Focus
Life & Art
“Crunches, not crunch” pg. 6-7
THE
Features
“Secret Society takes San Gabriel” pg. 8
“New faculty ‘post’ campus greetings” pg. 12
Matador
Volume 60, Number 1
WEDNESDaY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2014
S a n G a b r i e l H i gh S c h o o l
801 Ramona St., San Gabriel, CA 91776
www.thematadorsghs.com
San Gabriel welcomes new administrators Jocelyn Castro, Robby Jung become new Assistant Principals of Student Services K ri s t y Du o n g With the departures of Timothy Hopper and Janet Perales at the end of the last school year, Jocelyn Castro became one of the new Assistant Principals of Student Services upon the start of the school year. As a new assistant principal, Castro hopes to continue to “enhance the positive environment” that currently exists at San Gabriel High School and to “ensure the safety of the staff and students.” Some students may have noticed these efforts in the stricter enforcement of school policies such as with the requirement of hall passes to access classroom areas during lunch and during passing periods or the tardy sweeps in the morning. “There are 14 administrators and campus supervisors and 2300 students,” Castro said. “We want to know you guys are safe, and if anything happens, there is an adult there to help you. We don’t want to wait until something happens.” Additionally, Castro wants the Student Services office to become a place that can appeal to the emotional side of students rather than simply being a place where punishments are dealt or where students are lectured. “We want all the offices to be able
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to help with everything [whether it is social, academic, or emotional],” Castro said. “So sometimes, we just want to see what’s going on and to make sure everything is okay.” Currently, Castro is getting her master ’s degree in School Leadership at the University of Southern California (USC) to learn how to better help the school. However, she initially majored in natural science at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles and went on to work at Alhambra High School as a biology teacher and ASB adviser for nine years. When the position of assistant principal became available, she decided to take it, hoping to further assist students. Now, with her introduction to San Gabriel High School, she has been welcomed into the Matador family.
Administration mandates fingerprinting for visitors F ra n k L i e u a n d M a ri o Mand uj ano Fingerprinting identification is now required for all people who have contact with high school students in the Alhambra Unified School District , including all the employees working for the district. “It’s a necessary inconvenience for people,” Assistant Principal of Business and Activities Chris Takeshita said. “A necessary tool, just by looking at the things that have happened in the past.” The district adopted this new policy this year in an effort to decrease the possibility of any dangerous threats on campus. Even though there were “no specific events that led up to this resort,” schools are taking initiative in protecting their students. If an individual may have had a tainted background, the school may reject the entrance of such a person in order to protect the students of the school. The acceptance of the individual is based on the crime, whether it is a felony or non-felony. “If there is a crime of some sort on a person’s record, that is serious,” Takeshita said. “We don’t want that individual around our kids.” Anyone wishing to enter the school and contact students must get fingeprinted and pay a fee of 50 dollars. “It’s a policy that we find in other school districts,” Assistant Principal of Student Services Robby Jung said. While many may consider the price to be too overwhelming, Takeshita disagrees. “Can you put a price on a child’s safety?” Takeshita said.
Wanting to take on a new challenge, Robby Jung has become one of the new Assistant Principals of Student Services at San Gabriel High School after working as a coordinator, a teacher, a basketball coach, and a professional musician. Jung began as a music major over ten years ago at UCLA and played the bass guitar. However, when his younger brother began to struggle with school due to a lack of resources and support at home, Jung became motivated to help students who were in a similar situation to that of his brother’s. “At that point, I said I wanted to help students,” Jung said. “I wanted to make sure that no student who came across me would lack in any resource.” Thus, he switched his major to English and later taught English at Dorsey High School, Locke High School, and Diamond Bar High School. Afterward, he started managing the English Learning program and events such as the CAHSEE testing and the CST. When he became the principal of the Diamond Bar High School’s summer program, he realized he wanted to continue leading both teachers and students, so he took the opportunity to become an assistant principal at San Gabriel. “Getting to be the assistant principal here is just a natural growth step. It was rewarding because it’s exactly what my
brother would have needed,” Jung said. He feels that working here is different from working at Diamond Bar. He is able to work with students a lot more now and emphasizes his priority to them and their safety. “My office is a place where they can come if they need anything. Being a teenager has its challenges with school and family life. I want to be there to support the students, and that’s why our office is named student services,” Jung said. He believes it is “challenging and fun” to help students overcome their problems. “I really enjoy watching students grow through problems and do really well now,” Jung said. Ever since he set his mind to working in the education system and helping students, Jung has never looked back. Photos by Sydney Trieu
New staff brings new rules for safety C arol i na Loai si ga and Il eana Perez The arrival of new assistant principals have brought along new polices that are being enforced by campus supervisors throughout San Gabriel High School. These policies include the requirement of hall passes to access classrooms during lunch and passing periods. Newly-hired campus supervisor Andrew Contreras explained the new implemented hall pass policy. “It is just a pass issued by your teachers to know you are going to do a lunchroom activity in that certain class,” Contreras said. Although many people disagree with the new rule, Contreras believes that the school will benefit greatly from the policy. “At the end of the day, the passes are for everybody’s safety, to keep control where the kids are at and to make sure everybody is in a safe area,” Contreras said. Even though these new rules are enforced for safety purposes, certain students and staff members feel they were not thought out thoroughly. They feel as if the new rules do not consider that students may forget to get a pass. Spanish teacher Sonia Schecter believes that this new rule could harm students, as it would be more
difficult for them to seek academic assistance and raise their grades. “I just feel that the system prevents my students from coming to my room to get help,” Schecter said. In addition to the issue of not being able to visit teachers freely during lunch, students are worried it will affect their club meetings. Many are not sure if they are allowed to go to meetings without having to have a pass. “I understand why there are these new policies,” junior Lillian Liu said. “They prevent loitering around classrooms without proper supervision, which is good, but they are also very restricting for students. We can’t visit teachers or classrooms freely if there’s something we need to discuss with them.” Some staff members also feel that requiring passes in order to go to certain buildings during lunch will not always ensure safety. They believe there is no guarantee that students are actually going to the class they claim they are going to. The whole process of “mistrust” is a form of communication that campus supervisors think can be remedied with hall passes. “The kids are free to go [in and out of the buildings],” Schecter said. “And there are no supervisors, besides the teacher inside the classroom.” Although the intentions for these new rules are to keep students as safe as possible during school hours, some students and staff feel the rules should be reconsidered because of these issues.