Raven Report Sequoia High School
Volume V, Issue 1
1201 Brewster Ave. Redwood City, CA 94062
Sequoia’s prayers answered by new administrator Priest
Sequoia Says...
How do you feel about the new later start to the school day?
By SARINA GROSS Editor-in-Chief
“I really like the schedule change. I’m always on time now. I was constantly late and rushing when school started at 8 a.m.” —Senior Charissa Teller
Sequoia welcomes new Administrative Vice Principal Sean Priest, who served last year as Dean of Students at Menlo-Atherton High School. Priest transferred to Sequoia to replace last school year’s Administrative Vice Principals Ricardo Cooke and Donald Milhaupt, after one administrative position was lost due to millions of dollars in budget cuts last year. Priest said Sequoia has been welcoming and he is excited for the new school year. “I’ve been really lucky to never have a job that I didn’t love, and that hasn’t changed this year,” Priest said. Priest said his experience as a teacher has influenced the way he connects with students. Before becoming Dean of Students at M-A, Priest taught Spanish and AVID classes at South San Francisco High School for seven years. Because of his previous position as an AVID teacher, Priest said he tries to provide students with as many oppor-
“I hate getting out later. I had to turn down a job opportunity because they asked me to start at 3:30. No job I know is going to hire someone who can’t even start until 4 p.m.” —Senior Cameron Logie “I get a lot more sleep and I’ve noticed I’m more focused in class. I think I will do a lot better this year.” — Sophomore Devon Marmol
“I don’t really mind it. Thirty minutes doesn’t make a big difference. I don’t think I’m getting more or less sleep.” —Junior Nick Pauley
“I love it for many reasons: I’m not a morning person, I can take my daughter to school without having to worry about being late, and I feel more awake in the morning and ready to go.” Math teacher Joshua —Activities Director Yezerski surveyed his two Lauren Reibstein Pre-Calc classes about their feelings towards the schedule change. “I had about 25 against it and 5 for it in both classes. For me, the big thing is the traffic in the morning; It’s worse later in the morning.” —Math teacher Joshua Yezerski Photos by Sarina Gross
Feature:
Survival guide to Sequoia High School Pages 2-3
September 15, 2011
Photo by Sarina Gross
Administrative Vice Principal Sean Priest was a Jeopardy contestant and taught high school humanities in Mexico. tunities as possible for life af- know what they are saying.” Priest has other hidden talter high school. ents. In February, Priest won After a year of teaching humanities to high school $1,000 on the show Jeopardy. students in Mexico, Priest In addition to being a trivia became fluent in Spanish. He extraordinaire, Priest is an said his bilingual skills have avid traveler. He said he and his wife try to plan a trip every been helpful at Sequoia. “I’m not sure if everybody summer to some place new knows I speak Spanish yet,” and immerse themselves in Priest said. “Kids in the hall the different cultures. “We are very lucky to have will be talking and then I’ll come up and they will start Mr. Priest,” Principal Bonnie speaking Spanish like I don’t Hansen said.
Schedules change as enrollment tops 2000 By ANNA DAGUM and CAROLINE LEMPERT Close to forty students unexpectedly enrolled at Sequoia this year, increasing our total student enrollment to over 2000. Three weeks into school, multiple scheduling changes occurred to accommodate this growth. “Sequoia unexpectedly grew over the summer beyond the number of expected students,” Instructional Vice-Principal Lisa Gleaton said. “Those extra students were not taken into account when making the master schedule, hiring, assigning rooms, lockers, etc... [but] we shoved them in anyway. Teachers went over their contractual limits, classes were huge and no one was happy,” said Gleaton. To ensure a direct student-to-teacher relationship, the teachers’ union limits the number of students one teacher can have to 172,
Opinion:
Only girl in the world... without a Facebook Page 4
according to history teacher Marc Crownover. Although the over-enrollment was evident in the first days, teachers had to keep a tally of students until the district acknowledged Sequoia’s predicament on Sept. 2. Fourteen teachers were over their contracted limit. In response, administration and guidance spent the weekend of Sept. 9 busily interviewing, hiring, making hundreds of schedule changes, and rearranging sections in an effort to reduce class sizes. Students received notice on Monday, Sept. 12. Although there are negative implications of the rising population, the numbers mean that Sequoia’s popularity is increasing due to years of hard work put in by our staff. “Former Principal Marchbanks and Principal Hansen have had to spend an enormous amount of energy trying to change our reputation,” said Crownover. “It has worked!”
180 students responded to a Facebook survey:
Do you like the new later start?
72% No 14% Yes 14% Does not affect me