Issue 3, 10/20/2017

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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. C, No. 3

Palo Alto High School 50 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94301

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2017

www.thecampanile.org

A brief history of Spirit Week at Paly CASSY replaces previous

Spotlight takes a look at Paly's favorite tradition through the years on pages B4-B5

school guidance service By John Loftus

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PALY JOURNALISM ARCHIVES/USED WITH PERMISSION

Juniors (Class of '88) wear T-shirts with their class motto to show their spirit during the 1986 Spirit Week at Palo Alto High School. thirty-one years later, Paly students still make T-shirts and slogans to face off with the other grades during the October rallies.

Senior Staff Writer

aly has chosen Counseling and Support Services for Youth (CASSY) to replace Adolescent Counseling Services (ACS) as its official counseling service after ACS failed to reapply for a contract at the end of the 2016-17 school year. At the time of the decision, CASSY was the provider for counseling services at Palo Alto Unified School District's (PAUSD) elementary and middle schools, which played a major role in the decision, according to senior and climate and social justice commissioner Claire Billman. “One thing we have to look towards when picking our program is long term effect on the District,” Billman said. “CASSY is currently at the elementary and middle school level, and it was high schools that had the gap. By having CASSY throughout the entire school district, we now have a cohesive mental health and wellness program, and will have seamless transition from middle school wellness to high school wellness.” The District was facing a budget deficit when they parted ways with ACS, yet CASSY’s services are almost four times more expensive. However, CASSY’s proposed budget of $467,000 was the cheapest of the District's options,

the other two being priced at $875,000 and $541,000. Even though the price is steep, the services are worth it, according to Billman. “Budget was a factor in our decision making process, but we thought of how many on-campus, full time therapists we are [going to] need,” Billman said. “[With] what we are paying for CASSY, we are getting amazing resources.” According to Billman, CASSY tailors its services to each individual school they work for, and understanding the community and environment of Paly was a key factor in choosing them. “CASSY ended up talking about student climate and how they were going to navigate the waters of the parent networks in Palo Alto, which are infamously known for being very involved in student life,” Billman said. However, the change from ACS to CASSY was more difficult than expected for some students. Although one counselor remained from ACS as a resource for students, the transition was still fraught. Paly senior Ryan Liu has experience with ACS, and finds it difficult to work with CASSY. “The ACS counselor knew my struggles, family situation, sources of stress and just had an overall knowledge about me,” Liu said.

Guidance A3

Hendricks takes place of McGee Palo Alto responds to NorCal fires Interim superintendent chosen unanimously three weeks ago Students and teachers work together to relieve the North Bay By Kaylie Nguyen & Shannon Zhao Staff Writer & Board Correspondent

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ollowing former Superintendent Max McGee’s resignation, the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Board of Education appointed Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Karen Hendricks as Interim Superintendent on Oct. 2 in a unanimous vote. Previously, Hendricks held many titles in public education, including the Chief Human Resources Officer and Interim Superintendent of the Carmel Unified School District. She also served as the Assistant Superintendent of the Santa Cruz City School District. According to Hendricks, her extensive experience in education will help her have a “really clear focus” on how she plans to serve and bring positive change to the District.

While the District has developed three major goals, according to Hendricks, she prioritizes student well-being above all. To achieve this, the District plans to create a system for middle and high school students to track homework loads, manage test and projects, continue social emotional learning (SEL) and implement recommendations from the 201617 staff wellness survey, according to the 2017-18 draft of PAUSD Board and District Goals. The second goal is making sure all the student have access to the resources they need to be successful. “Some of the things I’m hearing clearly articulated are around equity and access and persisting with our efforts and our commitment towards [equity and access] and towards the plan initiated,” Hendricks said at a Board meeting. “There’s solid work behind that. Continuing that and bringing it forward for review and progress ... is going to be important.”

The last goal is establishing high quality instruction and learning in the District. Hendricks said she wants the District to be able to recruit and retain a diverse and excellent workforce. “My main goal is cheering on the good work of the District that has already begun, supporting students to have the best possible experience,” Hendricks said. According to Hendricks, she plans to make frequent visits to leadership groups such as Associated Student Body (ASB), gather focus groups to discuss students’ concerns and build personal relationships with students. She also encourages students to contact her through email, phone or meet her in person to talk about concerns or ideas they might have. Along with enriching campus life for students, Hendricks said she will support equity work, and recruit and retain the finest educators in the schools. Hendricks said while becom-

Hendricks A3

PAUSDGEN decommissioned

School district to replace wireless network this winter By Byron Zhang

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Staff Writer

chool officials will decommission the district-wide wireless network PAUSDGEN at some point this winter, according to Chief Technology Officer Derek Moore. Over the summer, the District refreshed its wireless infrastructure by introducing a new internet platform named “PAUSD,” along with the addition of an authentication feature which requires students to log in with their Infinite Campus usernames and passwords for access. PAUSD will eventually replace PAUSDGEN as the schoolwide wireless network for students and faculty, but both PAUSDGEN and PAUSD will keep providing service until then. As part of the new internet system, the District also recently replaced its unencrypted network StudentWireless with PAUSDGUEST over

INSIDE

the summer. Unlike other district wireless networks, PAUSDGUEST utilizes an authentication process which requires the full name and email of anyone who tries to access it. According to Moore, the District decided to remove PAUSDGEN because of the vulnerability of its one-password feature, which grants unlimited WiFi access to anyone who has entered the password once. Moore said the District’s wireless networks are “intended primarily for instructional purposes.” While acknowledging that many students and staff do use the WiFi for school-related purposes, Moore said he fears that the freedom PAUSDGEN offers has led students to overuse the entertainment aspect of the internet. Many popular video streaming websites such as Netflix and Amazon use a large amount of bandwidth, which causes problems in connection speed for those using

the WiFi for educational purposes. The new PAUSD internet platform will restrict internet data usage for every account. “[The new internet platform will] give us the ability to handle the individual incidences that we have to in an individual way and not necessarily cut or block entire websites for the entire group,” Moore said. Since the new PAUSD network will limit potential internet misuse, the new network will allow access of all clients within the District, including students, teachers and possibly parents and other organizations affiliated with PAUSD, according to Moore. Additionally, the new network’s authentication system will prevent users unaffiliated with PAUSD from accessing internal WiFi service, Moore said. While District officials emphasize the positive impacts of in-

PAUSDGEN

News

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE/PUBLIC DOMAIN

Fires across Northern California have left at least 42 dead and are yet to be fully contained.

By Christopher Pierno

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Senior Staff Writer

arly last week, fires broke out in Northern California and surrounding areas. The intensity and destruction the fire has caused has led members of surrounding communities to reach out and help the victims. Paly students and staff immediately began organizing to help victims of the fires in Sonoma and Napa counties north of San Francisco. English teacher Cris Bautista, for example, collected food and other necessities and delivered them to the area on Sunday. “I decided that I need to do something; I need to actually contribute something to benefit and help with what’s going on,” Bautista said. “When I heard about the Napa fire, it was very jarring for me. It was a place I find to be a very big part of myself. I would say I became a teacher over there. I used to teach at a charter school in Vallejo and I worked at a high school in Richmond.” Several devastating wildfires

Opinion

spread at night on Oct. 8, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people from Sonoma and Napa counties, leaving destruction in its wake. More than 6,700 homes in the North Bay have been destroyed, and 42 people have been confirmed dead as of Wednesday, with over 400 people reported missing in that area alone. Several new fires broke out last Monday in the Santa Cruz area near Dons Road and Rons Road. Five firefighters have been injured so far and the blaze has consumed 271 acres of land. These fires have caused loss that has personally affected many families in Palo Alto, including students and teachers at Paly. “My cousins’ house and school burned down in the [Sonoma] fire; he and his family had to evacuate to San Francisco,” said senior Derek Gubbens. “They are going to have to stay there until the situation gets better.” Hundreds of individual relief efforts are underway in the Bay Area by private citizens and larger organizations. The Mercury News,

Lifestyle

for example, has regularly urged readers to donate through articles on the impacts of the fire. As of Oct. 17, according to the official fire news report service CalFire, many of the fires are more than 50 percent contained, with the only exception being the fire near Oakmont, north of San Francisco, which is 27 percent contained. “It is not good to donate directly to a shelter because they might have enough of that stuff," Bautista said. "Instead it’s better to donate to a location that distributes to other places because they know where things need to go. Basically, what I find the most useful is donating to a local organization ... because they know what they need.” Bautista said new donations should be primarily monetary as supplies are no longer in short supply, and recommends donations be made at the Napa Valley Community Foundation (www. napavalleycf.org) or the Redwood Credit Union (www.redwoodcu. org).

Sports

this edition

News . . . . . . . . . . A1-A4 Opinion . . . . . . . . A5-A7 Editorials . . . . . . . . . . A8 Lifestyle . . . . B1-B3, B6 Spotlight. . . . . . . . B4-B5 Science & Tech . . B7-B8 Sports . . . C1-C3, C6-C8 Sports Spread . . . C4-C5

BEN VAN ZYLL/THE CAMPANILE

GLOBAL PANORAMA/CC BY-SA 2.0 (CROPPED)

MADS MCCLUSKEY/THE CAMPANILE

ERIC HE/THE CAMPANILE

The Campanile summarizes the

Myanmar crisis overlooked

Expectations of Spirit Week

Weightlifting outside of sports

2017 Palo Alto College Fair.

The world's response to the widespread violence is unacceptable.

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PAGE B6

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Paly college fair

There is a rising anticipation of upcoming Paly Spirit Week.

Weightlifting has lots of benefits outside of competitive sports.


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Issue 3, 10/20/2017 by The Campanile - Issuu