Issue 4 1/16/15

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PALO ALTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL 50 EMBARCADERO RD. PALO ALTO, CA 94301 NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE

PAI D PALO ALTO PERMIT #44

The Campanile

Vol. XCVII, No. 4

Palo Alto High School • 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94301 • www.palycampanile.org

Friday, January 16, 2015

New school legislation comes into effect this year 930 bills regarding misconduct and sports injuries, previously signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, now effective as of Jan. 1 claire dennis

Staff Writer

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ver 900 new laws passed through the California state legislature in 2014 officially became effective on Jan. 1, including several laws that aim to increase protection against rape, excessive disciplinary action and concussions for high school students. Gov. Jerry Brown signed 930 bills into laws over the course of 2014, out of the 1,074 bills passed in the legislature. The new laws of 2015 cover a variety of topics ranging from toy gun restrictions to plastic bag bans. Of the nearly 1,000 laws, many pertain to high school students, even stemming from local community issues. A Saratoga teen’s suicide led to the implementation of Audrie’s Law, Senate Bill 383, passed in August to apprehend juvenile rapists in adult courts. In September of 2012, Audrie Potts was raped while unconscious at a party. Her abusers then posted photos of her body on social media sites. The new legislation that bears Pott’s name expands the violations that can result in a juvenile’s trial as an adult. Rape of a victim who is “prevented from resisting due to being rendered unconscious” and therefore “incapable...of giving consent” is now among the offenses for which minors can be charged as adults. The law would ensure harsher punishment for perpetrators of incidents similar to that of Potts.

Claire Liu/The Campanile

State legislators recently passed new laws, some of which pertained to high school, behavioral regulation and students’ needs.

“As a long-time advocate for children, I believe this new legislation will bring justice for victims and update the law to make it relevant to our 21st century ‘connected’ society,” State Sen. Jim Beall said in a March statement prior to the passage of his proposed legislation. Despite increasing the severity and ease with which to punish adolescent rape, new laws also make expulsion and suspension in high school more difficult for public school administrators. Assembly Bill 420, passed in September of 2014, restricts school administrations from expelling or

suspending students for “disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully defying the valid authority.” The law defines expulsion as a consequence for only some more severe offenses, such as school vandalism or theft. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, approximately 43 percent of suspensions in California schools fell under the category of “willful defiance” of school authorities. The ACLU found that, of the over 600,000 suspensions in the 2012-2013 school year, a disproportionate amount of suspensions punished students of color.

This California law, the first of its kind in the nation, aims to keep students in the classroom, as research supports the conclusion that suspended students are five times more likely to end up in juvenile detention facilities. The law also provides financial support for teacher education on alternative disciplinary procedures to combat disruption and defiance. While laws like Assembly Bill 420 aim to keep students in the classroom, yet another law aims to keep student athletes off the playing field after suffering injuries. Assembly Bill 2127 targets practice frequency in contact sports, es-

pecially football, and the manner in which high school athletic departments handle concussions. Past laws required student athletes to sit out of athletic activity if they were believed to have suffered a concussion or other head injury and could only return after evaluation by a healthcare provider. The recently passed law now requires student athletes to wait a minimum of seven days before returning to contact activities if the health care provider determines that a concussion took place. Full-contact practices for high school sports will additionally be limited to two sessions a week, with a maximum of 90 minutes in duration. The bill, passed in June, cites several studies on concussions and their effects on mental health. The California Interscholastic Federation, which organizes high school athletics in California, is among the sports and health organizations that supported the measure. According to the legislation, many states have already taken action to limit full-contact practices. “This is a strong step toward protecting our young athletes from both near and long-term brain injury,” state Senator and bill author Ken Cooley said in a July press release. “This is a reasonable and commonsense measure that will help protect our student-athletes.” Be it at parties, in the classroom or on the playing field, California state legislature has proven to have students’ needs in mind for 2015.

Bullet train construction Foothill College to offer new set to proceed as expected inexpensive bachelor’s program

Despite years of much controversy, the School to be one of 15 to extend community college education California High-Speed rail is back on track miranda chen (CSU) or University of California Hanstein said on Palo Alto Online. maggie rosenthal

Staff Writer

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fter years of planning, construction for a high-speed rail train connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles began on Jan. 6 with a groundbreaking ceremony in Fresno, Calif. Once finished, the bullet train will be the first of its kind within the United States, though bullet trains have been successful in countries such as China, France and Japan. According to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, sections of the train, including the initial operating section between Merced, Calif. and the San Fernando Valley, which is expected to be running by 2022, will be operational before the completion date of 2029. The high-speed rail will have the capacity to travel the roughly 400 miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles in three hours, moving at speeds up to 200 miles per hour, according to the California HighSpeed Rail Authority. The route will also include extensions to Sacramento and San Diego. At the ceremony for the highspeed rail, California Gov. Jerry Brown addressed concerns over the cost of the high speed-rail project. “It’s not that expensive,” Brown said. “We can afford it. In fact, we cannot not afford it.” Another official at the ceremony, Gina McCarthy, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, added to Brown’s statements and spoke to the environmental benefits of the high-speed rail. “High-speed rail is good for our health, it is good for our climate and it is good for our economy,” McCarthy said.

The bullet train is expected to provide an alternative to environmentally harmful options such as airplanes and cars, eventually reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere by 12 billion pounds annually, according to a report put out by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. In addition, the high speed train will create as many as 67,000 jobs, in construction and other sectors of employment, annually for 15 years in California. Despite these predicted benefits, the bullet train plan sparked controversy and faced a great deal of opposition in Palo Alto and beyond. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Palo Alto, along with several other Bay Area cities and environmental agencies, sued the state in an attempt to block the high-speed train from its path, claiming the route violated the California Environmental Quality Act. The lawsuit was settled in 2013, concluding with victory for the California High-Speed Rail. Many argue that the $68 billion price tag for the project is far too costly for California to spare in its current economic state. Others raised concern about the issue of noise, especially around the populated areas that the train plans to run through. In face of the difficulties the high speed train is expected to face and widespread doubt, Brown remained optimistic during the ceremony while signing his name on a piece of railroad track. “The high-speed rail links us from the past to the future, from the south to Fresno and north; this is truly a California project bringing us together today,” Brown said.

alo Alto High School’s newly established business competition club, Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA), placed seven members in the top eight at its first ever tournament, Silicon Valley Career Development Conference (SVCDC) in San Jose, Calif., in early January. “We did really well for our first conference,” sophomore Josh Code, vice president of Paly DECA and Vice President of Outreach for Sili-

con Valley, said. “Everyone had a great time, and overall it was a good learning experience.” DECA is an international organization established almost 70 years ago with the goal of preparing students for future careers in business, marketing and finance. Paly is now one of the 3,500 high school chapters across the globe. “[Involvement in DECA] prepares you for the real world, which I think is an invaluable experience that not enough extracurriculars and clubs bring to the Paly environment,” junior Karina Chan, co-president,

Spotlight

Lifestyle

Sports

Paly alumni reflect on experiences gained through their travels. B4-B5

Read about the kinds of tests that help identify natural talents. B1

Find out our choices for the best players in the league C4-C5

Staff Writer

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oothill College is aiming to become one of the first 15 community colleges in California to offer its students a low-cost bachelor’s degree after the passage of a new bill that took effect on Jan. 1. This new bill, which was signed into law in September 2014, will allow 15 community colleges to launch a bachelor’s degree program in one, specific vocational field. In order to prevent competition, the bill requires that the 15 community colleges offer four-year programs in fields which are not already provided by California State University

(UC) campuses. One of Foothill’s main goals is to give underprivileged Californians access to a four-year, higher education at a more affordable cost than programs offered at other universities, according to Foothill Director of Marketing and Public Relations Andrea Hanstein. Experts estimate that the tuition of a bachelor’s degree offered at a community college will total to approximately $10,000, roughly half of the cost of enrolling at a CSU campus and one-fifth of the cost of attending a UC school. “Community colleges were founded on the premise that everyone deserves an opportunity for education,”

“To be able to have a program where we can increase the number of seats because we would be able to increase the number of students enrolled and then get them out there and employed — that’s our mission in a nutshell.” Thirty-six community colleges, which constitutes half of the community college system in California, submitted applications last December and are currently in the running alongside Foothill College to launch a four-year degree program. Foothill, one of seven Bay Area colleges vying to be among the first in California to offer a bachelor’s degree,

FOOTHILL

New council elected Check out the story at palycampanile.org

DECA members place at first competition

First year business club performs well at regional conference mischa nee

Staff Writer

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said. “DECA rolls it all into one and allows a student to experience something that they can challenge themselves in, feel that it is useful and still have fun.” Paly DECA also claimed two first places in the roleplay aspect of the conference, where competitors had 10 minutes to create a marketing plan or solve a intracompany issue. Junior Greg Eum and sophomore Samarth Venkatasubramaniam each won Principles of Hospitality and Tourism and Principles of Finance,

DECA

INSIDE N ew s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A 1- A 5 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A 6 - A 8 Lifestyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B3, B6-B8 Spotlight.............................B4-B5 S p o r t s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C 1- C 8

Gap Year Profiles

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Aptitude Testing

College Football All-Star Team

Check us out at www.palycampanile.org

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