep until he must wake up again for school. Adaya is celebrating Ramadan, the practice of fasting from dusk to dawn. Since many members of the school community do not observe the holiday, Adaya said practicing Ramadan and fasting during the day can pose challenges.

Students and faculty re ect on the unique challenges, considerations, experiences and joys of celebrating Ramadan while at school.

from food and water during the daytime, so it can get a little bit fatiguing, but it’s not something unmanageable. We believe that God will give us the support we need from a spiritual standpoint.”

L. Wood

“During Ramadan, I don’t eat or drink until sunset,” Adaya said. “Aside from the actual fasting, Ramadan is all about self-re ection and trying to be better. It’s especially di cult to practice when you’re at school and everyone around you is eating food and doing things that you shouldn’t be doing.”

Ramadan takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and this year, it is observed from March 10 to April 9. Islam is the third largest religion in the U.S., and more than 3.45 million Americans celebrated Ramadan in 2023, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). e holiday is one of the ve pillars of Islam, celebrating the advent of the Quran and the beginning of the Islamic religion. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast during daylight hours and engage in extra prayers or devotional practices, according to Upper School History Teacher Naqib Shifa. Shifa said he identi es as a practicing Muslim, and though practicing Ramadan can pose physical di culties, he has become accustomed to fasting each year.

“When [people] hear about fasting, they’re like, ‘Well, you don’t eat food?’” Shifa said. “We’re like, ‘No, not even water.’ We’re abstaining

Jett Jasper ’26 also practices Ramadan, and Jasper said he has adapted to fasting at school.

“I know I need to put in extra e ort at night because my brain is not going to be as functional during the day,” Jasper said. “I don’t try to do my work at school or before I break the fast because I know I’ll have trouble remembering it.”

Similarly, Rayaan Rao ’24 said celebrating Ramadan at school has led to challenges regarding athletic participation.

“During Ramadan, I had Physical Education, and I was in the swim unit at the Middle School,” Rao said. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to swim because I always accidentally swallow water.’ When I told the coach, he forced me to participate. I felt uncomfortable in that situation, so I reached out to my dean, and we had a conversation.”

Rao said despite the incident that he experienced, he feels like the school community has become more cognizant of those who celebrate.

“ ere de nitely has been some di culty, whether I’m trying to explain to other people what Ramadan is or how hard it is to fast,” Rao said. “I feel like over the years, people around me have understood it more and more.”

Shifa said this is his second year at the school, and he has witnessed how the administration supports those observing the holiday.

“During the last 10 nights of Ramadan, Muslims tend to stay up all night in preparation for what we consider an incredibly holy [last] night,” Shifa said. “In the same way that when you have a big exam you sometimes pull an all-nighter to study in preparation for that, I will stay up in preparation for that [last] night. is

year, Ramadan overlaps with spring break and ends on the Wednesday we get back from break. I’m going to take that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday o so I can stay up all night and do extra prayers during the last ten nights of Ramadan. I have already talked to the school and made arrangements to take those days o .”

Cross Country and Track Program Head Jonas Koolsbergen said practicing Ramadan can be especially di cult for student-athletes, so the school must provide extra support to these students.

“Obviously, it’s incredibly important for [those celebrating Ramadan] to feel like their team supports them because it’s their culture, their history and their religion,” Koolsbergen said. “ ey should be able to feel like they can honor [their religion]. I’ve handled athletes celebrating Ramadan on an individual basis, but the team will usually give them days to do their running on their own. ey can run at a time that feels good to them or where it ts into their schedule.”

Shifa said the school not only supports his practices during Ramadan but also throughout the entire school year.

“

“On Fridays, during the noon prayer, the Muslim committee comes together at the mosque,” Shifa said. “So, I leave school early and go to the mosque on Friday afternoons to attend the sermon. e school is also supportive of my daily prayers, and I use space next to the Chapel to do my daily prayers.”

nating a space to be used for daily prayer,” Gardner said. “Ideally the space would be private, comfortable and provide a bathroom for the ritual washing done prior to prayer. Over time, this location has changed. Currently, the prayer space is in the Chapel, which meets the quali cations as well as being conveniently located.”

Shifa said he has connected with other practicing Muslim students and faculty in the school community in the prayer space.

“On a number of occasions last year, if I couldn’t go to the mosque for the Friday sermon because my class schedule was too packed, I would reach out to the Muslim students to meet during Community Time and do the Friday sermon,” Shifa said. “ is year, we formed the Muslim Student Association. We’ve had two club meetings, so it’s still in its infancy, but it’s gaining more momentum.”

Shifa said the formation of the Muslim Student Alliance will facilitate an even greater connection within the Muslim community at the school.

During the year you get busy with school, but this month is really about family, faith and trying to be a better version of yourself.”

Ahmad Adaya ’25

Reverend Anne Gardner said the prayer space was created to allow Muslim students and faculty to continue their religious practices while at school.

“When I rst arrived at Harvard-Westlake, I was approached by a handful of Muslim students about desig-

“Muslim students are probably developing a curiosity to learn more about the religion because they might have been raised in a Muslim household but don’t know too much about the religion,” Shifa said. “ e nice thing is that the Muslim Student Alliance creates an opportunity to educate Muslim students about what Ramadan consists of.”

Jasper said he recently converted to Islam and was introduced to the practices of the religion by other Muslim members of the community.

“I was my considering religion at the time, and a peer had recently introduced me to the religion [of Islam],” Jasper said. “I had read the Bible and looked into Buddhism. en I read the Quran, and the Quran was the one that spoke to me the most.”

Jett Jasper ’26

Members of the school community discuss factors that lead to the increase in use of nicotine pouches like Zyns among Gen Z and their health implications.

By A lden Detmer

Looking around his 8:00 a.m. class, Kenny* was con dent that no one was watching him in the back row. As his teacher discussed the past night’s reading, Kenny reached down and slowly unzipped the top pocket of his backpack, revealing a small cylindrical tin labeled “ZYN.” After waiting a few seconds to make sure no one had noticed, he twisted the lid o and popped a small white pouch into his mouth.

ough Kenny may have thought that he was alone popping a Zyn that morning, he is part of a national shift towards Zyns. About 420,000 middle and high school students reported using Zyns in the last 30 days, according to the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey. e brand was founded in Sweden and sells small non-edible pouches that include three or six milligrams of nicotine, the addictive substance found inside tobacco. In addition, Zyns contain a granulation agent, llers, pH balancers, sweeteners and avorings. By placing the pouch in their upper lip for up to 30 minutes, users can increase euphoria and decrease stress. Zyns come in an assortment of avors ranging from wintergreen to co ee, with their packaging resembling “Do Not Eat” silica gel packets.

Zyns are posited as a healthier alternative to cigarettes or e-cigarettes because of the absence of tobacco or smoke. Kenny said he began to use Zyns because he was curious about how he could consume nicotine in a healthier manner.

“My friends had some Zyns because they were trying to get o vaping,” Kenny said. “It’s better for you than vaping.

been popular as the new thing, similar to when vapes had just come out.”

Nolan*, a di erent student who has tried Zyns, said he continues to use them because he has come to enjoy the regular experience of ingesting nicotine.

“ e rst time you use one, it’s probably going to be horrible,” Nolan said. “It tastes bad, and a lot of people I know have gotten ‘nic-sick’ and thrown up. But after you get used to the taste, you feel like you’re oating through the clouds.”

Despite the purported bene ts, Brett*, a member of the school community, said he prefers to use other nonsmoke nicotine products because he does not see a signi cant between the nicotine in Zyns and real tobacco.

“Especially in California, you can’t [smoke] inside venues,” Brett said. “I can still go into a movie theater or public place and do [tobacco] during intermission or whenever. I still use tobacco because there’s no reason to substitute something for the lab-grown nicotine in Zyns. It’s like drinking a Diet Coke. e chemicals are probably worse for you than the sugar in regular Coke.”

While Swedish Match – the Stockholm-based creator of Zyn – continues to promote their products, much remains unknown about the health e ects of these nicotine pouches. Most of the research surrounding cigarettes, vapes and cigars focus on the tobacco itself, which has been shown to cause 12 different types of cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control. However, nicotine alone can be just as dangerous.

Head of Peer Support and Counselor Tina McGraw ’01 said nicotine pouches can have the same e ect as other tobacco products on a developing brain.

“Nicotine is so addictive because it releases a lot of dopamine, a short-term

feel-good neurotransmitter that is part of the brain’s reward circuitry,” McGraw said. “Nicotine increases the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke among other e ects. Teens should avoid nicotine as it causes long-term changes in the brain that may make it di cult to quit nicotine products.”

Despite being aware of the harmful health consequences, Kenny said he uses ZYN and other substances together because of the de-stressing e ects he gets from combining drugs.

“

“A lot of people do Zyns when they drink because it gives you a better buzz,” Kenny said. “If you do it and smoke, it keeps you more active. I don’t really know the bene ts but it’s better for your lungs because you don’t inhale it. You can get gum cancer, but I’d rather have that than lung cancer.”

nicotine products. ese products are highly regulated and have been on the market for more than 10 years. I think a lot of people don’t realize that the government has had time to collect data, on potential underage use, for example. Recent data has shown that levels are actually extremely low.”

Gilchrist is correct: overall tobacco use declined in 2023 from 16.5% to 12.6%, totalling about 2.8 million students across the country, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

A lot of people do Zyn because it gives you a better buzz. You can get gum cancer, but I’d rather have that than lung cancer.”

Kenny*

Swedish Match sold 116 million cans in the fourth quarter in the U.S., a 78% increase from 2022, according to Philip Morris International, the tobacco company that owns Marlboro and acquired Swedish Match in 2022. Much of the quick rise in popularity can be attributed to “Zyn uencers” or certain in uencers on TikTok and other social media apps that promote these products.

Zyn uencers do not follow the conventions of most in uencers, who promote their sponsors with a “Click my link for a 10% discount on a VPN” pitch. Instead, they build a following based on their purported charismatic personality, according to the Guardian. Well-known gures, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and relatively unknown TikTokers alike have promoted Zyns as an essential part of their lifestyle, garnering millions of likes.

In a press release, Philip Morris International Chief Communications O cer Moira Gilchrist said ZYN does not have o cial partnerships with in uencers and is not being marketed to teenagers intentionally.

“First of all, we market and sell these products only to people who are of age,” Gilchrist said. “People need to understand that we market and sell these products to people who would otherwise continue to smoke or use other

Callum MacLachlan ’26 said students are indirectly in uenced by what they see on social media.

“It’s a trendy thing,” MacLachlan said. “People see inuencers with ve in at once and Instagram models doing it. I think that kind of makes [students] ask themselves, ‘Oh, what is this? I should see what it is like.’ ere’s some pressure of encouraging friends to try one.”

Head of Upper School Security Earl Saunders said Zyns are no di erent from cigarettes, chewing tobacco or vapes, but the culture surrounding nicotine has changed considerably in the past decade.

“When I was nine years old, my other brother and I decided to see what a cigarette tastes like,” Saunders said. “My dad saw me and said, ‘Oh you want to smoke?’ He pulled out a fresh one and gave it to me. I didn’t want to smoke it, but he made me smoke the whole thing. I was sick and couldn’t breathe for four or ve days because I had bronchitis. I never touched a cigarette again. Nowadays, I don’t think that environment exists too much. Half of the teachers at [a] given school used to be hooked, and now we never see any teachers going for a quick smoke break.”

MacLachlan said he does not understand the bene ts of Zyns or other drugs.

“I get the appeal [of Zyns], but I don’t do drugs because you don’t need it,” MacLachlan said. “It’s not something I need in my system. I’m trying to be successful every day and come to school and go to practice with my best mindset. ere’s nothing that I need [drugs] for, so why should I start if I’m not addicted now?”

*Name has been changed.

By Z oe Goor

Afternoon light oods the room as Ben Boateng ’25 logs on to a Zoom meeting. An iced co ee sits on a coaster next to the computer. e characteristic Zoom chime sounds as he joins the meeting room, and the smiling face of Boateng’s private college counselor

Pleasantries are exchanged, and then the real business begins. Boateng, who has been meeting with his outside counselor since June of his sophomore year, said his counselor helps him prepare for the SAT and the waterpolo recruiting pro cess and checks in with him about his grades. Boateng said that he appreciates having a private college counselor because they can devote more time to him.

“I feel like private college counselors are more handson,” Boateng said. “Our deans are great, but they deal with a lot of stu It’s good to have an outside source who is impartial to ev erything. erally just focus on helping. [My counselor] reinforces the stu that the deans will normally tell you when it comes to meet ing [with] teachers and making sure you’re at ev ery o ce hour that they can o which I think is very cool. Another thing he helps me with is getting in contact with coaches.”

ing to college, according to the Princeton Review. e school’s College Counseling Handbook for the Class of 2024 provides a broad overview of the college process for parents and students, and the “Factors Beyond the Application” section said that complex circumstances in uence admissions decisions.

“Many other factors, beyond the control of the individual candidate, can come into play in an institution’s nal admission decisions,” the handbook said. “Perhaps over-enrollment in the previous freshman class means that a school must accept a smaller class this year. A dramatic increase in the number of applications this year means that the school must become even more selective. Each institution has enrollment goals that it tries to meet, whether it’s replacing a timpani player in an orchestra, nding a goalie for the soccer team or working toward building a racially, religiously, socio-economically and geographically diverse community.”

Sam Joustra, a private counselor based in Ann Arbor, said she aims to supplement what students receive from their school counselors.

Although the school deans act as college counselors for all upper schoolers, some students, like Boateng, turn to private college counselors and independent educational consultants for guidance through the college process.

One reason for this is the anxiety associated with the college process — 76% of high school students reported feeling high levels of stress surrounding apply-

“One thing that is really important to know is that I never want anyone to feel that my job is to come in and take the place of anyone, whether that’s a school counselor, a parent [or a] mentor,” Joustra said. “My job is really just to add additional support wherever needed and whatever [it] looks like. e job of a school counselor, no matter what setting they’re coming from, is so important. I want to make sure that students and families understand that, but I also understand when someone might want a little added support, so the bene t of my job is that this is all I do. I

work with a very limited number of students every year, so in terms of caseload and when I’m working with my students, this is my focus. [I] can also lend another perspective outside of what students might be getting from their school setting, too.”

Upper School Dean Sha ron Cuseo said the school does not have an o cial policy on private college counseling but prefers that students disclose their use of private counselors for the student’s sake.

“Our preference is always that people tell us [that they are using a counselor] just so that we can try to be on the same page so that students don’t get caught between information,” Cuseo said. “ ere are a lot of really reputable high-quality independent counselors out there. ere are some who aren’t and obviously, there have been scandals about it, but whenever I’ve worked with someone who is willing to work with me, it’s usually about just organization or trying to provide a little more regular monitoring.”

Cuseo said the upper school deans provide all the necessary resources and information students need throughout the college process.

“I understand the impulse, but also independent counsel ors do not need to serve the Harvard-Westlake commu nity,” Cuseo said. “We have 30 to 35 students that we’re working with in a given year, and we’ve known them for three years, and we have great relationships with colleges. ere’s ample opportunity to make good choices.”

Abby Siegel, a private college counselor based in New York City, said her services are very similar to those that a school counselor would provide.

“I help students with list development and identifying schools that are go ing to be good for them,” Siegel said. “Eventually, with my seniors, I

help them with setting up applications, walking them through the applications, making sure that they are knowledgeable about the di erent requirements per school, and helping them build and develop the ideas for the essays, which they then write. Another part about what I o er is trying to take the stress out of it as much as possible.”

However, Siegel, who worked as a high school college counselor prior to starting her own business, said that not being associated with a school means she is able to devote more time and focus to her students.

“I have a lot more time and exibility,” Siegel said. “I’m working one-on-one with the student with no distractions from anybody else. ere’s no teacher running in to come and talk to me. I don’t have to answer the phone. I don’t have a meeting I have to go to. I was the class advisor, which I really loved, but that took time. I now have students who, because I have nothing to do with the school, or I’m not their parent, feel comfortable talking to me because I’m not going to tell anybody about it.”

While college counselors spend a lot of time consulting on topics directly related to college admissions, like essays and test scores, counselors also advise students on course selections and list development, according to e Princeton Review. Joustra said she aims to give her students suggestions to help them dive deeper into their interests in new and erent ways.

“I really want students to think creatively about what they already like doing and how they can take that to the next level,” Joustra said. “If I have a student who’s an avid reader and they set a goal for themselves that they want to read every single book in [a] series, every single book by [an] author or start a local book club in their community, that’s a way that students can have meaningful experiences, but grow the scale or the reach or the impact of something that

they already love. I have students who will go into a senior citizen home and help folks learn how to use technology or play music for them or start a local tutoring circle in their neighborhood or things like that. It doesn’t have to have a ashy name or brand tied to it because the why of what you’re doing is always going to be more important.”

Because a large part of the college application is composed of essays, some students hire essay counselors who promise to help students improve their personal narratives. Risa Green, a college essay coach based in Los Angeles, said her role in the college process is to help students re ect on their experiences and translate them into meaningful pieces of writing to present to colleges.

“I try to help people gure out what makes the most sense for them to write about in their essays and how to think about what it is that they’re trying to convey about themselves to colleges,” Green said. “I think of myself a little bit as a therapist, too. I try to help people think about themselves in a di erent way. What are their values? And what are their di erent communities and identities and how [have] those helped them become who they are?”

“

them with their ideas. But in my editing, I’m very careful. I never want to lose the student’s voice. I never want to make suggestions for feelings or thoughts that they’ve had, because I’m not them.”

Eric Lee ’25 said he met with several college counselors as a sophomore, but he ultimately decided against using a private counselor after doing his own research on the college process.

“ ere’s a lot of college counselors out there, and at some point, I realized that a lot of them tend to say a lot of the same things,” Lee said. “In a lot of the research that I did about colleges, I found various guides, and I read those. en after I went to talk to di erent college counselors, what they were saying just didn’t seem particularly innovative because once you actually search it up by yourself, you realize that it’s repetitive across every counselor.”

Lee said, while he does not feel the services a college counselor could provide are worth it for him, he understands that there are bene ts for some students.

I want students to think creatively about what they like doing and how they can take that to the next level.”

S am Joustra Private college counselor

Green said that regardless of a student’s writing level or strength of ideas, she makes sure her advice always feels authentic to the individual student.

“It’s really speci c to the student,” Green said. “I have had some students who are really sophisticated thinkers, and I’ve been more of a sounding board to them.

ey frankly didn’t really need me to help them with any writing, more [with] helping them cut down the word count or that kind of thing. And with them, I would say nobody would ever know that they had outside help because they really didn’t have that much help. Some kids who maybe aren’t as sophisticated in their writing or their thinking, I try to push to think a little deeper. But I never try to take anybody to a level that wouldn’t be natural for them, or feed them things. Sometimes it’s probably noticeable that somebody’s helped

“[Private counselors] de nitely know their stu ,” Lee said. “At the same time, though, at the end of the day, [they are] all things that you can research by yourself because a lot of the bigger college counseling rms have published a lot of guides. ere’s like a lot of useful stu you can get on the internet these days. I’m not going to say that it is useless, but I will also say that any questions you have, you could also ask your dean or search it up.

Aryadini Diggavi ’25 said she has a private college counselor, but that she has only met with them a few times. She said she views her outside counselor as secondary to her school counselor.

“We trust the Harvard Westlake counselors a lot, and this is more a backup, second opinion type of thing rather than the main source,” Diggavi said. “My parents are not used to the American college system, so they wanted some because they both went to college outside the U.S. So, they wanted to feel more secure because they’re not familiar with the whole system.”

Students discuss the usage of food delivery apps and leaving campus for lunch, along with their associated costs and bene ts.

By A lex Dinh

It is 10:45 a.m. Chloe Ferreira ’25 has just left her Precalculus class, and she, along with a crowd of other students, walks down the stairs in Chalmers Hall. At the bottom of the stairs she passes two students leaving the cafeteria with bowls of grilled chicken and white rice. Ferreira, sick of the chicken tenders and ice cream she had the day before, walks out to the Quad and opens Postmates instead of joining the 30-person line in the cafeteria. Within one minute, her Erewhon order—a combo plate with carne asada, sweet potatoes and roasted carrots—is con rmed. Ferreira said she decides to order lunch to school often because the food in the cafeteria can be repetitive and dull.

“I order lunch about three times per week because the food from the cafeteria gets very repetitive, and I often want something healthier,” Ferreira said. “I wish the cafeteria

the process of communicating with the drivers.

“Twenty to 25 students pick up food during the average lunch period,” Anderson said. “I see a lot of the same kids ordering and picking up lunch. However, many of the drivers don’t speak good English, which can make the process di cult.”

is phenomenon is not limited to the school. Similar apps have gained immense use around the world. e four most popular apps around the country are DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub and Postmates. Nationally, DoorDash has a 67% share of sales, UberEats has 23%, GrubHub has 8% and Postmates has 2%, according to Bloomberg Second Measure. However, of the 43 students who have used delivery apps that were polled by e Chronicle, 65.1% have used Postmates, 48.8% have used DoorDash, 37.2% have used Uber Eats and 2.3% have used Grubhub. Mark Ma ’24 said he often uses Postmates to order din-

to have Postmates deliver the same order to the Upper School, an 83% price increase. Similarly, a chicken burrito bowl from Chipotle costs $11.85 in the restaurant, but the same order costs $19.30 on Postmates, a 63% increase. Neither of these prices includes a tip for the driver. For orders under $15, Postmates suggests tipping from $3 to $6, while for orders over $15, it suggests tipping based on a percentage of the order total.

However, if people were to order ve Chipotle Chick en Burrito Bowls on Postmates and split the costs, it would amount to $15.92 per person, a 34.3% increase from if you were to go to the restaurant. Andres Alas ’25 said he only uses delivery apps when or dering with a group of each other and decide what to order. We almost always do group orders so [that] the delivery fees are not as much for one person, and we can all split it evenly.”

Dadlani said. “A lot of people order food to school excessively, and I’ve seen a lot more people order food this year compared to last year.”

All food deliveries to campus

though. For example, an iced vanilla latte from Alfred Co ee costs $7 at the shop, and even without delivery fees, the drink costs $8.05. Including all of the fees and taxes, it

Eric Vartany ’24 said despite this, seniors leaving campus for lunch makes it di cult for the grade to foster a uni ed spirit.

“O -campus lunch is detrimental to the Harvard-Westlake senior student body,” Vartany said. “Harvard-Westlake is supposed to foster a strong community in our nal years. Yet, -campus lunch allows for the community to be further disjointed and disconnected. If half the senior class is o campus on a given day, how can we be expected to bond as a grade? We become a grade of individuals when we are supposed to be a united grade.”

Ferreira said purchasing food from the cafeteria can also be expensive. e prices of delivery fees and tips when ordering food can start to add up,” Ferreira said. “However, when you’re buying food from the cafeteria, though, you’re a bit blind to how much you’re spending because you

As another alternative to eating at the cafeteria, seniors have the privilege of being able to leave campus during lunch. Sam Pulaski ’24 said he used to occasionally order food to campus, but since he has been able to leave campus,

“I leave campus two to three times a week,” Pulaski said. “I love to be able to get good food with my friends, although it can get expensive. Last year, I would use Postmates during lunch from time to time, but I haven’t at all

Currently, seniors are the only students who are allowed to leave campus for lunch. However, a junior was caught leaving campus and was brought before the Honor Board, according to an email from Prefect Council sent Feb. 20. Dadlani said although she wishes she could go o campus to spend more time with her senior friends, she does not leave campus when it is not allowed.

“I have wanted to go o campus a little more,” Dadlani said. “I had permission to leave campus twice, and it was so much fun. Now, I wish I could go o campus because I have a lot of senior friends who I want to spend lunch with, but I can’t because they get to go o campus, and I don’t. It might be nice for juniors to have one day a cycle where we can go o campus. I don’t feel the need to go o campus when it’s not allowed, but I’m excited to do so next year.”

Dadlani said students tend to not realize how much money they spend using food delivery apps.

“People at the school don’t pay attention to how much they’re spending, and how much they’re ordering,” Dadlani said. “It’s something we shouldn’t have access to. I take advantage of it sometimes, but we have an amazing cafeteria, and we shouldn’t need to use out

Stud or Shamed

Students discuss the culture of sl*t-shaming and double standards at school, what causes it and its e ects on students mental health

By Georgia Grad

It was the beginning of the school year. Nora* had been hanging out with a male student, Reggie*, for a while and started to catch feelings. Another guy that she previously had relations with decided to tell Reggie that he should stop hanging out with her because she was a sl*t. Nora was very surprised and confused. She felt that she had not done or said anything to make herself seem like a sl*t. Nora said she began to question her actions, and that other girls face similar backlash about their relations with guys.

“[Often], something will happen at a party and you’ll go to school the next and people will say, ‘Oh she’s such a sl*t,’” Nora said. “It sucks. I’ve had a lot of close guy friends call me a sl*t, and they think they can say that be-

never experienced a situation where people don’t let others live their lives how they want, meaning that people who aren’t a part of it care more than the people in it.”

Selena said that sometimes she shames other girls without realizing it.

“I’m sure that I have an implicit bias about shaming girls, especially due to how our culture is,” Selena said. “ e way that I can check myself is I will replace the girl with a guy or vice versa in situations and see how my reaction would change. I think that sl*t generally will always have a negative connotation while the term ‘man wh*re’ is sometimes a joke and doesn’t really affect a guy’s reputation. If a girl is a sl*t, it does a ect their reputation because girls and guys see them di erent.” ere are many words still in use today that are used to shame women,

many guys.’ It’s more of si lent judgments, less face to face interactions. I know and hear of it happening behind my back. I don’t want to have to explain myself to [other] people [and students].”

Upper School His tory and Gender Studies teacher Lilas Lane said that sl*t-shaming has changed drastically since she was growning up.

“I wasn’t conscious of [sl*t-shaming] in the way that you guys are now,” Lane said. “One of the big di tween my genera tion and your gener ation is social media and the prevalence of the internet. You’re so much more aware of things because you’re being bombarded with some body’s takes. I’ll watch shows from the ’80s now and I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God, it was so sexist.’ You just didn’t even notice it then and weren’t as aware of those things as you guys are now.”

Lane said that it is dif cult to solution for being sl*tshamed because women often re ceive the blame. “I don’t think the solution is for us to continue to condemn women for something that we don’t condemn men for,” Lane said. “ ere’s an issue that is di erent from when I was younger and that is this idea that women owe men sex. It’s always been problematic, but now I think there’s also sort of this pressure to sleep with people to take agency. At the same time, you’re going to be blamed for it and it’s gonna be a place of vulnerability. en if you don’t, that’s also condemned. People can say, ‘Oh you’re a prude.’ From what I’ve noticed, being a prude has become much more intense than it was when I was young. It puts people in a really weird no-win situation.”

“

fuse it of his power. It was all in fun erent to me than the type of vitriol that gets aimed at girls for whatever reason that is much more of a hostile kind of thing.’I don’t like her because she’s beautiful, or I don’t like her because she irts at’s a vulnerability, even if it has nothing to do with what she’s actually doing. It’s a vulnerability that can be

Olivia Suddleson ’24 is a co-leader of Students Against Sexual Violence (SASV), which educates students on sexual violence, prevention, consent and more. Suddleson said she has noticed a correlation between sl*t-shaming and victim-blaming.

“When we think about sl*t-shaming, it’s really about putting somebody else down for being sexual or for doing things that are considered sexat’s an inherent bias that we have as a society because we live in a patriarchal society where we inherently put men above women. Not that sexual violence or such shaming is exclusive to women, nitely a dispro-

Suddleson said people need to educate themselves in order to prevent unintended sl*t-shaming from

“[Sl*t-shaming] has de nitely become more taboo and frowned upon especially since the MeToo movement and things like that,” Suddleson said. “A lot of it is also education and teaching people what we do in SASV. Teaching people about consent and sexual violence and being aware of terms like harassment, assault and rape. Also it’s understanding that we live in 2024 and we can’t continue to shame people for expressing themselves in various ways. If you’re just a person living your life, you don’t deserve to be shamed.”

It’s more of silent judgments. I know and hear of it happening behind my back.”

Elle*

Lane said it is hardest to hear and see of girls shaming other girls for things they have done.

“One of the things that I really nd problematic is when women call other women sl*ts,” Lane said. “I really struggle with that, and it’s always been there and always existed. We called each other sl*ts for fun, and that was a word that we used as an a ectionate term back in the day. It’s almost like you’re claiming the word that somebody is going to call you in a very harsh and derogatory way, and you’re going to dif-

Jacob Massey ’25 said that shaming someone, especially calling someone a sl*t, is not the right thing to do.

“Shaming is not e ective, even if we were to assume that being a sl*t was bad, which I do not concede, it is not an e ective way of getting someone to stop doing something,” Massey said. “I know guys that have been sl*t shamed but I do feel like there is a double standard. If you’re a sl*t, that just means you’re hot and you get guys or girls. It’s really a compliment and it’s really the patriarchy that tells us it’s not actually a compliment.”

*Name has been changed.

A Heavy Burden A Heavy Burden

Students and counselors talk about the causes of workout culture and how it impacts students’ motivation to exercise.

By M eJo Liao

It’s late in the evening, long past the sun has set. e streets are dark and empty as Boaz Maydew ‘24 heads out, carrying his gym bag. He just nished his homework and now is going to a nearby LA Fitness to lift. Maydew works out four to ve times a week to keep in shape for the sports he plays.

“Staying t has pretty much been my whole life,” Maydew said. “I was originally a basketball player, and I’m a football player now and being in shape is essential to both of the sports. I can’t remember any week in my entire life where I haven’t been active one way or another.”

Upper School Psychologist Emily Joyner said that she has seen a rise in teens going to the gym and spending money on working out, something that was rare in her generation.

“What’s interesting is that, as a millenni al, when I hear ‘gym,’ I don’t immediately imagine teens going to the gym,” Joyner said. “Trainers used to be reserved for famous people who needed this to connect to their job. But there’s now a current gen eration of young people spending money on trainers or gym member ships. It’s becoming more normal.”

Maydew said that the increase in young adolescents spending time working out can be a result of the accessibility of work out outlets.

physical activity throughout the day. On a global scale, the prevalence of physical inactivity is at 80%. In the U.S., physical activity declines as children reach adolescence, with six to 11-year-olds spending an average of 88 minutes per day, 33 minutes per day for 12 to 15-year-olds and only 26 minutes per day for 16 to 19-yearolds participating in rigorous physical activity. In 2017, only 26% of high school students indicated that they participated in at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day during the week, according to the National Institute of Health.

Physical inactivity can lead to the development of chronic disease, with a linear relationship between physical activity and health, according to the National Institute of Health. Similarly, a study showed that sedentary people are 44% more likely to be depressed, according

“It’s the availability of how it’s so easy now to get a gym membership,” Maydew said. “All you have to do is sign up online, show up and pay a fee, so it’s much more widely available to anybody who wants to go to the gym. It’s also about money to the [gyms].

you stop being an athlete.” e rise in the popularity of working out has allowed for an increased number of people who work out, cultivating a culture that advocates for vigorous physical activity. From 2000 to 2019, gym memberships in the U.S. nearly doubled from 32.8 million to 64.2 million, which is the most of any country, according to Statista. Moreover, children aged 6-17 make up the third largest population of gym-goers, around 16%, according to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA).

Avery Kim ’25 said the workout culture encouraged him to start working out. Now, Kim said he goes to the gym once or twice a week because he wants to stay healthy and t.

we have,” Maydew said. “[My peers] have had an extremely big impact. ey’re the ones that push me past my limits in the weight room, push me past my limits on the eld or on the court. ey’re the ones that motivate me to do more than what I may think I can do. at is why I love athletics so much. My teammates are always there to support me and push me on it.”

Joyner said that competitive peer pressure could impact students’ desire to exercise.

lishing. Furthermore, the Center for Disease

dren and adolescents aged 6 to 17-years-old do 60 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous One reason why physical inactivity is so prevalent is the lack of time.

Eric Lee ’25 said he wishes he had more opportunities

portance. However, Lee said the workload of school and extracurriculars can be hard

“I can’t go [work out] during the days we have school,” Lee said. “I do want more time to exercise because there’s a lot of health bene ts to doing that. What’s more

“Your health is one of the things you’ll have for the rest of your life that you can really control,” Kim said. “So that was the main reason I started working out — because I wanted to be healthy. Another is just to be tter in the future. At this school I think it’s really easy to start getting caught up in academics, and exercising is good to remind myself to stay t and destress.”

Being healthy is a common reason for why students work out. Alexa Chang ’25, who attends pilates classes every Friday, also said she started her lessons to be active when she did not do a sport.

“It’s the idea that other people are working out and [thinking], ‘I need to keep up, I can’t fall behind,’” Joyner said. “Particularly around exercise, there can be a lot of upward social comparison to other people, this kind of body surveillance seeing that other people are working out. at kind of comparison to peers de nitely parallels a lot of what I feel and see here at Harvard-Westlake.”

Lee, on the other hand, doesn’t feel the effects of this peer pressure and only works out on breaks when he has limited time. He said that the workout culture at school is impacted by the people he is around.

L. Wood Boaz Maydew ’24

“I started attending pilates classes at the beginning of this year because I don’t do a sport,” Chang said. “I wanted to stay active, so I got classes. I love coming out of pilates because I love feeling that I’ve done something when I’m sore. Working out, and pilates especially, has de nitely become a trend and has been associated with a lot of di erent [aesthetics]. I don’t do [classes] because of that, but it’s

“ e people I hang out with aren’t really big on body image, but it’s de nitely ingrained in popular culture,” Lee said. “So, for me personally, I’ve never had an issue with feeling pressured to [go to the gym] or body image. I would go [work out], but only if it’s during spring, summer, or winter break. But I’ve also seen people who follow tness YouTube channels or tness accounts on Instagram, so I can de nitely see how workout culture feeds into social media.”

Joyner said the pandemic, along with the rise of at-home workouts, also allowed for adolescents to be exposed to working out at a younger age.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

Arts & Entertainment

Students and faculty re ect on the role of Letterboxd in the school’s lm community as well as the app’s intersection with West ix.

By Sasha Aghnatios

As the credits rolled at the end of “Singing in the Rain,” Aiden Ahuja ’25 leaned back in his chair and processed everything he had just watched. When Upper School Cinema Studies Teacher Max Baril dismissed the class, Ahuja remained seated and instead pulled out his phone. Opening the Letterboxd app, Ahuja debated what rating he would give the lm. He knew that everyone in his class would see his rating, and he was also interested to see what his friends had to say about the movie. As Ahuja walked out of Ahmanson Lecture Hall with his class, he decided to rate it 4 ½ stars, reserving a vestar rating for the movies he felt were technically perfect.

lm-lovers can log, disover and review movies they’ve watched. e app allows for users to follow and interact with their friends, according to the Letterboxd website.

Eze Baum ’26 said the way people use the app di ers, but he primarily views it as a social media platform rather than a place to nd movies.

Ahuja said his interest in Letterboxd has grown over time as the app has helped him forge connections with his peers despite the sometimes unwanted broadcasting of his opinions.

“I started using Letterboxd in February of last year,” Ahuja said. “I use it quite frequently. I think it is a great way for students and kids [who] are interested in lm to connect. Especially in my Cinema Studies class, it brings everyone together and creates discussion about the movies we see with one another. Whenever we nish a movie, we all gather outside and talk about what we’re going to say and how many stars we’re going to give it. When I don’t nd my reviews super funny, I don’t post them. I’d rather people didn’t think I wasn’t witty.”

Letterboxd is an app where

“I downloaded the app sometime in 2022 but didn’t start actively using it until 2023,” Baum said. “[ is is when I began] logging each lm I watched excluding some rewatches so my feed wasn’t just ‘La La Land.’ A fair amount of people at school have accounts. It’s primarily a social media platform. You can look at lms, but it’s a way to connect with friends and see what they’re watching, recommend lms and get lms recommended to you.”

In the West ix club, the school’s students judge short lms made by students across California on FilmFreeway, a platform for lmmakers to submit their work to festivals. e short lms with the highest judge ratings are shown during the school’s annual lm festival.

Upper School Visual Arts Teacher and West ix Advisor Reb Limerick said Letterboxd ratings and reviews are much more public, unregulated and informal than West ix ratings on FilmFreeway.

“Judging for West ix is much more comprehensive, quantitative and private than Letterboxd,” Limerick said.

“In the initial round of judging, which spans October to January, all of the submitted lms are judged by West ix club members via FilmFree-

way out of 10 stars. e 10 star rating is the average of categorical ratings based on originality and creativity, direction, writing, cinematography, performances and acting, production design, sound and music and editing. When judging for West ix you don’t have to leave quippy comments, but if you do, they have a very small audience and are only read by our Director of Submissions and Judging Maddie Ba o [’24].”

Sasha Gadalov ’25 said judging lms on Letterboxd and FilmFreeway are similar experiences, but she judges West ix lms more kindly.

“It’s similar to Westlifx in terms of my personal criteria,” Gadalov said. “I know this might sound weird, but I judge my Letterboxd lms almost the same way I judge West ix lms. I judge them based on how much emotion they evoked out of me, and whether I enjoyed watching it. I judge West ix lms a little less harshly because it’s just movies that kids are trying to make. ey’re still experimenting with their style, learning how to work within a budget etc. In West ix lms, I really look for the raw talent and hard work of kids.”

West ix Director of Marketing Jacob Lutsky ’24 said Letterboxd reviews are less serious and unregulated as opposed to the more strict judging in West ix.

“I personally take West ix judging a lot more seriously,” Lutsky said. “I usually don’t write reviews [for West ix] and if I do, they are never funny like they are on Letterboxd. I do know some people who comment funny things on West ix lms they judge.

ere’s way less criteria to judge Letterboxd lms than West ix lms, so most of the ratings are just how you per-

sonally enjoyed it.”

Lutsky said judging movies through Letterboxd plays a big role in the lm culture of the school, especially in the Cinema Studies class.

“In my Cinema Studies class, many of us will rate on Letterboxd after we nish a movie, and it’s nice to see how other people felt,” Lutsky said. “I also have had many conversations with people, sharing Letterboxd reviews and handles on the app to follow each other.”

West ix Director of Operations Lily Stambouli ’24 said although Letterboxd is primarily a social media platform, she chooses to use it mainly as a personal logging tool for the movies she watches.

“Letterboxd is de nitely more of a social media platform because of its friends feature where you can see what other people are watching,” Stambouli said. “It’s also very cool to see random stranger’s reviews on lms, and it provides a lot of funny and interesting perspectives on the lm. I mainly use it as a personal app where I can track what lms I’ve seen, add to my watchlist and discover new lms.”

to be able to log the things I have watched somewhere and write funny comments about them. So I’d say Letterboxd has given me more motivation to watch more movies. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever watched a movie based on someone’s Letterboxd review alone. I love getting recommendations from people, and sometimes seeing its popularity on Letterboxd will help, but I usually already know what I want to watch. Letterboxd probably has done more to dissuade me from watching certain movies, to be honest.”

Limerick said Letterboxd is a great tool for both connecting with people and for use in the classroom.

“ Judging for West ix is much more comprehensive, quantitative and private than Letterboxd.”

Reb Limerick West ix Advisor

Lutsky said Letterboxd motivates him to nish movies, but the reviews do not determine what movies he chooses to watch.

“I have noticed it makes watching movies more fun,” Lutsky said. “As much as I love movies, sometimes it is hard to sit down for two to three hours and watch a full movie, no matter how good it is. It feels rewarding and fun

“I showed an obscure Russian stop motion animation short lm from the year 1912 in class the other week,” Limerick said. “One of my students got out his phone and was like ‘just a moment Mx. Limerick, I gotta log this on Letterboxd.’ My students who are cinephiles or are starting to get more into lm analysis in Cinema Studies class are using Letterboxd and following each other. Also, when I teach my students a little bit about marketing and writing about their own lms, I pull up Letterboxd to show examples of loglines and taglines from some of my favorite movies.”

Limerick said although Letterboxd incentivizes her to watch movies, it can be distracting because she becomes preoccupied with what her reveiew will be.

•

L. Wood Sasha Gadalov ’25

Growing up in the Spotlight

Students and teachers discuss the appeal of spending free time acting professionally and the challenges associated with starting at a early age.

that the writers’ strike is over, auditions are sort of streaming in. Right now, it [is] one audition every other week.”

Jaiden Mathews ’25, who has been acting professionally since he was four years old, said that the number of auditions he gets varies from month to month.

By Z oe Goor

e television is on, and in between shows, a commercial plays.

It is a medical commercial, the type where someone takes the medicine and then runs through a eld of poppies with their golden retriever as a spedup voice reads out a seemingly endless list of side e ects. In the background of the commercial, Mellow Eaton ’25, then 11 years old, stands with an adult woman. Eaton, a professional actress, said this was her rst commercial, which she did with her mom, who is also an actress.

“[ e producers] had me stand next to my fake mom, and they’re like, ‘Actually, you’re taller than her,’” Eaton said. “So, they red her. And then they got my mom to [play] my mom. We’re in the background, and I don’t think you could see us, but we were there.”

In Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of America according to California.com, actors are everywhere. According to the Max (formerly known as HBO) documentary “Showbiz Kids,” “Every year, over 20,000 child actors audi-

tion for roles in Hollywood.”

Many students, like Eaton, have been professional actors over the school’s history. Shirley Temple, the namesake of the sparkling grenadine drink, graduated from Westlake School in 1945. e school continues to house her graduation out t and diploma, according to the Westlake School Archives. Other notable alumni who acted while at the school include Greta Lee, who starred in 2024 lm “Past Lives,” and Lily Collins, who acted in “Emily in Paris,” and “To the Bone” and “ e Blindside.”

Nate Arnold ’25, who has been acting since he was three years old, said his rst professional acting experience was with his father, who is also a professional actor. Arnold said he has been acting less since he started at the school because he needs to balance his schoolwork and acting.

“We wanted to take a pause on acting, so I only really got back into it last year,” Arnold said. “I am employed probably only three times a year. When I got this job on Family Switch, I was [acting alongside] a bunch of kids my age who are so much more successful. I was kind of like, ‘Maybe if I [hadn’t] stopped acting, I could have been like that.’ I am happy with the decisions that were made, but a little part of me wonders what would [have] happen[ed] if I stuck with it.”

Eaton said the frequency of auditions decreased due to the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes in 2023.

“Before the writers’ strike, I got one to three auditions a week,” Eaton said. “It was a lot, but then the writers strike happened. Now

“ ere are de nitely points throughout the year that I get more auditions than other times,” Mathews said. “Usually, the most I’ll get is three or four a month.”

Money earned by actors who are minors is subject to the regulations of the Coogan Law, which was initially enacted in 1939 and revised in 2000. In California, the Coogan Law requires employers of child actors to put 15% of the minor’s earnings in a trust account to save some of the earnings for the child to use in the future, according to SAG-AFTRA.

the set of her most recent commercial who was very helpful.

“I just did a Lay’s commercial, and the tutor there was so great,” Eaton said. “I told her I was doing [a] Gatsby essay, and she was like, ‘Hey, I have a friend. Call him, and he’ll give you a bunch of notes on Gatsby.’ I didn’t because I forgot [about it], but it was really nice. She was cool.”

Arnold said the school is always accommodating when he has to miss class.

Eaton said some of the money she makes is saved, some is used to pay for expenditures and some she gets to spend however she wants.

“I put it in a savings account and then [use it to] help with other stu , like if I need new headshots or [need to] pay school bills,” Eaton said. “If there’s some left, I use it to buy new packs on [ e] Sims 4. It is pretty nice.”

When minors act professionally on screen, they often miss school to be on set. Because they are missing school, minors have to do schoolwork for at least three hours a day, and legally there must be a tutor on set to help them, according to the Los Angeles Times. Eaton said she worked with a tutor on

“I have a work permit from the school saying I’m doing ne in school and that I can work,” Arnold said. “I have to email my teachers, Mr. Preciado and my dean [to] let them know [when] I’m working.” ey’re always very supportive the times that has happened. In acting, because I’m under 18, I legally have to [keep up with] school. So for three hours, I just do homework.”

Upper School Performing Arts Teacher Sabrina Washburn said the Performing Arts Department supports students with professional aspirations.

“We teachers try to make ourselves available to students who want extra coaching for outside auditions,” Washburn said. “It is on the students to ask for extra support, but we are always happy to help students meet their goals, whether for school or in some professional capacity.”

Arnold said he feels he has learned a lot about resilience from acting.

“Acting has de nitely taught me a lot of life lessons,” Arnold said. “It’s taught me the skill of being able to communicate and interact with di erent types of people and personalities and not be totally crushed with failure because all of acting is going on auditions and getting rejected.”

L. Wood Mellow Eaton ’25

Students and guest performers collaborate in the dance concert

By Yuna Jeon

Students in the Upper School Dance program performed in their annual dance concert, titled “Engaging through Dance,” in Rugby on Auditorium March 8 and 9.

e dance concert featured 17 pieces choreographed by faculty and students, in addition to special guest choreographers and performances from professional dance companies including Everybody Dance Los Angeles (LA), A Place

Called Home Dance Company, Lula Washington Dance eatre Youth Ensemble and Mann University of California, LA Community School.

Upper School Performing Arts Teacher Queala Clancy said the success of the concert can be attributed to the class’s dedication to the concert throughout the year.

“Since the beginning of the year, the dance program

has been in motion, exploring various methods of engaging with [our school] campuses and Los Angeles dance community,” Clancy said. “What made this year’s theme e ective was staying true to our initiative by asking ourselves what it means or looks like to engage through dance.”

Rheanna Vradiy ’25 choreographed and performed a mixed modern contemporary dance piece called “ e Great Gig in the Sky.”

“I am a big rock fan, and I fell in love with this song the moment I heard it,” Vradiy said. “My goal was for the movements to emulate the ‘freeing’ nature of the song by focusing on themes of life, death and letting go.”

e dance classes collaborated with Everybody Dance LA, a program that provides dance classes to kids in low-income areas around Los Angeles.

Ethan Chen ’26 said he felt accomplished and grati ed performing while also helping

to make a di erence in the participants’ lives.

“It felt pretty rewarding that I was part of a production that helped to support kids and advocate for their passion for dance,” Chen said. “I felt super grateful but also bittersweet after nishing the show because we all became so close through the experience.”

Vradiy said that nding time to practice with the guest performers was initially a challenge but turned out well in the end.

“I was initially worried, as we were only able to practice with them the day of the show, but everything ended up going very well,” Vradiy said.

Awards were presented to the dancers at the end of the second show March 9. Vradiy won an award for Outstanding Choreographer. Arely Monterroso ’24 and Izzy Kashper ’24 both won an award for Outstanding Performer. Monterroso also won the awards for Dance Activism and for Commitment in Dance along with Hank Schoen ’24.

Jazz band fundraises for charity

By Jayan K andavel

e Jazz Band Outreach Performers (J-BOP) held its annual fundraiser in Rugby Auditorium on March 16. Jazz students, as well as the Kyle Athayde Dance Party band, performed. e performance included four student combos, two from the Studio Jazz Band and two from the Jazz Band.

Performing Arts Teacher Chris Sullivan said that J-BOP hosts the event every spring to raise funds for a di erent charity. “ is year, we are raising funds for the Nueva Vision Community School, a nonpro t organization whose mission is to empower the children and youth of the San Fernando Valley through music education,” Sullivan said. “ rough free and a ordable programs, they aim to instill skills and competencies to help students achieve academic success, live happier and more ful lled lives and positively impact their communities.”

Sullivan said he believes the event is an opportunity for the

students in J-BOP to present their skills while engaging in community service. “ is event o ers our students the unique chance to showcase their talents while engaging in charitable e orts and raising funds for a good cause,” Sullivan said. “Our students also got to rehearse with Kyle Athayde’s band in the afternoon and perform with them at the end of the evening, getting to learn from real performers.”

JBOP leader Leo Craig ’24 said he is happy the club chose to donate to Nueva Vision Community School because one of JBOP's members, Ella Graber ’25, is very passionate about the organization’s mission.

“A lot of [the school's] jazz students and JBOP members are playing on stage before the professional big band plays,” Craig said. “It’s a super great opportunity to play jazz and contribute to a great cause. We think that raising funds to bene t Nueva Vision Community is super important since one of our

By Everett L akey

Ins n Outs: I don’t think there’s a better way to start this than by recommending my column. My main goal with this is to share movies, books, TV shows, ideas and anything interesting I can think of and feel like some of you might resonate with.

’80s music: Lately, ’80s music has become my guilty pleasure. ere is something so satisfying about the synthesizer-heavy compositions and slick lyrics. It sits comfortably between the lyric-heavy rock of the ’60s and ’70s and the pop hits of the ’90s and beyond, which makes it both introspective and fun. Some of my favorite songs from the genre are “Don't You Want Me” by e Human League and “Eyes Without a Face” by Billy Idol, both of which are good examples of the stereotypically ’80s combination of haunting lyrics with upbeat chords.

2nd Street: If I had to pick one thrift store to go to for the rest of my life, it would be 2nd Street. Even if you are someone who hasn’t yet found the magic of vintage clothing, I would recommend going. It o ers a more curated experience than Goodwill while keeping its prices well below retail. You can nd anything there, from cheap t-shirts to designer clothing. ere are multiple locations all around Los Angeles, including one on Ventura Boulevard, so you can nd one wherever you live.

Murakami: Which one? I say why not both? Takashi Murakami is a modern Japanese artist known for his collaborations with Kanye West, and his blending of traditional Japanese art with popular culture and sci- . He uses bright and vibrant colors to paint pop art-esque landscapes and characters. Some of my favorite paintings of his are his mushroom characters, which are weird and creepy but at the same time strangely beautiful. ese paintings complement

members, [Graber], volunteers at the organization and they do great work right here in the Valley near [the school.]”

Graber said she is passionate about Nueva Vision’s mission because she believes all children should have the opportunity to experience music.

“I believe Nueva Vision’s mission is incredibly important because public schools in underresourced areas of the San Fernando Valley often do not have music programs,” Graber said. “As someone whose life has changed through my access to amazing musical education at the school, I believe that it’s [important] for every child to have that chance. I’m grateful to all of the J-BOP leaders and to [Sullivan] for helping put together such an amazing event. It’s always great to see the impact that fundraising has on Nueva Vision because it’s a relatively small organization so every donation it receives makes a tangible di erence in the resources of the kids I teach.”

with the works of Haruki Murakami nicely — a Japanese surrealist writer best known for his novel “Norwegian Wood.” My personal favorite of his novels is “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,” which tackles di cult topics such as the human psyche and mortality in an engaging story.

“Suits”: I know I’m late on this one, but “Suits” is my new favorite show. Although it is the latest TV show from the 2010s to be popularized on TikTok, which may lead some to view it as something not worth their time, it is an entertaining show that is worth a try if you want something that does not require much e ort to watch. It centers around a genius who can land a job at a prestigious law rm after a botched drug deal, which is a great premise that I sadly do not think the show lives up to. Its charm is not in the plot or characters, but rather in the fact that it's a good excuse to sit down and turn your brain o for 45 minutes at a time, which is sometimes exactly what you need to reset from whatever chaos is happening in your life. I highly recommend you give it a try.

Mobile games: Remember the days of asking your babysitters and older cousins if they had games on their phones? Coincidentally the last time you were happy, huh? As a junior I've been experiencing a lot of stress thinking about college applications and my future. I think the only natural solution is to instead think about my past. Like Trix mobile games are not just for kids. Recently I’ve redownloaded classics like Toca Boca, Clash of Clans, Subway Surfers (or the superior spino , Minion Run). It’s a great way to zone out and destress as an alternative to social media like TikTok or Instagram which honestly end up keeping me up. Learn from me and remember to not waste all your money on power ups.

JUMPING FOR JAZZ: Jazz Band Outreach Performers (J-BOP) leader Leo Craig ’24 performs in Rugby Auditorium, playing in a Jazz concert.

DANCING IN THE NIGHT: Students in choreography classes collaborated with local dance organizations to perform choreography in the “Engaging rough Dance” dance concert March 8 and 9 in Rugby Auditorium.

L. Wood Rheanna Vradiy ’25

S

By S 

English

By H  S

Spring is starting, and that means it is time to vote for the new Head Prefects. Unlike the presidential primary three weeks ago, this election is actually important. We took to heart the words of the Washington Post — “democracy dies in darkness” — and have decided to help you be responsible voters by predicting what will happen this election season. And as someone who lost Prefect upwards of two times, I am the perfect staff member to be giving my opinions on the subject. I mean, it’s not like we have a Head Prefect on staff or anything.

achilles. Again. Junior Prefect Gideon Evans ’25 is disqualified for being too tall for the Head Prefect robe.

Instead of giving a speech, Junior Prefect and Assistant Arts and Entertainment Editor Sasha Aghnatios ’25 performs an interpretive dance on stage accompanied by the moans of dying seals in the arctic. In a later post-speechinterview with e Chronicle, she clarifies that part of her campaign platform is saving the seals from lack of salmon hunger.

A candidate has a Mitch McConnell level freeze. ey are escorted off the stage, and the video is posted on Twitter.

Someone in the final four skips school on the day they were supposed to give their speech. Turns out that unlike with tests, you can’t pretend to be sick and make it up two days later.

Head Prefect and Print Managing Editor Davis Marks ’24 breaks into gentle sobs while posing a question because he gets flashbacks to his more than three runoff elections last year. He says election season makes his stomach hurt.

Senior Prefect Glory Ho ’24 gets her revenge on Marks. I don’t know how, but I know it’ll be good.

Candidate promises to launch an Honor Board investigation into Environmental Club’s involvement in balloon-gate. Dean of Students Jordan Church tries grabbing the microphone but ends up falling and tearing his

Sodoku

Daisy Pritzker ’25 uses Zoom to deliver her speech in French while at the top of the Ei ffel Tower. Exit polling reveals this made her seem more relatable to students.

Former Head Prefect Simon Lee ’23 lurks in the audience. He’s skipping college for this. New policy states that all speeches must be written using e Chronicle madlibs.

Senior Prefects introduce new speech timer policy: if a candidate goes over their allotted speech time, students will be instructed to throw handfuls of near-frozen cafeteria white rice at them.

Editors-in-Chief Averie Perrin ’24 and Ella Yadegar ’24 moderate a debate between the final four candidates. Yadegar flips over the table and storms off stage when every candidate responds, “No” to the question, “Do you listen to Drake?”

Head Prefect Bari LeBari ’24 steals the show.

Students push for in-person voting to stimulate real elections. ree ballot boxes are stolen and later found in Prefect Council’s underground tunnels. No Honor Board case to follow.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

GAMES ANSWERS

English II: Learning how to write all things in CCCEE form — including teacher feedback surveys.

Honors English III: 124 was spiteful. You will be too when you get your first essay back.

Honors English Seminar: Don’t forget to tell Upper School English Teachers Jeremy Michaelson and Larry Weber how much you love them today.

Honors English IV : Same House, Di ff erent Worlds: You’ll definitely get an A on that Ice Palace essay. And on your first quarter report card.

Honors English IV : Outsiders and Aliens: It lives up to its name! You’ll definitely feel like an outsider for not taking Same House, Di ff erent Worlds.

English IV: Criminal Minds : e Calculus and Statistics of the English department.

History:

Honors United States History : A great American president once said, “Believe you can, and you're halfway there.” To that, I'd like to say that you'll go into this class believing in yourself, but it will get you a lot less than halfway there. I'm talking sub good faith e ff ort levels.

AP European History: Your GPA will be as deep in the trenches as the French soldiers were during World War I.

AP United States Government: Are you ready to save democracy with a six source discussion post?

Middle East Studies: Came for Upper School History Teacher

Dror Yaron, stayed for Middle East dress up day. Just kidding, they stopped doing that. Now, you just stay for Yaron.

Honors Ethnic and Urban Studies: Upper School History Teacher

Larry Klein's colonized version of AP Human Geography.

Science:

Principles of Engineering: Future MIT students only.

AP Environmental Science: Learn how to attract a mate with a special albatross dance! Oh, and the planet is completely effed. It's all your fault because of that plastic water bottle.

AP Physics C: Presentations

Managing Editor Kriste An '24 says it's really easy.

Math:

Precalculus: e Calculus and Statistics of the Math department.

Advanced Precalculus: You’ll be at Math Lab so often it’ll count as an extracurricular on your Common Application.

AP Calculus AB: For seniors: Sorry you didn't make it to BC!

For juniors: Sorry. Just sorry.

Multivariable Calculus: Did you get into MIT?

Honors Topics in Computer Science: If you’re thinking about your GPA, consider it boosted. Mental stability? Not so much.

Honors Economics: Women who are in STEM.

AP Statistics : e Honor Board has their eyes on you— and your Instagram bio.

Electives:

Cinema Studies I: Even though you’ll sleep through half of it, "Citizen Kane" will become your new favorite movie.

Corequisite: An active Letterboxd account. Visit C1 for more information.

Advanced Performance Studies: An all-encompassing preparation for the real world of showbiz! Need proof? More than half of the class went on strike this semester, following in the footsteps of SAG-AFTRA.

HW Media I-III: In protest of HW Media Advisor Jen Bladen,

we’re going to do these classes with their God-given names.

The Chronicle Curriculum Guide 3: Revenge of the Sith Head prefect election results: an expert analysis

Modern Journalism I-III: Learn how to protest against HW Media Advisor Jen Bladen.

Corequisite: Be an avid listener of Drake and Olivia Rodrigo or watch Assistant News Editor Everett Lakey ’25’s surfing videos religiously.

Yearbook Journalism I-III: It’s exactly like e Chronicle! Only with less tears and more “Holland, My Heart.”

Broadcast Journalism I-III: Early access to Grace Coleman ’24’s matchmaker podcast episodes.

Stagecraft: Forced to donate pee samples for "Urinetown" AND blood samples for "Sweeney Todd." Which bodily fluid will you have to give away this year?

Musical eater I: Technique: You’re not going to get the lead in the musical. Please stop trying.

Acting I: No cool people allowed.

Ceramics I: “It’s an easy A!” they say. Editor-in-Chief Ella Yadegar ’24 would disagree.

Video Art I-III : Class roster is a list of the applicants for Westflix leadership.

Unconventional Leadership: A conventional way for committed athletes to have an extra A on their transcript.

Memory, the Self, and Society: Do you want to take this class, or do you just have an unhealthy attachment to Dr. Garrison?

Graphic Design rough the Medium of Merch: is is a front for money laundering.

Prefect Council: It’s also an acting class! Candidates trying to act nice when election season comes around, that is.

Directed Study:

Jazz Singers : It’s also an acting class! Isaac Tiu ’24 trying to act like former Presentations Managing Editor Leo Saperstein ’23, that is.

Democracy in Decay : You know the annoying try-hard in your history class? How about 20 of them?

e Election: Still bitter that

LEAVING

TRENT PERRY and the wolverines HAVE WON IT ALl.

DAVID REBIBO | ANGELINA HABIs | Henry mariscal

to back back

By H ana M ehdi Williams and Justin Tang

As senior guard Trent Perry ‘24 made his way down the handshake line after winning the championship game, he struggled to maintain his composure. But when he came across Boys’ Basketball Program Head David Rebibo, the emotions owed uncontrollably — joy from winning a championship, but sadness from playing his last high school basketball game. Rebibo told Perry that they had made history, as they held a tearful embrace together. In a post-game interview, Perry said he was glad to win anal championship with his longtime teammates.

“For some of us it was four years in the making, and for some of us it was six years in the making when we started o in middle school,” Perry said. “It’s such a blessing to have these moments with these guys. We work so hard, we went through a lot of adversity and we’re very grateful for this.”

prospects Cameron Boozer and Cayden Boozer. In the Hoophall East Classic, the team outlasted McEachern High School from Georgia in overtime, led by vestar forward Ace Bailey. Rebibo said being able to play against national competition ultimately helped the team gain experience.

“I thought our schedule really helped us,” Rebibo said. “We put together a schedule that a lot of people questioned, like traveling to Boston in the middle of league play when you have Notre Dame and Sierra Canyon [the same week]. But we did that with one goal in mind, and that goal was to prepare us for [winning a state championship].”

In the historic season, Perry and the boys’ basketball team have won their sixth consecutive Mission League title, their rst California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section (CIF-SS) Open Division title in school history and back-to-back CIF State Open Division championships.

e Wolverines ended their season with a record of 33-3, and were ranked fth in the nation, according to MaxPreps.

e team entered their rst di cult stretch of the season against national opponents, competing at the Les Schwab Invitational in Hillsboro, Oregon, and the Hoophall East Classic in Spring eld, Massachusetts. At the Les Schwab Invitational, the Wolverines picked up their rst loss of the season to the number-one ranked Columbus Explorers from Florida, led by top

Immediately after their win on the East Coast, the team ew back to face Mission League powerhouses Notre Dame and Sierra Canyon. Led by a 29-point performance from Notre Dame’s Mercy Miller, the Knights handed the Wolverines their rst loss in league play at home. e team fell once more on the road to Sierra Canyon, blowing a double-digit lead to the Blazers and losing two consecutive games for the rst time since the 2021 season. Rebibo said the team was able to fall back on its identity after the rough week.

“For us, the number one thing was that we had to recenter and refocus,” Rebibo said. “We needed to get back to who we are, and get back to our roots and basics. We needed to humble ourselves because losing is an opportunity to learn. We watched the lm, and we saw things that were uncharacteristic of us, about who we are as a program, culturally and character-wise, so we had to get back on track and get back to [being] who we were.”

But after these two losses, the Wolverines did not lose a game for the rest of the season. In the span of a few weeks, the team defeated both Notre Dame and

Sierra Canyon, all the while winning the Mission League Championship against Crespi and the CIF-SS Open Division Championship against Roosevelt.

When state playo s arrived, the team was given its toughest battles all year. In a matchup against Carlsbad and a rematch against Roosevelt, the Wolverines found themselves in large de cits late, faced with the task of saving their season. But Perry would be the deciding factor for the team when faced with backto-back de cits, contributing 40 and 28-point performances in each game, respectively, to lead the team to a second consecutive Open Division Regional title and a date with Salesian College Preparatory in Sacramento for the state championship.

In the championship game, the Wolverines traded blows back and forth with Salesian, but ultimately prevailed in the fourth quarter behind late-game contributions from Perry once more. e team would secure back-toback state championships for the rst time since 1997 and become the sixth team in CIF history to win section, regional and state titles in the same year. Rebibo said the team’s resolve in the face of adversity pushed them to victory.

“All I can say is this team was such a fun team to coach,” Rebibo said. “ ey made history. ey won everything you could possibly win, as it pertains to endof-the-season accolades. When it mattered most they showed up, even when they didn’t bring their best to start. ey showed unbelievable character to ght, and pursue and chase the things that they wanted most.”

In addition to the team’s big three of Perry, junior forward Nik Khamenia ’25 and senior guard Robert Hinton ’24, Rebibo said role players were crucial to the team’s success going into the season, with the loss of previous starters Brady Dunlap ’23 and Jacob Huggins ’23. Two players who stepped into larger roles were senior guard Christian

Horry ’24 as a starting threepoint shooter, and junior forward Isaiah Carroll ’25 as a defensive sixth-man o the bench for the Wolverines. Rebibo said Horry’s intangible qualities are what denes him as a player.

“[Horry] is an unbelievable person, and he’s so bought into winning,” Rebibo said. “He cares so much. He’s so passionate about the name on the front, and it means a lot to him more than the name on the back. He represents culturally what we want every player in our program to be like, and that’s to be all in, invested and buying into doing whatever they can do to help the team win, and that’s exactly who he is. He continued to get better year in and year out.”

Carroll, who played on the junior varsity team for two years before joining Rebibo’s squad, said he was not afraid of big moments despite playing his rst year of varsity basketball. “ is being the rst year that I was getting playing time on varsity, there was a lot that was new to me,” Carroll said. “Being able to take [clutch] shots are nice, but there’s also the consequences of missing those shots, and the most important part is I learned from them, and I wasn’t scared to take them. Even though the result wasn’t what I hoped for, I still had the con dence to take those shots. I’m going to continue to have that con dence during the rest of my time here and I think that’s what’s actually important.”

hunters,” Perry said. “Everybody’s trying to take the title away from us. Everyone gave their best effort every time they played us, no matter who they were. And no matter what, we had to stay locked in.”

Khamenia, who played his third year on the varsity squad, said the team’s bond this year was unlike any other he has experienced in past years.

“Being on the team for three years now, this year’s team was probably the most close any team has ever been,” Khamenia said. “As far as everything we did o the court, we did on the court. Everything we talked about o the court, we talked about on the court. From going to the girls’ games to going to get food together, it all helped us so much as far as chemistry and playing basketball, but just the relationships that we built o the court, I mean, they’re second to none.”

“ [Winning] was harder because we were the hunted instead of the hunters. Everybody was trying to take the title away from us.”

Trent Perry ’24

Despite losing three starting seniors next year, Rebibo said he is con dent in the development of his remaining players and the team’s ability to compete for championships next year at the same level.

Perry, who was recently named as the California High School Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year by MaxPreps, said this year’s state championship was di cult because they were the team to beat rather than the underdog.

“I think it was harder because we were the hunted instead of the

“I’m very excited about next year’s team,” Rebibo said. “A lot of talent returning. We return Dom Bentho ’26 and [Khamenia], who are going to be very good. We expect [Bentho] to make a huge jump. Amir Jones ’26 is going to make a huge jump, and [Carroll] is going to make a huge jump. And then you’ve got Barron Linnekens ’26, Bryce Williams ’26 and Cole Holden ’27, who we are very high on, as well as Pierce ompson ’27. So the cupboard is nowhere near bare. We are very excited and we think that group can compete with anybody in the Southern Section and state next year, and we’re looking forward to it.”

L. Wood David Rebibo

PHOTOS BY CONNOR TANG, GREG STEIN AND EYASU BETWOS

sacramento queens

The girls’ basketball team recounts their journey to gain a CIF S tate title for the first time since 2010.

By Alden Detmer and Alex Dinh

Suspended 24 feet in the air, the Golden 1 Center’s blinding video board displayed the score for all to see in the arena at the start of halftime: HarvardWestlake Wolverines: 24, and Colfax Falcons: 28 with Colfax in the lead. As the girls’ basketball team shu ed into the locker room, guard Angelina Habis ’27 was reminded of all the struggles that the team had gone through to get to this point. e Wolverines came out on re, behind 10 second-half points from Habis and 10 fourth-quarter points from guard Deana ompson ’25. Just over thirty minutes later, the video board displayed Harvard-Westlake Wolverines: 60, and Colfax Falcons: 45. e girls’ basketball team had just captured the Division 2 State Championship, its second state championship in program history, and its rst since 2010. Habis said winning a state championship was a surreal moment for her and the team.

“It was the biggest game I’ve ever played in, and when the whistle blew everything came and hit me,” Habis said. “It was a long season. It wasn’t easy. I remembered all of the tears, all of the sweat that we had [endured] trying to get to this point, and it was such an amazing moment. We did it and nobody thought that we could.”

us to play up on the ball and not worry about driving lanes and passing. So, being without her was a big deal because that’s what we rely on to win. We’re young to begin with and now we were down two starters, our point guard and our best rebounder, to start the season.”

e team began Mission League play with a 4-12 record, dropping notable games to Corona Santiago, Redondo Union and Windward. In addition to Yue and Spencer, the team was also without ompson, Habis and guard Madison McDonald ’26 for parts of this stretch.

With these injuries, the team was almost entirely made up of freshmen and sophomores. Guard Kamari McNeely ’24 was the only other upperclassman on the roster. Hearlihy said it was di cult for the younger players to combat the challenges they were facing without a strong leader on the court.

“We were struggling in all areas,” Hearlihy said. “ e young kids came in and they were trying to gure it out and adjust to the high school level. It was a matter of us getting it gured out. It’s hard for kids to try to x things on their own. It’s important for them to gure out who they are before we can gure out who we are as a team.”

In her rst year on the team, Habis said she learned a lot from the opportunity to guide the team for the rst time.

On the road to this moment, the girls worked through injuries and adversity every step of the way. Over the summer, forward Bella Spencer ’25, the team’s leading rebounder and scorer in the previous season, tore her ACL. Only one week before the team’s rst game, guard Jamie Yue ’24, the team’s leader in assists and steals last year, su ered a knee injury during practice that would sideline her until January. Girls’ basketball Program Head Melissa Hearlihy said losing Yue was detrimental to the team both on and o the court.

“We started this season without our senior point guard, and she’s the head of our snake,” Hearlihy said. “She leads our o ense, she certainly is the head of our defense with her ball pressure which allows

“I’ve learned a lot of things from my upperclassmen on how to be a better leader,” Habis said. “Being a leader is more than just how many points you can score or how well you do on the court. Once I started getting con dent in my basketball skills, it transferred to my leadership on the court. It was a great experience being able to step into

that leadership role as a freshman.”

With Spencer out of the lineup, Hearlihy relied heavily on forward Valentina Guerrero ’26 to ll the void near the basket. Guerrero said she had trouble with her larger role at rst, but grew as the season progressed.

“I struggled a little bit in the beginning,” Guerrero said. “My teammates had always been supported me from the beginning, and once I was fully able to step into the role and let go of all my nerves I was able to do a good job with scoring, rebounding and helping my team.”

e team then started Mission League play 3-1 and ultimately nished in third place with a 5-5 record, behind Chaminade and Sierra Canyon. ompson said the Mission League season was a turning point in the team’s season.

“ e transition point of our season was in league play,” ompson said. “We started winning those games and that gave us more motivation. Even during practice, we were running our sets better and practicing with more energy. at put us in the mindset of telling ourselves that we can win state.”

But in the nal game of Mission League play, Guerrero broke her nose, leaving the team with an additional hole in the starting lineup. After the injury, Hearlihy called up Oyinkan Iriafen ’27 from the junior varsity team to ll Guerrero’s spot. Iriafen’s older sister, Kiki Iriafen ’21 was a McDonald’s All-American her senior year and is now a starter for the Stanford women’s basketball team. Hearlihy said Oyinkan Iriafen is more developed in parts of her game than Kiki Iriafen was at her age.

“Going down and playing on the junior varsity team gave her the ability to play more freely,” Hearlihy said. “Kiki told me Oyinkan is more athletic than she is. I said ‘Come on Kiki,’ and she goes ‘No

coach, she’s much more athletic than I am.’ Kiki is right. Oyinkan is quicker-footed, and she’s not as good o ensively as Kiki yet as far as catching and scoring. However, Kiki was not as good on the defensive end as Oyinkan is.”

Oyinkan Iriafen said her sister has inspired a lot of her game. “ ere are de nitely expectations as Kiki’s sister, but I wasn’t nervous or anything,” Oyinkan Iriafen said. “I was excited because she played with [Yue] and [McNeely], and now I get to play with them. My sister has had a huge impact because just watching her play at Stanford I’ve learned moves, and hopefully one day I’ll be able to do those in a game. She’s had a huge positive impact on me.”

Division 2 enabled the team to continue their hot streak into CIF State playo s.

“ Being a leader is more than just how many points you can score or how well you do on the court.”

Angelina Habis ’27

“It’s odd how the season is gone,” Hearlihy said. “We had losses to Louisville and Oak Park, and they do the seedings at the end based on who has played and how they fared, and not what division you are in. e fact that we had lost to those teams took us out of Division 1 and put us in Division 2, which gave us an amazing opportunity. at’s when we all opened our eyes, and it’s not that we could win, it’s that we should win. We nally felt like that path had been laid for us to accomplish what we were trying to accomplish all year.”

ird place in the Mission League was enough to secure the team a spot in the CIF-SS Division 1 Championships. ey went on to defeat Hart before avenging their previous losses to Windward and Redondo Union. ompson said the win against Windward revealed the team’s true potential. “ e CIF-SS game against Windward was signi cant because they were a ranked team, and we had lost to them earlier in the season,” ompson said. “Knowing that we could beat them, and understanding the quality of their team, gave us so much con dence going forward.”

Ultimately, they lost to Corona Santiago, the same team they faced in the rst game of the season, 4965, in the semi nals, with a nal score of 42-48. However, despite this performance, the team was placed in the running for the Division 2 State Championships. Hearlihy said their placement into

In the Division 2 State Championships, the girls beat Tehachapi and JSerra at home before getting revenge on Oak Park on the road. en the team beat Mission League rival Notre Dame High School for the third time this season to advance to the state championship game in Sacramento. In the game against Notre Dame, Guerrero returned from her broken nose with a clear mask and had 15 points and four o ensive rebounds in her rst game back.

With Guerrero’s return, the entire team, except for Spencer, was ready for the championship game against Colfax. e game went back and forth between both teams, but the girls pulled away in the end, with ompson scoring ten points in the fourth quarter, to secure the Division 2 State Championship. Hearlihy said winning the state championship was the nal goal that the team had set for itself prior to the season.

“It’s a real honor to be at this school and to coach the kids that I do,” Hearlihy said. “I couldn’t be more proud of this group for their resilience in turning our season around and making it a championship season. On our vision board that we created at the beginning of the year, this was nal goal. e rst two goals were winning the Mission League and CIF-SS, which we weren’t able to accomplish, but we did achieve the most important one. So, I’m very proud of them.”

Valentina Guerrero ’26

SOUTH

MIDWEST

Baseball starts off the season with a few big league victories

By Eden C onner

e baseball team started Mission League play Feb. 27 and are 6-0-1 as of March 14. e squad swept Notre Dame High School in a two game series the week of March 11, a team that they did not win a game against during the 2023 season.

ird baseman Jack La tte ’25 said he credits the squad’s success this year to the consistent e ort every person is putting into the game.

“I think the team has just come together and we all have each other’s backs,” La tte said. “We have a very strong connection this year and we play for each other, so one person’s success is everybody’s success.” e team only has three seniors on the roster, but Cade Goldstein ’25 said he is impressed with the number of underclassmen, and that the youngest members of the team are making an impact on the game.

“[Ira Rootman ’27] wasn’t even with us and then got the call up and has been killing it,” Goldstein said. “He came up and was batting eighth or ninth, and he’s just been putting together really good at bats against some tough opponents and has

moved all the way up to sixth right now. Defensively as well he’s been locking down the corner of the out eld whether it be left or right eld.”

Multiple juniors in the ineld are starting for the rst time this year. La tte said that the transition was comfortable because of the con dence he has in his teammates.

“Coming into the year, I knew I had to step it up,” Laftte said. “But also everybody around me has made it easy because I know I just need to do my role for the team to be successful. It’s a relief and pressure o of everyone’s shoulders to know that the whole team is contributing equally.”

Jackson Alex ’25 will start on Tuesday rather than Tommy Bridges ’24, who has been the Tuesday starter since freshman year and is currently taking time o . Alex said that the shoes he has to ll are big, but that the strength of the pitching sta this year helps with the challenge.

“It’s a lot of pressure to fill a spot previously occupied by [Bridges] who, last year, broke the [Earned Run Average (ERA)] record at the school,” Alex said. “I feel like I’m going to hone in on our pitching

depth right now. We have a lot more depth than previous years and that’s definitely led to the early success in the season. We can keep giving the ball to the next guy and the next guy because we have a ton of faith in a lot of different pitchers in our program.”

In the team’s most recent series against Notre Dame High School on March 13, over 50 scouts were in attendance for

Boys’ and girls’ track and eld teams compete in Mission League meets

By Ella Jeon

e boys’ and girls’ track and eld teams have begun their Mission League seasons. e girls’ team is undefeated, taking rst place in the rst three meets of the season, and the boys’ team earned rst place in the rst two meets, but fell to Loyola by one point March 13.

e teams have also competed in the Long Beach Wilson Invitational and the Laguna Beach Trophy Invitational.

Sophmore Prefect Robby Lou-

ie ’26, who runs the 800-meter and 1600-meter, said being on the track and eld team allows him to form friendships with students of other grade levels.

“Being a part of any athletics team really adds an extra level of community connectedness that extends beyond grade levels,” Louie said. “One of the main reasons that I am so grateful to be a part of the track and eld team is because it has helped me make so many new friends in different grades.”

Louie said he is excited to

bond with his teammates.

“ is season, I am super excited to get to spend more time with the team,” Louie said. “ e distance group especially is super close and has great team camaraderie.”

Emily Ahn ’25, who runs the 800-meter and 1600-meter, said this season, she aims to improve through hard work and training.

“My goal is to push myself harder both in practice and while racing,” Ahn said. “I want to hold myself more accountable when running on my own so that

draft prospects for pitcher Duncan Marsten ’24, pitcher Bryce Rainer ’24 and Notre Dame High School pitcher Levi Sterling. First Baseman Miguel Villegas ’25 said that in response to a lot of the high-pressure situations, the team is put in, they made up a word the team lives by to promote a sense of purpose and calm.

“Coined by [Ethan Price ’26], ‘simpilize’ is a term we

use to remind ourselves that we have what it takes, and we just have to go out and execute,” Villegas said. “If you try to put a ton of pressure on yourself or overthink in a sport like baseball, you’re not going to do as well, so we all tell each other this as a funny, but important reminder to keep doing what we’re doing.”

e team will face Crespi High School on March 20.

One of the main reasons that I am so grateful to be a part of the track and eld team is because it has helped me make so many new friends in di erent grades.”

Robby Louie ’26 L.

I can improve and hopefully run faster than I did last year.”

Rex Grube ’25, who runs the 800-meter, the 1600-meter and the 3200-meter, said he is excited for the rest of the season because the team has already performed very well.

“ e season has been great,”

Grube said. “I ran sub- ve in the mile for the rst time at our last

meet, and we have been having some great workouts. We’re looking forward to improving even though we’re already at a really good state. At the Long Beach Wilson Invitational, we had ve runners go below 9:45 [minutes] in the 3200-meter. We have lots of speed, and it looks like we have a lot of potential and can go pretty far this season.”

Boys’ tennis starts o the season 5-0

By Nathan Wang

e boys’ tennis team started the season with a perfect 5-0 record. e team’s match against Loyola High School on March 7 was postponed due to rain with the Wolverines up 8-5 at the time of postponement. e team also defeated Peninsula High School 12-6 Feb. 27, following the loss to the team in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) playo s last year.

Boys’ Tennis Program Head

Bo Hardt said the team has made good progress in becoming a more close-knit team.

“ e captains are nding out how they need to step up and how they need to lead the young ones,” Hardt said. “We are becoming really cohesive as we progress. We’ve had a few talks about how at the beginning of the season, we weren’t as much of a unit as we have been in

past seasons and how we needed to change that. e trip to the All-American [National Invitational] in Newport and the trip to Tennessee will be huge for us as a team.”

Alex Nickoll ’25 said the team has strong potential for upcoming, big tournaments.

“I am looking forward to continuing to get better day by day with my teammates,” Nickoll said. “I love this team, and I love my teammates, so I’m looking forward to spending more time with them. I am also super excited to play in the All-American tournament as well as the tournament in Tennessee. Our team has the potential to go far in both tournaments, so I’m excited to see what we can do. We are also looking forward to the playo s. We are ready to compete at the highest level.”

Ashan Abrol ’24 said an additional goal for this season is to

raise the performance of younger players to guarantee the program’s future success.

“One of our goals every season is to win California Interstate California Federation-Southern Section (CIF-SS),” Abrol said. “ at is almost a given, but this year, there is also an increased emphasis on setting this culture of winning and working for the younger guys who will continue this legacy. A lot of seniors last year had been on the team for pretty much their whole time at [the school], and they were able to instill the same energy and sentiment to the other players who would then pass it on. It is a constant cycle, and very crucial in ensuring that this team stays dominant no matter who has come and gone.”

e team will travel to Newport Beach for the All-American Invitational Tournament from March 22-23.

KING OF THE COURT: Christian Stubbeman ’25 prepares to hit a forehand in a match vs. Peninsula on Feb. 27. e team won 12-6.

THROWING HEAT: Pitcher Duncan Marsten ’24 celebrates during a game vs. Sierra Canyon in which he threw 10 strikeouts in six innings without allowing a hit, leading the team to a 2-1 victory over the Trailblazers.

WITH PERMISSION OF ERIC DEARBORN

TAKE YOUR MARKS, GET SET, GO: Swimmers jump o blocks for a relay race between the school and Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy (FHSA). e Boys’ Swim and Dive team will compete against Loyola

Swimming and Diving begins season o strong

By M eJo Liao

e boys’ and girls’ swimming and diving teams are currently undefeated after competing in three meets.

In the rst meet of the season Feb. 24, the girls defeated Louisville 133-33 and Notre Dame 11353, and the boys defeated Notre Dame 121-40 and Crespi Carmelite 127-42. In the annual Justin Carr Friday Night Lights game hosted by the school Feb. 23, both teams won. In their third meet Feb. 29, the girls defeated Flintridge Sacred Heart and Marlborough while the boys defeated Sierra Canyon and St. Francis. Swimming and Diving Program Head Jason Schwarz said

he is proud of the swimmers’ performance, having quali ed for several California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) events already.

“We are o to a great start,” Schwarz said. “From a CIF standpoint we have quali ed a number of our relays already and some individual swimmers have made their times they need to get to CIF. We’ve had some quality wins and building on that success is our goal.”

Co-captain Lily Neumann ’24 said the objective for the swimmers this year is to win the Mission League title in May.

“As a team our main goal is to win the Mission League title this year,” Neumann said. “We are undefeated in our dual meets

Boys’ volleyball strives to improve after tournament

By A lex R eisner

e boys’ varsity volleyball team participated in the Malibu Tournament on March 2. ey swept the competition, winning against Foothill Tech, San Marino, University Prep, Dana Hills and Malibu High School. ey only lost two games against San Juan Hills. e tournament brought the team’s overall record to 8-2-1 for the season so far.

In the match against Foothill Tech, the squad struggled in the rst set, losing 26-28. However, they were able to overcome this challenge by dominating the next two sets 25-10 and 15-5.

e team continued to dominate against San Marino. In their rst game, they swept the competition in the rst set by winning 25-23, but the game ended in a tie when Marino won the second set 21-25. In their second game against Marino, they pulled through a victory winning both sets 25-12 and 26-24.

“ “The intensity, adrenaline, the cheering. It was all thrilling for us , and it gave us the energy to keep ghting to win.”

Alex Rho ’25

Outside hitter Alex Rho ’25 said that working together with the team led to their win.

“We had a rough start, but it was when we started playing as a team instead of individually that we were able to pull away for our victory,” Rho said.

e team su ered two losses to San Juan Hills. In the rst game, they lost the rst set by 20-25 and the second by 1625. Even though they continued to lose two more sets during the second game by 17-25 and 14-16, they made a comeback in another set, winning 25-19.

Although the team’s losses were tough, Rho says the team’s love for the sport kept him going.

“ e simple reason for why we were able to stay positive through the rough patches during the game was because it was fun,” Rho said. “ e intensity, adrenaline and the cheering. All of it

and have had great races overall. e past two meets were big wins for us and we’re hoping to carry our momentum through the rest of the season. We have a few important meets coming up, so we’re preparing for those as best as we can.”

Outside the pool, the teams are emphasizing team spirit and bonding this year. Co-captain Logan Binder ’24 said she is looking forward to building connections with her new and old teammates. “ e relationships I make on the team are very important to me and ones I hold close to my heart,” Binder said. “I really want to work more on getting everyone to cheer each other

on during the meets. I know it can be hard when you have such a large team like swim, but I think it’s important for everyone on the team to support one another. I also plan to do more team bonding activities with the girls’ team, so everyone gets to know each other better and have some fun off the deck. I know I missed this during my underclassman years and really want to change that for my final season.”

Co-captain Evette Um ’24 said that she values the relationships she has built on the swim team and hopes to cultivate a more team-oriented environment this year.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

Softball sees rising talent excel

By Z oe Goor

e softball team started their season with a record of 3-3 after their most recent win against Marymount on March 14. Following an initial victory against Brentwood (20-0) the team suffered a series of 3 consecutive losses. However, they have won their past two games, which were their rst league games of the season, against Immaculate Heart (15-2) and Marymount (14-2).

Emma Tseng ’26, who plays second base, said despite their di cult start, the team is looking forward to a strong season following their successes in the rst league games.

“We had a rough start in a few of our non-league games, but we won our last few, so we are optimistic,” Tseng said. “I think we have done a good job of implementing coach’s feedback and making adjustments in-game, and we will keep trying to get a little better each game and practice.”

e team has predominantly underclassmen, with a roster boasting three ninth graders and six tenth graders. Tseng said the juniors and seniors have been very welcoming to their younger teammates.

“I think the upperclassmen have done a great job of welcoming everyone and building team camaraderie, and this helped us build team chemistry during preseason, so it was a fairly smooth transition for younger players to get into the culture of the team,” Tseng said.

Morgan Hill ’26, who plays out eld and pitches, said she thinks the team culture fosters relationship building and friendship between grade levels.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

was thrilling for all of us, and it gave us the energy to keep ghting to win.”

e team swept University Prep winning both sets 25-6 and 25-13. ey maintained their dominance winning 25-11 and 25-14 against Dana Hills as well as 25-

10 and 25-16 against Malibu.

Outside Hitter Wilson Federman ’24 said that the tournament was a great opportunity for the team to grow.

“We came into the tournament knowing we had a chance to win it all,” Federman said. “We

also knew that we were missing [Victor Lowe ’24], and we had a freshman starting, so there was bound to be a learning curve. We grew more con dent with each game, and the team was getting along and playing really well the whole time.

on March 21, and the girls’ team will compete against Immaculate Heart on March 21.

TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK: Boys’ volleyball huddles up during their game against Loyola High School on March 12. e team will face Crespi High School for an away game on March 21.

WOLVERINES ONLY

IBY

HENRY MARISCAL

played a variety of team sports throughout elementary and middle school, but I started playing golf competitively in sixth grade. When I joined Harvard-Westlake in my freshman year, the golf team was my rst sense of community, when we were studying remotely due to COVID. My teammates were my introduction to Harvard-Westlake, as the upperclassmen always made e orts to include me and make me feel welcome. Coach Wood played an instrumental role in my golf journey, where prior to my freshman year, we discussed di erent pathways for golf and the possibility of playing in college.

At the beginning of my freshman year, I remember Coach Wood discussing via Zoom our team plans for the season, and I quickly learned the importance of winning California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) competitions to our program. Coach Wood talked about his past teams that had insane scores in CIF playo s, and he wanted to bring our team up to that standard. At the time, our team was mostly made up of seniors, and we were looking to capitalize on their experience for one more season before we would lose them. is senior team showed impressive progress over the season, even having ve players shoot in the 70s in one tournament, a feat that was the rst since Coach Wood’s return to Harvard-Westlake.

However, a slow start to the season put us in a position that made CIF impossible. ere were individuals for CIF, as golf is both based on individual and team performance in high school. I was determined to make it to CIF Individuals, however I shot horribly in the last quali er,

and ended up being second alternate for the CIF spot, still making all-league. is was disappointing, however, I continued to work hard that summer and played well in many tournaments, qualifying for the prestigious Toyota Tour Cup and winning the Los Angeles City Junior Golf Championship, which gave me important experience to build o of going into the future.

In my sophomore year, we lost many of our best players who went to college. Our team, attempting to rebuild and develop underclassmen, struggled. Nevertheless, I was determined to qualify to CIF individually. Despite my high hopes, I ended up getting rst alternate for the CIF spot in my sophomore year. is one hurt. I was so close to qualifying, and had to wait for a whole year to get another chance to prove myself.

e summer before my junior season, I was aware of some new skilled players who would join our team. I was excited that we would once again be able to compete for a chance at CIF playo s, however, I was even more amazed when I realized just how many of these newcomers would be on our starting roster.

To begin the season, unfortunately, our team had many ups and downs. We started o strong, being second in our league standings to Loyola in rst, but an unfortunate rules incident led us to fall into third place in our standings behind Chaminade. is moment was bittersweet, as we thought we missed out on CIF, but I had qualied individually to my rst individual CIF after making a 30 foot putt on the last hole to shoot two under par for a clutch eagle (shortly after being hit by an opponent whose thrown club hit

my leg, temporarily injuring me) in the last round of league play. I went to the individual CIF local tournament with my teammate Branden Wong, however we both underperformed and did not make it to the next stage. Our team made a bid to play in CIF team playo s and surprisingly got in. is was my rst CIF that we quali ed for, and I was excited for a chance to win our division. Sadly, we underperformed in the championship, and I remember driving home from the championship recalling how easy it would have been to win if we just xed a few mistakes. is desire for more is what drives me this season, I want to make the most of my nal season at Harvard-Westlake by going farther into the CIF individuals and making a run in the CIF team playo s that our entire team will remember for years.

Outside of school, I have maintained a full schedule of junior golf tournaments with the goal of nding the best competition possible. I experienced many highs and lows in the last few years — I won at one of the hardest golf courses I have played at, but I also got a penalty for hitting the wrong ball that caused me to miss out on qualifying for a tour that I had long dreamed about.

Although I still have goals to play golf in college, I will forever be grateful for the memories I have made on the golf course during high school. All the adversity that our team has been through for the past three years wasn't for nothing, and we will nd a way to prove ourselves this year no matter what.