Aiming 4(.0) equity

s a result of administrative discussions following a lawsuit won by parents regarding PAUSD math placement, Superintendent Don Austin said PAUSD will not factor third-party -campus courses into o cial grade point average calculations starting

“Given the math lawsuit, we had a look at all of our policies,” Austin said. “When we were in there, everyone looked at each other and said, ‘Well, if we’re xing these other things, why don’t we x this one?’ at’s how we got here.”

Principal Brent Kline said discussions have been happening for a while within the district, and he agrees with the change.

“I've only been in two other districts besides this one,” Kline said. “ is is the rst in my experience that I have seen outside courses placed on a high school transcript.”

Austin said PAUSD administration unanimously agreed on the change, which will impact both Gunn and Paly. nd a topic where we have agreement from everyone involved,” Austin said. “Some families might not like it because it was a way (for) people to arti cially boost grades, but now we have both schools’ administrations, instructional leads, counselors and registrars all on the same page.”

Besides helping grade equity, Austin erences between -campus courses is

“Students have the ability to cially raise their GPA by taking courses that are not as rigorous as the Paly courses,” Austin said. “A student who sits in an Algebra 2 class at Paly is taking a harder class than a kid who’s taking Algebra 2 through an online program.” -campus courses could misrepresent students’ high school

“It's important to maintain (a) tranects you as a student and your experience here at Palo Alto High School,” Kline said. “When you start incorporating other courses, outside courses that can be done in a shorter amount of time, that skews the data and doesn't accurately picture your (high school) experience.”

Some exceptions to the new policy include dual enrollment classes approved by PAUSD and taught by a PAUSD teacher, credit recovery courses when a student did not earn an A, B or C in the original course and language courses Paly does not o er.

“ e change is e ective (following graduation this year),” Austin said. “If you already have the credit and the GPA on your transcript, it stays. We’re not going to change the rules on you retroactively.”

Austin said students can still demonstrate additional mastery of ocampus classes.

“You can still take a UC Scout class, for example,” Austin said. “Up to four of those can be on your transcript, and you will be able to see the (class) title. However, they will no longer calculate into your GPA. Anything above and beyond those four classes, you can still submit your own transcript to whatever university you’re applying to. ey just won't appear on your (PAUSD) transcript, and you won't earn credit for them.”

Senior Calvin Wong said he thinks the new policy is the right one.

“I know a lot of people at our school are using (o -campus class) to in ate their GPA,” Wong said. “It’s pretty easy to cheat, and the courses are much easier, so it’s giving them an unfair advantage.”

Junior Max Yeh agrees.

“It’s a good decision because there are many people who are unable to take these online courses, and it puts them at a disadvantage for college applications,” Yeh said.

But senior Megha Madhabhushi said the decision limits students’ ability to show their knowledge.

“It’s really unreasonable for them to take away something that has been o ered thus far,” Madhabhushi said. “It really is a disadvantage for kids who can’t t APs into their schedule or cannot manage the Paly AP combination on campus. Taking courses o -campus allows for a lot of exibility and makes it an easier option for students.” In addition to allowing students to explore di erent classes, Madhabhushi said she thinks having o -campus courses count toward students’ GPA matters.

“ e whole point of taking a course ocampus is that you still want it to be counted toward your GPA because that does help you in the long run for colleges,” Madhabhushi said. “ e content is still learned, and the rigor shouldn’t make a di erence as the kids are still learning, and that is what’s most important.”

Ultimately, Austin said he thinks the district is taking the right action to make PAUSD’s classes more fair.

“We’re not necessarily endorsing (ocampus classes), but we’re de nitely not in the business of blocking them,” Austin said. " ere is only change of real substance: leveling the eld for GPA calculation.” e Peninsula Robotics team, also known as Team 6036, placed rst out of 48 teams at the Idaho FIRST Robotics Regional Competition on April 1, qualifying for the world championship.

Since its founding in 2016 in a two-car garage in Palo Alto, Team 6036, which consists mainly of Paly and Gunn students, has quickly risen the ranks to become 9th out of 3300 teams in the world according to the team’s website. is season, Team 6036 has won the Arizona East and Idaho regional tournaments and placed second at the Hueneme Port Regional. e FIRST Championship, which will take place in Houston from April 19 to 22, is an international robotics competition for youth. Teams typically qualify either through pre-quali cation based on their performance at the 2022 FIRST Championships or through merit-based quali ers such as winning a regional competition.

Software captain and junior Ashray Gupta said the team had a record-setting year due to a lot of recruits.

“Last year was a reinvention of the team,” Gupta said. “A bunch of seniors had just graduated, so most of us joined as sophomores, and last year we got our rst regional win in the team's history.”

Unlike most robotics teams, Team 6036 has an open-door policy, which means anyone can join at the start of the season regardless of experience.

“Gunn, Paly and a lot of school teams have a closed-door policy because so many people want to apply,” Gupta said.

“But our policy has always been opendoor. Our team's founders were actually rejected from the teams over here.”

Gupta also said many teammates went the extra mile to put in hours toward the success of the robot.

“Our lab’s open almost every hour,” Gupta said. “Some people can pull around 40 hours a week. Last year, my longest week was 55 to 60 hours.”

Business captain and Paly junior Sidd Sen said the team's lack of school a liation, uncommon for robotics teams competing at FIRST, made the team's lack of funding an obstacle.

“But it hasn't been much of an impairment to our team because of the benevolence of our community,” Sen said. “Without that 40% (funding) from the community, we would de nitely be struggling. But because of our opendoor and no-cut nature, we are strongly grounded in our community roots.”

Moving forward, Sen said he hopes Peninsula Robotics will continue to be a source of inspiration and positive impact in the Palo Alto community.

“We want to inspire more STEM students because we have all been impacted positively by the team,” Sen said. “We want to spread (inspiration) to as many people as we can, and continue to be a pillar of our local community.”

Christie Hong Lifestyle, Sci/Tech Editor

Claiming the title of the world’s largest high school hackathon, Los Altos Hacks hosted its seventh hackathon, Los Altos Hacks VII, at the Juniper Aspiration Dome on April 8 and 9. Four hundred twentyve students participated in the event, which the organizers said is designed to encourage diverse participation in STEM through coding challenges.

Lead and Sponsorship Director Ritam Saha said 25 student organizers from Los Altos High School received support through connections, resources and feedback from teacher volunteers and local hacking teams like the Major Hacking Club. rough our hackathon, we hoped to allow students from underrepresented communities to be exposed to STEM so we reached out to a few girls-only high schools in our area, (along with) schools for (students with) speci c needs, like dyslexia and autism,” Saha said. Saha also said Los Altos High School is fortunate to have higher-level STEM courses available, but she knows many communities do not share the same access to those resources.

“We designed our hacker experience so that every attendee is able to build their interest in the STEM elds through opportunities like developing new technical expertise at our workshops, speaking to professionals

RAJ VIRGINKAR/USED WITH PERMISSION in the industry at our sponsor tables and showcasing projects to leaders in the tech industry,” Saha said.

Hackathon students work together to ful ll a design prompt. “We designed our hacker experience so every attendee is able to build their interest in the STEM elds,” Sponsorship Director Ritam Saha said.

Tech Director Austin Liu said although most hackathons focus on a speci c theme or objective, Los Altos Hacks wanted to showcase creativity and the potential of ideas, making the hackathon more open-ended.

“Our projects from attendees re ected current developments in the tech space, engaging deeply with AI and other growing technologies,” Liu said.

Junior Rachel Ho said she attended the event with no prior hackathon experience. “ e CS curriculum at Paly is pretty rigid, so I wanted to take that background knowledge and form something creative,” Ho said. “I’ve always been interested in computer science, but the hackathon introduced me to different areas with new tools and softwares like GitHub or AI.”

Operations Director Flora Wang said Los Altos Hacks recruited over 50 mentors and reached out to sponsors, from Google to software development company Niantic to hold the event for free, provide travel vouchers and supply money prizes.

“Over the course of the event, we saw many positive interactions between participants and mentors,” Wang said. “ ey served as a great source to bounce ideas o of and get technical questions answered.”

Ho also said apart from discovering skills, teamwork was a valuable component of participating in the hackathon since the projects were completed in groups of two to four people.

“Having someone to talk to during the event made it so much easier to keep going during the challenges of coding,” Ho said. “My experience has de nitely made me interested in joining more in the future where there’s more people I know on the high school and university level.”