OPINIONS
“Cheating puts students at future disadvantage” p. 5
FOCUS
“Stressed Out” p. 6-7
FEATURES
“Divorce: Finding the way home” p. 12
THE MATADOR
SAN GABRIEL HIGH/MARCH 9, 2016/ VOLUME 61 / ISSUE 7
WWW.THEMATADORSGHS.US/801 S. RAMONA ST., SAN GABRIEL CA 91776
AUSD eliminates T.A. course for 2016-17 year C h e l s ea H uynh and Eri n Truong
T.A. courses, the office staff would have to take extra steps to deliver information to the student body and faculty. “The only way I foresee the counselors being able to summon students is if they The Alhambra Unified School District (AUSD) will be eliminating Teacher Aides have call us on the phone,” Myers said. “That is going to be a huge problem for inter(T.A.) courses in the 2016-17 school year due to a new California law that prohibits rupting classes. If that happens, say, twice a period when you are in mid-sentence, or school districts from enrolling their students into courses without educational content. when you are in mid-thought, and when you come back, you are like, ‘Where was I?’” The bill, AB-1012, was signed into law on Oct. 2015, and according to its entry There are exceptions to the California in the American Civil Liberties Union bill; in order for a school to assign a stuwebsite, was proposed to counteract the dent to any course without educational large amount of “fake classes” that some content, the following conditions have to districts with large numbers of lowbe satisfied: the student’s guardian “has income minority students were offering. consented in writing to the assignment,” Many students were denied academic a school official “has determined that the coursework and placed in instructionpupil will benefit from being assigned free courses or courses they had already to the course,” and the principal or astaken. To tackle this issue, the bill aims sistant principal has stated in a written to provide support for California school document that “no pupils are assigned to districts to allow students to complete those classes” unless the school has met required academic coursework necessary the previous conditions. But as of now, to meet graduation requirements and colAUSD will not be allowing any students lege admission. to participate in a teaching aide course, According to the AUSD Assistant even with parental consent. Superintendent of Educational-Services, Principal Debbie Stone stated that San Dr. Gary Gonzales, only the T.A. coursesGabriel would “have to comply with the -and by extension, the office aides--will law.” be affected. T.A. tutors will remain in “Students do need to receive educaplace for the 2016-17 school year. “T.A.’s Photo by Sunny Chen tional content, and [San Gabriel] does were extremely limited on what types of not have a curriculum in T.A. right now,” information they could handle,” Gonzales Stone said. said. “Students cannot handle any confiTeachers aide senior Amy Nguyen receives a task from math teacher Sheree Mar. Stone acknowledged the possibility of dential materials such as homework, class AUSD’s current policy toward the new bill changing in the future, but stated that “it assignments, student data, gradebooks, attendance rosters or other student records.” [would] take time.” Gonzales added that student aides were “never meant to take on the workload of “[Changing the policy] would have to be something organized across all three high classified or certificated personnel” and that they “were only meant to be of assistance.” schools so it takes time,” Stone said. “We need time to develop [educational] content However, many teachers believe that with the implementation of the new policy, and curriculum as a district because we do not currently have our students in any the 2016-17 school year would be difficult for the faculty. classroom settings and in T.A. courses. [In] our current processes, students sign up for “I think that my T.A. saves me about four to five hours a week of administrative T.A. and show up in the classroom.” work, so that’s very difficult to come up with the extra hours in my schedule to do the While later decisions may change the district’s planned policy, as of now, teacher work they were doing for me,” biology teacher Robert Johnson said. aide courses will be cut from all three AUSD high schools for the 2016-17 year. English teacher Scott Myers shares the same sentiment, adding that by eliminating
WASC results today after school A m y Ye e After a three-day evaluating period of San Gabriel High School, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) team will be presenting their accreditation report today at 3:15 p.m. in the library. Everyone is welcome to attend the meeting , which will end at approximately 3:45 p.m. Between March 6-9, WASC members toured the campus, held meetings with staff members, gathered evidence for their accreditation report by assessing classroom activities and objectives, and spoke to teachers and counselors as a part of their evaluation process. WASC members also held meetings with San Gabriel’s WASC Leadership team, which consists of seniors, juniors, and sophomores. “We work really well together in the team,” senior Eric Thai said. “We were selected back in February of 2015 by counselors and teachers, and we had a couple of meetings to brainstorm the SLOs.” WASC is a non-profit accrediting organization that determines whether a school (from grades K-12) meets educational standards, and consequently, whether or not a school’s diploma accurately reflects the set core values. WASC has collaborated with the California De-
Photo by Sunny Chen Teachers converse with WASC members. partment of Education (CDE) and the Single Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA), which plays a part in the planning process for California public schools required by state and federal law. WASC sends a visiting committee to schools to determine if a school’s learning objectives encompasses critical academic skills and meets academic standards related to schoolwide learning outcomes (SLOs). Depending on whether a school satisfies these criterias, WASC will revisit the school in six years or three years if the school fails to live up to standards.
AUSD holds District Wide Career Fair Nathan Ta The Alhambra Unified School District held its first District Career Fair at Alhambra High School on Feb. 23. Students had the option to view and learn about a variety of occupations, ranging from police officer, graphic designer, comic book artist, engineer, pharmacist, and many more. Large companies such as Fluff Ice, Kaiser Permanente, and Le Cordon Bleu also participated in the fair. “[The fair] was fun,” freshman Emily Tan said. “There was a lot to see. There was a lot of different careers.” Principal Debbie Stone said that the since the district already had College Fair, the Career Fair was “to offer a venue for different careers to students as well.” The fair included mock interviews where students were able to sign up and have a simulated job interview. “It was helpful, you kind of learn where your strengths and weaknesses are in an interview,” junior Jamie Yang said. Junior Jennifer Flores was disappointed by the information on medical careers. “For the medical careers they only provided basic information which you could get off online or ask one of your teachers so it was basically worthless,” Flores said. “I didn’t learn anything new.” Although there were some varied comments about the fair, Stone sees this as an opportunity to improve how the fair will be run in future events. “As we are recruiting the speakers for the fair, maybe they can speak with some depth and detail instead of a general overview,” Stone said. The district plans to hold the Career Fair as a yearly event; however, the location of the fair is yet to be determined.