The Nueva Current | February 2022

THE NUEVA SCHOOL

131 E. 28TH AVE. SAN MATEO, CA 94403

Student Standoff: Should the upper school relax the mask mandate?

Steel drum band performs with worldfamous calypsonians

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THE NUEVA

Chinese 510 Advanced Research class curates social justice art installation PAGE 4

OPINION Amy Coney Barett shouldn't rule on the Roe v.

Wade repeal

Deebo Samuel is the San Francisco 49er’s star wide receiver

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CURRENT FEB. 18, 2022 | VOL. 5, ISS. 4

Grappling with teacher turnover

Upper school community adapts to an atypical spate of mid-year departures STORY ANISHA K. ART STEPHANIE S.

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It's not rocket science... oh wait, it is

STORY SERENA S. PHOTOS LOGAN R.

Sophomores Logan R. and Alyse G-M start Rocket Club, American Rocketry Challenge their goal

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PREPARE FOR BLASTOFF Members of Rocket Club prep their rocket for their first-ever test launch at Snow Ranch, a regulated launch site in Central Valley.

hat started as a group text to his freshman COVID-19 cohort has now turned into a multi-member competitive club launching a 2-foot rocket 800 feet into the air.

In his first message, Logan R. ’24 hoped to gauge interest surrounding a space club and when Alyse G-M ’24 responded by expressing her desire to start an aerospace club, the two saw the overlap and opportunity to collaborate.

Logan, whose love of rocketry stemmed from watching things “go really high and explode,” and Alyse, whose Star Trek obsession progressed into one of aerospace in general, became the co-leads of Rocket Club.

The 10 person club is currently working to produce an operative rocket for The American Rocketry Challenge— the world’s largest middle and high school rocket contest with nearly 5,000 students nationwide competing each year. Teams have the opportunity to win up to $20,000 and receive up to $1,000 for their school.

John Feland, the club’s past faculty adviser, encouraged the club to register

for the competition at the beginning of the 2021 school year after guiding the upper school rocket club through the challenge in 2017—the last time Nueva participated in the competition.

“I think after all those seniors graduated the club didn't exist anymore,” Logan said, reflecting on the school’s formerly consistent participation. “It's really great to be reviving a Nueva tradition.”

Now advised by I-Lab Engineer Rob Zomber, their team, Mission Maverick, meets at least twice per week in the I-lab to design, fabricate, simulate, and iterate their rocket. Zomber has been crucial in the club’s development through providing connections to people in the rocketry field—like his rocket scientist brother-inlaw—and is someone the team believes they can rely upon.

In addition to gaining valuable insights from experts and mentors, Alyse remarked on the team’s internal growth.

“Everyone has learned a lot about how to be self-motivated, how to structure club time, how to plan ahead, and how we

can move forward to hopefully qualify,” she said.

In order for the team to be one of the 100 that qualify for the national competition in Virginia on May 14, they must pass a qualification launch by April 4 in which their rocket is fully functional and safe. They hope to have around four practice launches before the qualifying one to sort out any defects in their product.

On Feb. 5, the club drove two and a half hours to Snow Ranch, a regulated launch site in Central Valley, for their first ever test-launch.

“You could feel the tension on the drive over,” Alyse said. “At Nueva, we can test the various parts of the rocket and run simulations, but it’s practically impossible to know exactly how it will work when the time comes to actually test it.”

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NEWS

NEWS BRIEFS

STORIES ISABELLE S. PHOTOS GWYN GORDON, EMMA Z.

Cultivating knowledge beneath the soil

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resh strawberries, carrots, and leaves of kale—all new additions to the gardens of the sky bridge as it underwent an ecosystem renovation throughout the fall semester and Intersession week. During a hands-on Intersession seminar in conjunction with Wednesday of Wonder workshops, students trimmed existing bushes, planted seeds, amended the soil, and even chopped down the redwood tree rooted idly on the sky bridge for the past few years.

Led by Nueva parent Gwyn Gordon, the workshops provided students an opportunity to engage with the natural elements of the upper school campus. Working alongside Director of Environmental Citizenship Sarah Koning, Gordon aims to integrate Nueva’s gardens into both the lower and upper schools’ curricula with an emphasis on student desire and engagement.

“What I love about Nueva is essentially that if the students want to do it, then we do it,” Gordon said. “It should be driven by students. So we just started thinking, ‘how can we get our finger on the pulse of what the students will want from this?’”

After testing out the waters with a WoW workshop and Koning’s Environmental Humanities class and receiving enthusiastic feedback from students, Gordon was motivated to involve more students through the week of Intersession. She also learned that in order to truly grasp students’ engagement, she needed to introduce something else to the sky bridge: food.

Since Oct. 2021, homegrown fruits and vegetables seeds have been buried in the planters of the sky bridge.

“Raspberries, carrots, sugar snap peas…that’s what the students wanted,” Gordon said, recalling her vision of the sky bridge as a “multifaceted ecosystem” with not only native habitat plants but

also food production areas.

As the foods are now ready for harvest, Gordon encourages students to pick a leaf of kale or split a carrot with a friend.

“There’s a certain freshness and vitality to food that is freshly picked and hasn’t been packed into a truck and transported,” Gordon said.

For Gordon, what’s most important is fostering students’ connection to nature—especially in such a technologically-oriented society.

“So much of our thinking is on a device because it’s convenient. I get that. But there’s also something about spending time with nature,” Gordon said. “There’s something about the tactile nature of it. It’s engaging in a different sense from this two dimensional world of technology. It’s restorative.”

Looking forward, Gordon hopes

the space will not only be revitalizing but also a cultivation of “a sense that every discipline on campus has a place there” whether for art projects, historical documentations, or scientific observations.

“There’s inspiration in nature you can use to solve technological problems as well, such as the electrical communication on a cellular level in plants,” Gordon said. “It is a beautiful place to just take a break, but it can also be a place of connection and integration between all subjects and grades.”

Gordon affirms “ecosystems are everywhere,” despite their common association with the wilderness.

“We can influence them for better or for worse,” Gordon said. “These gardens are an opportunity to create positive change and a gift to future students and staff for years to come.”

GLOVED GREEN THUMBS Students nurture plants in the Skybridge's gardens.

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lanterns

hung up throughout the first floor for Lunar New Year

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A SUNNY SNOWBALL FIGHT In 70°F weather, students gather afterschool in the Rosenberg Courtyard to engage in a playful snowball fight.

throughout the school, from the freshman in the gym to the seniors in the WRC. Sané affirms “the beauty of humanity comes from our diversity” and that the key to achieving nonviolence is through becoming “opportunity makers.”

“When we are capable of sharing what we have, we become opportunity makers. If we want to have peace in the world, we must become opportunity makers,” Sané said.

Deón, a civil rights attorney and author of her critically-acclaimed novel Grace, built onto Sané later in the afternoon with the power of words.

“Your words make a difference for the world,” Deón said, urging others to write and speak the “nonnegotiable truth.”

“Although [the speakers] were such different people doing different things, what they talked about intersects beautifully,” Barclay said. “We tend to think of racial justice in an Americancentric way, and it was great to have that range.”

Beyond the speakers were fourteen concurrent workshops held by faculty members regarding nonviolence from “The Art of Activism: Protest Posters” to “‘That's not Funny:’ Evaluating Humor

as a Strategy for Social Change.”

Students attended one workshop of their choice that piqued their interest; Barclay, however, aims to work towards balancing the time in the future so students are allowed the opportunity to participate in multiple.

“One of my favorite things is the teachers showing up every year to teach the workshops,” Barclay said. “I always go back and forth between providing students with an opportunity to take more than one because they’re so amazing.”

In the afternoon, students conjoined in advisories to debrief the day’s events and write on the windows of Nueva to showcase their learnings and what the beloved community means to them.

Although temporary, these words carry an everlasting message of the day through the halls of Nueva.

“What I hope people walk away with, if nothing else, is the understanding that you can never know what someone else has lived through,” Barclay said. “I don’t know what’s informing your decisions. I don’t know what pain you carry. I don’t know any of those things, and I hope we can all remember that.”

envelopes made and posted on the walls for kindness week

performers at the Classical Corner on Feb. 2

Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day inspires nonviolence rganized by PreK-12 Equity and Social Justice Director Alegria Barclay, Nueva’s annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day took place this year on Jan. 12.

Barclay believes Dr. King has transformed into a more “sanitized” figure in American history over the decades, and her goal was to expand on people’s understanding of his radical philosophies and provide a reminder that there is more underneath the prominence of “I Have a Dream.”

“The ways in which we’ve talked about Dr. King is really only looking at specific moments in his career with the general assumption that everybody supported his vision, which was not true,” Barclay said. “By ‘sanitized,’ I mean that the struggles and hardships are almost washed away by his radical legacy. It’s a pick and choose.”

Given the surge in violence and instability around the world, Barclay centered MLK Day around the role of nonviolence in building community, featuring keynote speakers Barwendé Médard Sané and Natashia Deón.

Throughout the morning, Sané’s stories from his 14 years of experience in grassroots activism and restorative justice processes in Africa echoed

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180 intersession classes held during the week of Jan. 4

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Shakespearean plays will be read by the seniors in total this semester

Let it snow: an icy carnival afternoon in the courtyard

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n lieu of the annual winter formal, the student council brought a carnival to Nueva’s East Courtyard. On the afternoon of Feb. 8, students flocked into the courtyard for the school’s first-ever Winter Carnival, featuring a taco truck and 15 carnival games including minigolf, high striker, cornhole—and snow.

“I said, ‘could we have snow?’” Dean of Student Life Hillary Freeman said. “The student council goes, ‘snow? Do we bring it from Tahoe?’ and so I said, ‘no, they make snow!’”

Thus, the idea of a winter carnival emerged.

While some students shot hoops or threw bean bags as Taylor Swift songs blasted in the background, others sledded down a makeshift slope and built snowmen, dodging left and right to

avoid flying snowballs. Covering a large area of the courtyard, the snow remained an area for students to play in even the day after—despite the 70 degree heat.

“We thought: it’s outside, it’s winter, it’s snow, it’s carnival,” Freeman said, believing the carnival to be a “perfect opportunity to cultivate Nueva spirit” along with the senior night basketball games that same evening.

“People are working hard and studying hard, and we wanted to give both kids and teachers an opportunity to have fun,” Freeman said, aiming to provide levity for the community. “I just want students to have fun, I want them to laugh, to go around and try all the games…that’s what I’m hoping for.”

THE NUEVA CURRENT

Students revive campus stewardship program

THE AFTERMATH OF LUNCHTIME Oftentimes, plates full of food and other trash can be found laying around campus after lunch

Tired of staff having to pick up the daily lunch mess, students take action to clean up the community

NEWS

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The quinquennial meeting for school improvement Members of the community meet to improve the Nueva vision STORY SAM T.

STORY ANOUSCHKA B. PHOTOS EMMA Z.

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paste of mashed potatoes and pork oozes all over the compost. Beans dribble down the front of bins in a muddy cascade, leaving trails of suspicious brown stains on the floor. Rice, forks, and even plates are strewn across campus from the café tables to the turf.

It’s 12:30 p.m., and students’ lunch remnants are haphazardly discarded. But what students don’t see is what happens after they rush off to class: the staff working diligently to ensure the campus is clean the next day—only for the cycle to begin again.

Environmental Representative Caroline P. ’22 is tired of that pattern and especially tired of staff having to clean up students’ messes. That’s where the Campus Stewardship program comes in.

As Caroline, Micah B. ’23, and Luca L. ’23—the students currently taking charge of the program—envision it, the program will take place at the end of every lunch period with advisories on a 15-minute cleaning rotation.

Students, directed to clean the various lunch areas on campus, will participate in the program approximately three times per semester. The exact starting date is currently up in the air, but the students leading the initiative aim to begin this spring semester.

“We hope that with advisory stewardship, we can keep our campus cleaner and also have students show respect to our campus environment and staff,” Caroline said. “Right now, we have the operations team cleaning up after us,

which is not really acceptable—it’s disrespectful.”

The idea for the renewed program emerged a month prior, but the concept of a campus stewardship program dates back to the 2018-19 school year when former Campus Steward Celia Malone ’19 first implemented rotating advisories to clean the campus at the end of lunchtime.

Caroline considers Malone’s program a success, and she, Micah, and Luca are using the original program as a blueprint for the current effort.

During the original program, Malone would devoutly spend the last 20 minutes of every lunch supervising each advisory on duty, ensuring everything ran smoothly—a commitment not feasible for Caroline, Micah, and Luca. Instead, they intend to encourage leadership among participants, selecting a student leader from each advisory.

However, beyond the advisory leader, participation from all is the cornerstone of the program.

They devised a plan to maintain student participation: advisors will take roll; for the first student absence, they will send an email to the student, and for the second absence, to their parents—but they hope they won’t need to implement it.

“We don’t want to force people to do this because of fear of the punishment, but more just because it’s

"We want people to know that being able to make an impact on the world and on campus really comes down to individual responsibility.” that we need to start caring for our environment.”

Luca emphasizes the program’s reliance on every student. He recalls Father Barwendé Sané, who spoke to the school on Jan. 12 as part of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, saying that “change starts with the individual.”

“I found that very powerful, and we brought that up a lot in our meetings,” Luca said. “We want people to know that being able to make an impact on the world and on campus really comes down to individual responsibility.”

With the program led by upperclassmen, it’s important to Caroline and Luca for the program to continue beyond their time at Nueva—and more than that, Caroline hopes the program will inspire students to create a lasting legacy of environmentalism at the school.

“If we get in the habit of taking care of Nueva’s environment, when we all leave Nueva or are engaging with a community that isn’t Nueva’s, we’ll also engage with more empathy, compassion, and respect for the environment,” she said. “I’m hoping this will help students be environmental stewards everywhere.”

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

CLEAN UP, CLEAN UP, EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE The stewardship program aims to address the multitudes of trash littered across campus after lunch time, to alleviate the work of the operations team, which is often stuck cleaning up after student messes

something good to do,” Luca said.

“We really hope people understand it’s not too much of a commitment at all, and it’s really the baseline

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very five years, Nueva goes through a new strategic planning process, where all school constituents are invited to participate in listening and sharing sessions, in order to craft a strategic plan for the next five years. This school year is a strategic planning year, and since August, students, parents, and faculty and staff have been given different opportunities to weigh in on setting the game plan for Nueva.

To do so, and to make sure that the students, faculty, and overall community are involved in the future direction of the school, Taryn Grogan, Director of Enrollment and Strategic Engagement, helped organize a series of meetings to collect students’ concerns and ideas for what they would like their learning experience to look like next. The meetings provide an opportunity for everyone in the community to give input on issues that will inform the making of the next strategic plan.

Student surveys, conversations with Student Council in all divisions, and faculty activities were just some of the many ways the Nueva Board of Trustees and strategic planning task force received their feedback. After gathering input from the community, they narrowed an expansive list of priorities down to five common themes: student program support; diversity, equity, and inclusion; systems for student wellness; community connections; and Nueva’s culture. Grogan is excited about the results of the feedback sessions the task force has collected thus far.

“I was a little surprised how the students [were] saying the same things as the adults,” Grogan said.

The two largest areas for growth, with equal interest between the two groups, were sustainability and faculty support. Throughout all of the discussions, across the lower, middle, and upper schools, Grogan saw a trend in access.

“Access is important for everyone, whether it be access to financial aid or being able to see grades,” Grogan said.

Another identified challenge that emerged from these planning sessions was recovering from COVID-19. There was a clear consensus that it was crucial to reforge community connections after such a stretch of distance learning, while working in parallel with COVID-19 restrictions.

The strategic planning sessions have drawn large amounts of student participation in the surveys, beneficial collaborations with StuCo, and impactful conversations with wide ranges of faculty and staff.

Although there are many areas for improvement, these meetings also highlight one important aspect of Nueva’s culture. Grogan said it best, describing how “[Nueva] can’t be stagnant; we can't rest on our laurels—we innovate and we don’t sit and say, ‘That's good enough.’”

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Mandarin students reflect on art and social justice through the creation of an art installation

Jamie Gao challenges the traditional language class format, inspiring students to consider Chinese art and their own cultural identities STORY ELLIE K. PHOTO ELLIE K.

CREATIVITY AT WORK Anya C. '23 paints a set of rings embellished with sculpted eyes, now displayed in the hallway near the art rooms.

Student art presented across the campus

Paintings, scupltures, and amplified objects fill the hallways STORY JACK P. PHOTOS JACK P.

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n unconventional fruit bowl symbolizing toxic diet culture. A bird's wing immersed in tar to symbolize pollution. These are only a few of the symbolic art pieces students have been working on so far this semester.

In Rachel Dawson’s advanced painting and clay sculpture classes, students are working on a project called “10 rules.” For this project, each student picks an artist and researches the individual to identify 10 rules that they know to be true about the artist’s work. Once they’ve defined the 10 rules, students will create their own piece of artwork that strictly adheres to these prescribed rules. For example, Natalie C. ‘25 is creating an abstract tree made from air dry clay to fulfill these following rules: go large and command space, create a sense of movement, work freely, and draw inspiration from nature.

Dante F. ’23, another student in Dawson's advanced sculpting class, has taken many art classes during their time in the upper school and discovered a passion for sculpting.

They are currently working on sculpting a bird's wing which will be soaked in tar to symbolize the effects of pollution. Dante’s favorite part about creating new sculptures is that even if they mess up or the clay dries out, they can always just put the clay in water and start again.

“It has infinite uses,” Dante said.

Meanwhile, in May Wilson’s Art and Fabrication elective, students are creating large-scale versions of everyday objects as part of their monuments project. Sophie H. ’22 explains that in amplifying everyday items, they are “monumentalizing them” in order to show their significance. Sophie is creating a large-scale version of LEGO blocks because they represent “youthful creativity.”

“I think that making them on such a large scale will put viewers into a new perspective with the item, making them small like they once were as a child,” Sophie said.

LIFE FROM CLAY A clay bonsai tree captures the old majesty of these often hundred-year-old plants.

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anguage acquisition is more than grammar lessons and writing assignments.

Jamie Gao, upper school mandarin teacher, went one step further in her Advanced Research and Literature class.

To Gao, when learning a language, one must use it in “real life to express [their] thoughts.”

For Gao’s class’ fall culminating project, students did just that— exploring their Chinese heritage and interweaving Mandarin with art and social justice.

Students in the class chose their own issue to analyze. From female body standards to imposter syndrome to environmental pollution, the diversity of topics represented the unique experiences

"We invite you to imagine a better world by considering different potential solutions. Significant social problems have existed since the birth of civilization. The solutions lie in each one of us. There is no step too small.” of the students. After research and reflection, students created an art piece to encapsulate the topic’s meaning to them.

“Art can be a really reflective process, as well as very active,” said Lucie L. ’23, a student in Gao’s class and student council Arts Representative. “I think that’s really valuable in students and also in a collective learning kind of setting.”

Once students crafted a prototype, Gao prompted them to incorporate solutions to their topics into their visuals.

“You just have to try to solve it, no matter how hard it is or how impossible it is,” Gao said.

Gao encouraged a positive and uplifting perspective throughout the process, which influenced the final art presentation.

In the installation’s description titled “Shedding Light,” Gao wrote: “Our ultimate goal: We invite you to imagine a better world by considering different potential solutions. Significant social problems have existed since the birth of civilization. The solutions lie in each one of us. There is no step too small.”

Prior to the creation of their own art, students studied some aforementioned social problems within Chinese art and history.

Beyond their research, students analyzed those themes in parallel with their own lived experiences as Asian Americans.

“The focus on harnessing our own cultural identity and language is really powerful,” Lucie said, mentioning how investigating that “cross cultural bridge” between Chinese and American cultures makes learning more impactful and enhances their worldview.

For her project, Lucie created a watercolor piece of an amorphous mediation space with various structures, connecting architecture to integration to the natural environment. In her work, Lucie attempted for her open space to convey the motion of wind. Her preliminary idea was to imagine wind flowing through the structure, provoking a “sensory experience” as well as conveying a sense of tranquility and demonstrating the “fluidity of identity.” Lucie plans to continue working on this project outside of class.

As the Arts Rep, Lucie organized the installation with Gao. “Our focus is illuminating our own thoughts… and also trying to prompt social engagement, which is especially important in a school setting,” Lucie said. “I think art is one of the most effective mediums to convey that because it’s really accessible.”

“Visibility and accessibility” were key factors in determining the art installment’s location. From Feb. 1 through Feb. 15, students’ work were displayed within the brightlylit light well in the front hallway.

“I find a lot of joy in seeing how other people experiment with art,” Lucie said, commenting on how she enjoyed watching students provide feedback on each other’s work.

“One part of being Arts Rep that I personally love is seeing how people are able to find their connections with different aspects of art they might not have realized before.”

Gao hoped the incorporation of art in the course reconstructed the Mandarin class “beyond just a language class.” Albert H. ’23, another student in the class, recognized this transition.

“It was nice to have a language class where you are really looking into current events and what’s going on,” he shared.

Albert created a calligraphic design of his Mandarin name, inspired by a mistake he made during class when he confused his name with a common Chinese character.

“The fact that I did that kind of alludes to how surface level my understanding of the language is,” Albert said, acknowledging his lack of exposure to the language from living in an environment where Chinese is not spoken or written very often. He hoped to illustrate the chasm between second generation immigrants and their ancestral cultures.

For Albert and his classmates, the project served as an opportunity for cultural introspection, and students presented their work the week before Lunar New Year.

While the bright red lanterns, intricate paper cuttings, and bowls of Chinese food are staple to the New Year’s celebrations, Gao deems them “surface cultural.” With this project, she hoped students could dive deeper, enhancing their cultural perspectives through a meaningful presentation.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s a class…

I feel like it’s this small, tiny community,” Gao said. “This is their legacy.”

BOXED BALLOTS: "I decded to create a paper ballot box. I then taped shut the submission slot and stepped on it. The idea is to represent the beating that American voting rights have taken in the past year, both through state level voter supression laws and a lack of federal civil rights legislation."

- Coco L '23

THE WIND RISES: "There are mirrors in this architectural model, but there is also animation art that surrounds the viewer. So in this way, the individual can see a reflection of himself, as well as other popular as well as special people.

- Lucie L '23

UNTITLED: "Through this intallation artwork, I hope to communicate the message that we all have our own beauty and don't need to change ourselves for the sake of conforming to society's expectations.

Like fashion trends, beauty standards are always changing and in reality have no positive meaning or purpose, and they're also extremely unrealistic."

- Sophie T '22

CULTURE

THE NUEVA CURRENT

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The Gods We Can Touch is AURORA’s newest enchantment With sirenic vocals and spellbinding lyrics, AURORA continues to entrance listeners STORY GRACE F. PHOTOS AURORA

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orwegian singer-songwriter Aurora Aksnes, known mononymously as AURORA, is known for her agile yet delicate voice and distinct musical inspiration that can only be characterized as uniquely her own. Best known for her 2015 song “Runaway,” as well as her portrayal as “The Voice” in Frozen Ⅱ (2019), AURORA’s music provides a poetic response to the universal questions of life. How can we find home? How do we

THE GODS WE CAN TOUCH is AURORA's third studio album, following All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend and A Different Kind of Human (Step 2)

grieve? How do we move on?

The Gods We Can Touch blends genre and style with poetically crafted lyrics that touch both on her sociopolitical opinions as well as her more emotional side. In an interview with Motley Magazine, AURORA said, "[it] will be dressed in an armour of hardness. But I'm also really exploring the soft, delicate part of me, which I want to open up even more on my next album."

The softer, more delicate parts of her being are shown in tracks such as “Exist for Love,” while she shows a stronger side in tracks like “Artemis.”

AURORA also experiments with the title of this album, alluding to both biblical imagery and Greek and Roman mythology throughout her songs, while crafting these themes to fit her life. In “Exist for Love,” which is AURORA’s first love song, she sings, “And when you say my name // Like white horses on the waves // I think it feels the same // As an ocean in my veins,”she references Neptune, the Roman God of the sea and horses, connecting directly to the emotional response of being in love. On “Cure for me,” which AURORA has explicitly stated as a commentary on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, AURORA sings, “I don't like the tension, the misapprehensions // About our own nature in love // The glorious teachers are no use for creatures // Who knows

how to play with the gods,” using her own perspective as a bisexual woman to show that her sexuality is her “own nature.”

In addition to the poetic complexity of her lyrics, AURORA is also quite experimental with the musical influence of her album, with inspiration from numerous genres. Songs such as “Giving In To The Love” and “Heathens” take more inspiration from the ethereal subgenre—which Canadian musician Grimes cites as “[a dedication] to experimentalism but with strong elements of pop and universal beauty”—while songs such as “Everything Matters” and “Blood In The Wine” seem to be inspired by the ancient medieval style of music, dating back to the Middle Ages. However, AURORA seamlessly weaves this experimentalism with her powerful soprano voice that carries her signature Nordic-folk style throughout the album. Otherworldly, metaphysical, and transcendent can only begin to describe the genius and heart that has been poured into magic in the form of a musical album.

TEAM OF SISTERS AURORA's sister, Viktoria Aksnes, is her costume designer and her other sister, Miranda Aksnes, is her makeup artist.

Laurel Hell is a tale of resignation

Mitski’s long-awaited new album explores a genre beyond 20-somethings angst STORY ISABELLA X. PHOTOS MITSKI

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A NEW SOUND Laurel Hell's title track, "The Only Heartbreaker," was her first co-written song, working with Dan Wilson, who has helped fellow singer-songwriters Taylor Swift and Adele.

professional for nearly a decade. “I am expressing my truth, but it doesn’t mean that it’s unrefined,” Mitski said.

Laurel Hell signifies her turn to take control and define her work. It opens with “Valentine, Texas,” which establishes the tone for the rest of the album. The chorus has no lyrics—the melody rests in the verses. She grasps for an escape, not desperate, but with the warm lethargy of a southern afternoon: “Let's drive out to where dust devils are made / By dancing ghosts as they kick up clouds of sand.”

The third song in the album, “Stay Soft,” is accompanied by a music video, where like in the song’s lyrics, surfacelevel softness hides an unexplored danger.

“This song, frankly, is about hurt people finding each other, and using sex to make sense of their pain,” Mitski told The Fader. She tackles the subject with an unflinching gaze, not shying away from the topic despite believing that it’s “by no means the correct way to cope with trauma.”

The album

Mitski began writing Laurel Hell in 2018, finishing the album during COVID-19 lockdown.

is swathed in melancholic surrender, reaching fever pitch in the seventh track, “Heat Lightning.” Inspired by the silent flashes of lightning of its namesake, the song spends its verses building anticipation for a cathartic chorus. Then, it stops, and there’s the unhurried cadence of melodic piano chords.

Whereas in “A Burning Hill” Mitski is the creature involuntarily bringing destruction upon herself, in the songs of Laurel Hell, she operates with a subdued restraint. There’s a languid self-trust, an ease that feels starkly different from the chaotic high-school halls that many teenage listeners are accustomed to.

She’s no longer the Mitski to listen to while lying on cold hardwood floors. She is not the same artist who screamed into the reverberating chords of an electric guitar. Mitski has returned to a new home, perhaps still bareboned and unfurnished, but it’s built a foundation for her exploration beyond youthful angst.

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

he gazes into the camera, skin tinged with green from the reflection of a pool of plants just beyond the screen. She’s expressionless, except for a barely-furrowed brow that flutters in and out of view, floating on tremors of the handheld recorder. “I am the fire and I am the forest / And I am the witness watching it,” she sings in the 2016 music video for “A Burning Hill.”

It’s been five years since Puberty 2. Now, Mitski shrieks and shrivels amongst trees consumed by flame, directly referencing the lyrics of her 2016 ballad, “A Burning Hill.” Yet this time, instead of standing passive, she is

the one to blame—she is “The Only Heartbreaker.”

Known for her poignant lyrics and subversive sound, Japanese-American singer-songwriter Mitski Miyawaki, known mononymously as Mitski, is 31 now, returning after years of hiatus— and a near-retirement—with a refined new album, Laurel Hell, that finally recenters the narrative around herself.

She’s expressed her distaste for how critics have characterized her work, explaining in a 2018 interview with Nylon, “I hate how it has to be ‘confessional’ or ‘emotional.’” She’s not a fan of the way the phrase implies that she’s an amateur, despite having honed her work as a

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Grace's Culture Corner: Dream Pop, Disney Humor, and DeepRooted Assumptions Looking for a good listen, watch, or read? Here are some recent recommendations to get you hooked STORY GRACE FINKE PHOTOS BEACH HOUSE, PIXAR, OLIVIA A. COLE

Once Twice Melody Beach House

Expected by: 2/18/2022

Best known for their 2015 hit “Space Song,” Beach House is a musical duo which produces tracks perfect for romanticizing life as a coming-of-age film. Their upcoming double album, Once Twice Melody, will only add to this extensive soundtrack of life with rhythmic bass lines and dreamy electronic overlays.

Turning Red Pixar

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Expected by: 3/11/2022

Following a lineup of emotional and tearjerking films, Pixar is soon to release a, quite literally, fluffy new film. Set in early 2000’s Toronto, Turning Red follows adolescent Meilin “Mei” Lee (Rosalie Chiang)—Pixar’s first Asian protagonist—as she discovers her family’s ancient connection with red pandas firsthand.

With a release date of March 11, this film is bound to entertain, combining Mei's struggles in adolescence with the added difficulty of being transformed into a red panda whenever a strong emotion is felt.

The Truth About White Lies Olivia A. Cole

Expected by: 3/8/2022

The Truth about White Lies by Olivia A. Cole follows a teenager as she transfers schools and navigates reevaluating her outlook on race. This novel touches on gentrification, microaggressions, and the effect of silence in the face of racial injustice, topics which remain relevant as more real-life ramifications about racial dynamics are uncovered.

In shades of blue

Cate L. ’22 paints the hues of the differing perspectives on mental health STORY ISABELLE SHI PHOTOS ISABELLE SHI

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palette of muted dark blue hues starkly contrasts the washed white canvas as two blank perpendicular lines cut through the effortlessly majestic, amorphous strokes. Scan over the piece again, and an array of faces peer out of the large-scale mixed media painting by Cate L. ’22.

During a summer internship with the Canadian Brain Research Institute at the University of British Columbia, Cate delved into the relationship between neuroscience, acculturation, and teachings of the brain in indigenous communities. She gained knowledge in the different approaches to mental health in Western culture and indigenous communities, and found artistic inspiration.

Cate began the piece aiming to represent the differing perceptions of consciousness and the mind in indigenous communities, but shifted to incorporate the “boxing in” of the canvas to illustrate the impositions of Western frameworks onto their cultures.

“We have a very individualized perspective on how to treat mental health disorders,” Cate said, highlighting the standard one-on-one patient-doctor interactions. “But in an indigenous community, it’s different.”

Cate learned about indigenous frameworks and ways of understanding the world around them, relaying how “their consciousness is different from ours.”

“To many indigenous communities, the mind is made up of stories and people and places. It’s not just what you’ve experienced, but also your history

and your ancestors,” Cate said.

While the story behind the canvas is one of culture and tradition, Cate's vigorous but swift brush strokes on the canvas further captures the nebulous definitions of the mind and mental health. Almost imperceptible at first, hints of orange peek out from under the blue strokes.

“A lot of indigenous art is very colorful, and I wanted to take all of that color out to represent how their culture can be neglected when we try to impose our Western ways of healing,” Cate said.

Taking inspiration from not only indigenous art but also the works of abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler, Cate wanted to emulate Frankenthaler’s “soak-stain” technique where the acrylic paint was diluted to mimic the thin consistency of watercolor.

“I just let the paint go where it wanted to go.

I’d dip my brush in water and it flowed wherever it dripped,” Cate said.

Like her painting, Cate is letting her artistic path flow, eager for where it will carry her beyond high school. She looks forward to not only experimenting with new mediums but also further incorporating art into her studies.

“Art has the ability to bridge all of these different paths,” Cate said. “I always thought of it as something separate from my influences, but to combine it with everything is to communicate more ideas, challenges, emotions. That’s the beauty.”

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Behind the numbers: the reality of Nueva’s diversity

Students of minority populations grapple with Nueva's presentation of diversity STORY GRACE FINKE ART GRACE FINKE

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key pillar of Nueva is its focus on diversity and social justice and educating students on the history and culture of marginalized communities.

However, behind the scenes of numerous assemblies and presentations lie stories of students and staff alike.

MS and US Equity and Social Justice coordinator Alison Williams’ personal journey shaped her perspective on diversity, being one of the few Black people in her schools and often feeling “tokenized.” However, this led her to pursue a career integrating education and social justice, and is working to spread messages about

diversity to the Nueva community.

“When I think about diversity, I think about representation,” said Williams, who is also the THRIVE program coordinator. “Diversity is embodied with the bigger message of equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice, because it boils down to who's in the room and who's not.”

Williams feels her work with THRIVE—a program built to support those of underrepresented backgrounds with resources, partnerships, and fostering social-emotional communication—demonstrates her efforts to support diversity in the Nueva community.

While Nueva has made continuous strides in this area, students have asserted that Nueva still has a long way to go.

“I think a lot of people use diversity as a synonym for underrepresented,” Lilli G. ’25 said.

“However, I don't think that's particularly true because the Asian population at Nueva is very represented. But anybody who is not white by the census is considered a diverse applicant.”

As “one of two or three Black students” in her grade, Lilli G., who is a member of the Black Student Union (BSU) grapples with the school’s “62 percent students of color” metric, which is published on Nueva’s website and on the “At-A-Glance” document shared

with prospective students.

“The way that Nueva has adapted the term ‘diversity’ doesn't really resonate with me, specifically in their presentation of how ‘diverse’ they are,” Lilli G. said. “There are so many students who don't really feel represented here.”

Sofia I. ’22—the Community Engagement lead for THRIVE—echoes Lilli G.'s sentiments and also believes that there are gaps between the reality and presentation of diversity at Nueva.

“Something that I've noticed throughout my four years here is that Nueva loves to make big gestures, such as having meetings where we just talk about diversity,” said Sofia I., who is mixed race and Hispanic. “While it seems great in theory, I feel like they're not really getting that point across, just because it's not that engaging for the majority of students.”

Williams and Lilli G. both echo Sofia I.’s statements, and note that Nueva’s diversity could be a reflection of that of the Bay Area. Though diverse by numbers, much of the Bay Area’s economic success and privilege is centered in white and Asian populations.

According to nonprofit newsroom CalMatters, “Bay Area residents in the 90th percentile of incomes earned $384,000 a year, compared to just $32,000 for those in the bottom 10th percentile.”

“One of the big problems with our image as a ‘gifted’ school is that this idea of giftedness also often comes from a background of privilege,” Lilli G. said. “If you're able to have your child in the most advanced education from preschool, that child obviously has an advantage over someone who is equally as smart, but just isn't given the resources.”

Through THRIVE and affinity groups such as the BSU and the South Asian Affinity Group (SAAG), students are working to have their voices heard.

“We had a lot of discussions leading up to Diwali about whether to wear

Indian clothes or not, knowing that it would be kind of a statement,” said Anoushka K. ’23, who leads SAAG. “It ended up being very fun and cathartic because we used to feel really, really embarrassed wearing South Asian clothes to school. But this finally felt like something we could celebrate together as a community.”

Anoushka K. is proud that Nueva’s Diwali celebration was an effort led primarily by SAAG, and hopes that the celebration can be a catalyst for future student-led discussions surrounding diversity.

“I think that it would be most helpful to let those student-led communities find their voice and be comfortable about how they want to be seen in a community,” Anoushka K. said.

Student Council Equity and Inclusion Representative Fiona T. ’22 also believes that raising student voices is essential, and hopes student-led conversations become commonplace.

“Trying to understand people who have different beliefs and different values and understand where they come from is really important,” Fiona T. said.

That said, Lilli G., Anoushka K., and Williams all believe that a balance between sharing stories and student comfort should be struck.

“It's not necessarily the students' job to educate others on their culture,” Anoushka K. said. “I think that the way to make students of color the most comfortable and advocate for them is to allow them to do what is best for them in that space.”

Regardless, various initiatives from THRIVE, collaboration between the BSU and Lee Fertig, and student-led efforts have inspired hope.

“I want to be able to see, possibly in the next few years, a culture in which people are committed to this work,” Fiona T. said. “And that's one thing that I'm hoping for—seeing more people approach these conversations with open mindedness, curiosity, and empathy.”

A champion of students leaves

Dean of Students Hillary Freeman departs Nueva after 14 years STORY SERENA SAXENA & ISABELLE SHI PHOTO COMPASS PHOTOGRAPHERS

n her 14 years at Nueva, she has traversed across the globe from Spain to Peru to Japan for annual trips, yet it’s still the little everyday moments for Dean of Student Life Hillary Freeman that embody her Nueva experience: disputes over the best flavors of tea at the drinks station, eager chatter weaving throughout the hallway outside her office, and the competitive games of spikeball she observes through her window.

Freeman’s chapter at Nueva comes to an end on Feb. 18, as she continues her career in education as the STEM manager at Stanford University—a job that blends her extroverted nature and science background (Freeman taught chemistry, biology, anatomy, and physiology at Nueva before transitioning to Dean of Student Life in 2017).

As the dean, Freeman advised the student council in planning school events such as the annual student trips, pancake breakfasts, and school dances, oversaw on-campus health protocols, and served as a central point of communication for students.

In addition to planned events

“I really want that to continue because that is so stimulating to this population,” Freeman said.

“It’s stimulating to me. That’s what makes you alive. It keeps you curious. It makes you want to do well for the world.”

In tandem with the community’s curiosity of learning, Freeman said it is the people she will miss the most.

“The community is phenomenal and I will miss the variety that Nueva offers all the time. Every day is a new day, every day is a new challenge. And I’ll miss everybody’s smiles,” Freeman added, smiling herself.

Freeman’s responsibilities at Nueva will be distributed to other faculty and staff while the search for a new Dean of Students is underway.

Departing with one last piece of advice, Freeman believes “the lessons you learn from the Nueva community are deeper and more vast than the academics you receive.”

“I hope [students and faculty] can take the time to reflect on the intangibles of a community of care, kindness, family, insatiable learning, curiosity, and of imagination Nueva teaches.”

A NUEVA LIFER Hillary Freeman speaks about a student at a Lifers Dinner in 2018, an event where faculty deliver remarks about seniors who are considered "lifers." With 14 years under her belt at Nueva, Freeman could be considered a lifer herself.

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

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and activities, she constantly aimed to cultivate a welcoming environment, embodying the Nueva spirit of kindness, curiosity, and creativity. Whether it’s inquiring about an injured leg, checking in about a student’s weekend, or merely saying hello with a bright smile, Freeman strived to bring genuine care into everything she does.

“It really comes from my heart,” Freeman said, referring to the innumerable small but meaningful conversations she has with students and faculty in the hallways.

“Hillary has been a defining pillar of my Nueva experience,” said Lucie L. ’23, an advisee of Freeman’s who has worked with her as both grade and arts representative on student council.

“She approaches collaboration with such an open mind and a lot of empathy, and it’s definitely been inspiring.”

Although Freeman’s energetic presence will be missed on campus, she will only be a short drive down south and envisions returning whenever she can. In the meantime, she hopes “Nueva will stay Nueva” and the community’s innate love of learning and fearless risk-taking prevails.

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Newly-hired full-time counselor brings a wealth of experience Aviva Jacobstein hopes to rebuild a counseling program centered around student needs STORY SERENA S. PHOTOS AVIVA JACOBSTEIN

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student sinks into the blue couch after a long day of classes, their eyes traveling to the freshly restocked tub of fruity Dum Dums. Or perhaps, it’s the six Inside Out character figurines scattered across the table that draw their attention, or even the propped up photo of a smiling pitbull who they will soon learn goes by the name Bella.

Within the first few weeks of her arrival to campus, counselor Aviva Jacobstein hasn’t wasted time in setting up her new office in room 203—a space that is both inviting and quirky, the perfect reflection of Jacobstein herself.

In her first month, she has gone from one advisory to the next in order to introduce herself to the community, met with the deans to discover overarching student wellness themes in different grades, and worked closely with learning specialist Cathy Robinson and nurse Saskia Chan.

Jabostein, curly-haired and never without a unique pair of earrings to brighten her look, is originally from San José, CA. She attended the all-girls high school Notre Dame in Belmont, and believes that this experience was fundamental in shaping her career path.

“There were things that were normalized for me at high school in terms of feminism and social justice that I didn't realize were not normal in the world,” Jacobstein said. “And I think

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BASKING BEAUTY Jacobstein's pitbull, Bella, soaks up the sun after a long hike.

that because that was my high school experience, it made me want to go to a women's college and continue learning from a place of women's education and women's empowerment.”

After high school, Jacobstein moved to Massachusetts and attended Smith College, where she majored in psychology and sociology—what she describes as the “intersection of social work.”

“I knew I didn't want to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I was really interested in studying people in communities,” she said.

Jacobstein graduated from Smith in 2014 and started working in nonprofits, one of her favorites being Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a nonprofit with the goal of nurturing children and strengthening communities.

During her time there, she organized and led training for volunteer mentors on best practices for supporting youth who have experienced trauma through food, housing insecurity, or the foster care system.

This experience, and others alike, quickly became an avenue to clinical social work which Jacobstein has done for the past eight years—including most recently working at a school in Massachusetts for students with more significant emotional needs and learning challenges.

She reflects about how she gained valuable insights from teaching there but was excited to come to a school that placed a larger emphasis on academics.

“The work I was doing was important, but it wasn't as focused on education and learning,” she explained. “When I knew that I was moving back to California and was going to be looking for a new job, I knew I wanted to be at a high school that really valued learning.”

Just last spring, Jacobstein moved back to the Bay Area, excited to return home.

“It was part pandemic decision, part ‘I am a true California human,’ and part ‘I’m done with snow and shoveling’ that I decided I was old enough to be on the West Coast again,” she said.

Jacobstein was drawn to Nueva’s experiential approach to education and the school’s value of encouraging education centered around student interest and curiosity.

“Everybody is willing to try weird things… all the faculty here are super engaging, creative, and intelligent, and there's just this kind of energy at Nueva that I think matches my professional energy,” she said.

Although Jacobstein's mid school-year transition has been fairly smooth thus

Creating a space to support all

POTTERHEAD Jacobstein poses in fron of the Harry Potter inspired "Chamber of Secrets Door" in San Fransisco.

far, it has still been difficult for her to rebuild the counseling program from the ground up. One way in which she hopes to learn more about student needs is through teaching an 11th grade Science of Mind section which has given her a clearer snapshot of the student body.

“What they think and feel about counseling and mental health will help frame how I redevelop this department,” she said.

Additionally, Jacobstein hopes to improve communication among all four pillars of community wellness— student-run mental health programs like peer consulting, science of mind, the counselors and learning specialist, and the nurses.

“My goal is to build up that collaboration,” Jacobstein said. “We should be working as a team. My first priority is just making sure that all the different people here supporting the students are talking to each other.”

Second on the agenda is increasing

mental health awareness and conversations around the topic.

“What always matters is what students feel,” she said. “Maybe adults would say ‘that's ridiculous, we send out emails about mental health, we post things in the hallway about stress, or we talk about it all the time,’ but no matter how many times you talk about it, if students feel that the school doesn't care, then that's what I would want to address.”

Jacobstein hopes that by the fall, the currently shifting counseling program will have more robust systems in place and students will feel as though mental health is both a supported and deliberated matter.

“Whatever you guys are wanting to talk about should be talked about in the school,” she said.

Located at the end of the second-floor hallway, Jacobstein encourages anyone to drop by if they have any concerns or even just to chat about her dog and bond over Harry Potter obsessions.

STORY ISABELLA X. PHOTO CATHY ROBINSON

Learning Specialist Cathy Robinson begins her tenure at Nueva, hopes to support all students

T

wenty-seven years ago, feeling trapped in a tech job, Cathy Robinson took a risk and leapt into an unfamiliar profession. Now, after decades experiencing all the highs and lows that come with being a Learning Specialist, Robinson is taking the position at Nueva, and hopes to make support as accessible as possible.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Robinson attended Monta Vista High School, and never intended to settle down near her hometown. But as she discovered, life follows no pre-planned agenda, and she fell in love and married her high school sweetheart.

When Robinson sent her daughter to school, she noticed that she seemed to be struggling with words. After testing, her daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia.

At the time, resources for dyslexia were not widely available, so Robinson took her daughter’s education into her own hands.

“Well, who else was going to teach her to read, write, and spell?” Robinson said.

“That was really my impetus to go into special education. So that's what I did.”

Having received a masters in education and educational leadership from Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, she offered a letter of resignation to her employers at aerospace company Lockheed Martin, and started a position as a special education tutor in the Cupertino Union School District. Wanting to impact students on a larger scale, Robinson then opened a branch in her local school district’s department for students with learning differences.

Robinson next decided to explore new opportunities, though still sticking to her passions, and became an administrator at a special education school. Although the new role came with increased leadership and responsibility, she didn’t find it as rewarding as working directly with students.

“I really missed being at the grassroots helping students—that's really my passion,” Robinson said.

She seeks to continue her lifelong passion at Nueva, hoping to guide neurodivergent students by “leveling the playing field” for them through customized learning plans.

Robinson explained that for Nueva’s high proportion of twice-exceptional students—defined as gifted learners with some form of learning difference— her goal is to help students “navigate their educational journey” by providing them with support for managing their anxiety and stress with personalized learning plans.

But neurodivergent students should not only be given one pillar of support; Robinson also wants to educate other faculty.

“Being a Learning Specialist is this much about accommodations,”— Robinson held her thumb and index finger barely a centimeter away from each other—“whereas this much”— she increased the distance to three inches—“just helping them understand their talents and gifts, and working with teachers and educators.”

In her first few weeks at Nueva, Robinson has dove straight into work, meeting with students, faculty, and parents, as well as beginning to craft detailed learning plans. She’s extended

her influence beyond just the Nueva community, and is meeting with college boards to develop resources for supporting upper school students.

Robinson wants students to know that she isn’t “only here for twice exceptional students.”

If anyone has any academic concerns or struggles, she encourages them to stop by her office, called the Learning Loft, located on the third floor of the WRC.

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Steel drums elective performs at SFJAZZ after two years of preparation Paying homage to former Head of School Diane Rosenberg, steel drums elective, accompanied by two world famous artists, becomes the first high school group to play in SFJAZZ Center STORY EMMA Z. PHOTOS MITZI M.

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hen middle and upper school music teacher Jim Munzenrider first stepped foot into the auditorium of San Francisco's SFJAZZ Center, a single thought occupied his mind: “Boy, I really want to bring a steel drum band in here someday.”

Years later, Munzenrider was elated to hear the chime of a notification from SFJAZZ. Not only had the Nueva steel drum band been approved to perform on March 24, 2020, but they would be featuring two world-famous calypsonians: American jazz steel pannist Andy Narell and Trinidadian

singer-songwriter David Rudder. Both artists had performed with Munzenrider multiple times, and had accepted his invitation to teach, practice, and perform with the band. Jim and the band were ecstatic. So even when the COVID-19 pandemic upset their plans to perform, Munzenrider was in no way disheartened.

“I guess I could have been depressed, but I realized that everybody was in the same boat,” Munzenrider said. “In my mind there was a lot of uncertainty, but not a lot of doubt.”

Prior to Nueva’s transition to remote classes, the steel drums elective practiced intensively for three months

IN THE ZONE Sophomore Lucy K. plays the bass pans

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It's not rocket science... oh wait, it is.

SMALL STEEL DRUMMERS The lower and middle school steel drum bands performed several pieces before the upper schoolers

in preparation for their concert. Over February break in 2020, 20 members of the band traveled to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia to practice with Narell. “Within about six weeks from when we came back we were supposed to play the concert at SF Jazz,” Munzenrider said. “We were all ready to go.”

But just weeks after they returned from their trip, the pandemic pushed the concert date back by six months.

Then again, and then again, as school transitioned to online classes.

It wasn’t until over two years later, on a Sunday afternoon in December, that performers and audience members entered the SFJAZZ auditorium, buzzing with hushed spirit, and Munzenrider addressed the audience with a grin.

“Good afternoon. Welcome, everybody,” Munzenrider said through the microphone. “You’re listening to the first steel drum band that has ever appeared in the San Francisco Jazz Center—right here in front of you. Now, we’re 627 days late—but we’re here.”

From the very center of the second row, a special guest watched with delight. Retired head of school Diane Rosenberg, who had served at the helm of Nueva for 19 years and retired in 2020, had flown from across the country to attend the concert. Unbeknownst to her, the concert was a tribute to her leadership at Nueva and how she had championed the music program.

“Ever since I've been at Nueva nobody has ever told me what to do—

Diane gave me the freedom to establish a music program,” Munzenrider said. “I’ve been really fortunate that she all pretty much always gave me the support to run with any idea that I have.”

Rosenberg, who retired in June 2020, wasn’t able to receive the ceremonial send-off that Munzenrider felt she deserved. Once the concert had become a possibility, Munzenrider knew that he wanted to make it a tribute, and he knew that he wanted to make it a surprise.

Rosenberg, who was seated between her husband and daughter, was speechless when the first piece that the band played—“In My Life” by The Beatles—was backed by a slideshow of photos of her time at Nueva: reading a book to lower school students, beaming from atop of an excavator, ready to break ground on the upper school campus.

“It was deeply moving—my daughter was in tears, and my husband Bob was, too—he filmed it on his phone and has since shown it to my other daughter, my grandchildren, and my sister and her husband,” Rosenberg said. “I was overwhelmed, and so deeply honored. I was so incredibly moved by all of it.”

Emotions were high all around.

Students left the concert hall joyous, feeling rewarded for a two-year battle against the pandemic by a performance well done.

“It was exhilarating, to say the least— more than anything, it felt like a good time,” Calder B. ’23 said. “I remember at the end Andy passed by my tenor bass and gave me a fist bump, and said “that was a hella good concert.’”

STORY SERENA S. PHOTOS LOGAN R.

Sophomores Logan R. and Alyse G-M start Rocket Club, American Rocketry Challenge their goal cont. from page 1 That pressure coupled with the day’s uncertainty of the rocket’s performance made it all the more relieving when their first launch was a success. Their second and third launches were even more rewarding as they reached altitudes of up to 600 feet in around 40 seconds.

“When we realized that we hit our goal for flight duration we were all overjoyed,” Alyse reflected. “We all sprinted down the hill jumping and yelling… there were tons of hugs and high fives. It really made us feel like the countless hours we had spent in the I-Lab were all worth it.”

After running three launches over the course of five hours, Mission Maverick’s next goal is to reach 800

feet in altitude without increasing flight duration. They are working to reiterate their motors and are in the process of prototyping solutions.

“It's just been really motivating to see goals that seemed really difficult and things that initially seemed impossible to happen in the end.

It's all the result of our members’ really hard work towards this,” Logan said.

Looking forward, Logan and Alyse are thinking about the ways in which they could increase inclusivity and innovation while still abiding by competition restrictions limiting the number of team members to ten. They hope that in the future, the

school could have multiple teams under one Rocket Club.

“For people who don't have the time to commit to a team, and depending on participation, we might have the club be slightly separate from the actual team,” Alyse said.

Additionally, the co-leads stressed their goal for more underclassmen involvement next year as the club presently consists of only sophomores, although the cap on numbers has allowed club members to closely bond with one another.

“I think people have found a lot of great friends in other like-minded people who are interested in all sorts of engineering and design,” Logan said.

“Even though everyone in the club is a sophomore, I've still gotten to know people… and I've been able to form friendships with people who I otherwise probably wouldn't have interacted with as much,” Alyse said, echoing Logan's sentiment.

The club has their second test launch planned for March 5 and is excited to continue reiterating their rocket. They encourage anyone interested in aerospace or rocketry to consider joining them next year.

3,2,1...Blast Off! The rocket launches 600 feet in alitutde in just 42 seconds

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Grappling with teacher turno

Upper school community adapts to an atypica spate of mid-year departures STORY ANISHA K ILLUSTRATION ANISHA K

I. "ATYPICAL" MID-YEAR DEPARTURES IN AN ONGOING PANDEMIC

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ueva students have learned to read the signs of a teacher's departure.

Some are more obvious, like a lengthy, loving, apologetic email, or goodbye videos set to “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” or students passing farewell cards around in the halls, snatching Sharpies to scrawl a last message.

And some are more subtle. A teacher’s pod suddenly devoid of photos, books, and cards, desk left bare, without a trace of its former inhabitant. A marked emptiness at the end of the second floor hallway. New faces teaching Science of Mind (SOM) or chemistry classes.

Since the beginning of the school year in August, 11 faculty and staff have left the upper school to pursue other opportunities, including three members of the counseling staff, one SOM teacher, two chemistry teachers, one design engineering teacher, and one sports trainer.

“If you just look at a snapshot in time, it can look like everything's falling apart,” said Head of School Lee Fertig. “It's really not.”

At this particular snapshot in time, two teachers have switched to working in positions outside of education. Three were of a part-time nature with multiple jobs and decided to dedicate more time to their nonNueva positions. One employee is leaving to start a family and alluded to maybe one day returning to Nueva.

As Fertig shared, a few left because they struggled with their job and environment—for instance, the impact the pandemic has had on their day-today responsibilities.

Despite the losses, according to Fertig, Nueva’s teacher turnover rate isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

Having 240 teachers across all three divisions with 20 to 25 leaving annually, Fertig said, is a 10 percent turnover rate, which is normal in his experience with independent and private schools.

“What’s not so normal is when faculty and staff, especially faculty, leave in the middle of the year,” Fertig said. “That’s atypical and needs to be acknowledged—that’s something we need to address.”

At the start of 2022, Fertig took

steps to help the various members of the Nueva community understand the impact of these mid-year departures.

At the first professional development day for faculty and staff returning from winter break, he addressed this topic. A few weeks later, he hosted a virtual State of Nueva address for parents, in which, among other topics, he addressed concerns and answered questions around teacher retention.

Mira D. noted the disruptive effects of these abnormal departures on students’ classroom experiences.

While Nueva students sometimes have different teachers each semester for a yearlong course, having multiple teachers fill in for one class during the same semester is rare.

“There are chemistry students who had Michaela first semester, Karla for three weeks, and now Jeremy—three different teachers in one school year,” Mira said.

To Japanese teacher Chris Scott, teacher retention is essential to building and strengthening the community, as well as helping his students to the best of his ability.

“It’s important to have close, trusting relationships between students and faculty,” Scott said. “If I teach a student for a semester, I don’t see their full personality or potential.

But if I teach them for four years, I really get to know them and see them for who they are—it feels more like a family.”

These familial ties refer not only to teacher-student relationships, but also to relationships between teachers.

Scott recalled former Spanish teacher Anthony Perry, who left in 2019 after two years at Nueva, as one of the teachers he was sad to see go.

“He was really an inspiration to me in terms of his intellectual and emotional personal identity,” Scott said. “He modeled for me what an amazing language teacher, literature scholar, and gay man could be. I was very sad when he left.”

Scott values learning from other teachers as well as the time it takes to build faculty relationships.

“Faculty are such a resource for other faculty. Conversations between faculty are a kind of professional development,” Scott said. “But to have close colleagues that you can really interact with and trust, that takes time.”

X, another upper school teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, built on Scott’s feelings of loss by emphasizing the difficulty in building relationships with colleagues who leave after a short stint.

“There’s a grief that comes with it,” X said. “There’s quite a bit of emotional investment in the relationships that are here.”

Students like Mira and Micah B. ’23 also deeply feel the loss of these personal relationships.

“The core of what makes Nueva so

Nueva-y is the teachers and teacherstudent relations,” Micah said. “We grow quite attached to the faculty, particularly those who mentor us. To be perfectly honest, [Allie Alberts and John Feland] being gone just makes me sad. There are still so many great teachers, but there is a pun-making, design-thinking, costume-wearing hole left on campus that makes all of us wistful.”

“I'm someone who's not really great at expressing my emotions and Michaela really helped me with that,” said Mira, who still writes letters to Michaela after she left late last semester. “I just, I miss her a lot.”

Nueva’s administration is aware of the loss experienced by students and hopes to find ways to mitigate it.

“It always affects a human when another human leaves their life. We are a community that I want to feel like a family,” said Upper School Division Head Liza Raynal. “And so when somebody leaves, of course it affects us.”

Raynal is confident that the logistical aspects of teacher departures are covered and believes that disruption to the students’ academic lives is minimized.

“The business flip-side is, we’ve covered all the classes,” Raynal said.

“There was no student who started a class on Jan. 7 and didn’t have a teacher.”

Some of the changes made include restaffing SOM and chemistry classes, as well as shifting grade deans—the ninth grade dean has moved to 10th grade dean, and another teacher stepped in to support the freshman class as a co-dean.

In the wake of teacher departures, Nueva’s administration takes a practical approach to filling in the gaps.

“First, I look at the impact of these atypical departures in the middle of the year,” Fertig said. “What functions and tasks are going to be affected?

What do we need to cover?”

Still, there are things that can’t be compensated for with re-staffing.

“The second point is a little less tangible, but I think it's equally important,” Fertig said. “Nueva is not just a school. It's a community. It's a family. And it's just sad to see family members leave. That impact is a little harder to measure.”

Fertig described some former teachers as such integral members of the community that “even if we’ve covered their responsibilities, which we have, you still feel the departure.”

According to I-Lab engineer and 12th Grade Dean Rob Zomber, the cloud of loss has a silver lining.

“We’ve had turnover in the I-Lab. And every time we've had turnover, we've had new classes built out of it,” Zomber said. “It's always unfortunate to lose someone, but we get to bring in someone with a whole new set of skills that we don't have.”

Zomber also cited the changes in the mental health services department as positive outcomes of turnover, where the three part-time counselors who left were recently replaced by one full-time counselor, who is able to dedicate more time to the job and provide more support.

“Nueva does a good job of not just replacing people,” Zomber said. “When someone leaves, it's not a question of finding someone else with that exact skill set, but instead finding someone who can bring something new and exciting and different to the table.”

Despite the difficulties of the current situation, teachers find Nueva gives them multiple reasons to stay.

“I believe in our students, and I believe in our program,” said Scott.

“The relationships I've had with students and the growth I've seen in our program all make it so worth it for me to stay. I don't plan to leave anytime soon.”

X shared Scott’s sentiment.

“My happy place is the classroom.

No matter how hard the day is, I get in the classroom, and it’s magic,” X said. “I have wonderful relationships with my students. That’s what keeps me here.”

These relationships, when cut short by a sudden departure, leave students floundering and wanting an explanation.

While students acknowledge and accept that in life, especially during a pandemic, things come up that lead people to make decisions that impact others besides themselves, they expressed hope for transparency and clarity around teacher departures.

That way, they can process the news, celebrate the individual, and prepare for what life will be like after that person has left.

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II. HOW DOES THE GREAT RESIGNATION IMPACT NUEVA?

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he past two years have seen a marked increase in resignation rates due to the difficulties of working during the pandemic dubbed the “Great Resignation”—in multiple fields, not just education.

According to an article from the

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54% of teachers said in May 2021 that they are ‘somewhat’ or ‘very likely’ to leave in the next two years, as compared to 34% in 2019.

84% of teachers said teaching is more stressful than it was before closures for the pandemic.

7 in 10 school leaders said that pay raises would help keep teachers around.

1 in 3 teachers said retirement benefits are one of the biggest factors in getting them to stay, while just 6 percent of school leaders said the same about teachers. (And 35 percent of school leaders said supportive administrators are one of the biggest factors in getting teachers to stay, but just 11 percent of teachers felt the same.)

30% How much less, on average, U.S. teachers are paid compared to other college graduates, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Data from the EdWeek Research Center survey of about 700 teachers and 300 school leaders online in March 2021.

a really long time,” Raynal said. “Nueva is a pretty intense and fabulous place to be. And when it's online, it's even more intense, and slightly less fabulous.”

She hopes to support teachers, and yet she believes that some circumstances of the pandemic, as well as the nature of the profession, are beyond her control.

“Teaching is one of the few jobs where you can essentially be super smart and super educated but it pays 20 percent less, it’s just the nature of the beast,” Raynal said. “I think people are surprised that we weren't immune to the greater context.”

Just like in the rest of the world, the Nueva community has been hit hard by the pandemic, isolation, and the accompanying tendency to instropect.

“The pandemic has caused a lot of people to reevaluate things and really question everything,” Zomber said.

“There's been a big, societal push towards self-reflection and asking questions recently, and I think that that's great.”

Zomber believes that while the pandemic may cause some people to leave teaching, it will eventually be mirrored by people wanting to newly pursue teaching.

Still, some teachers, like X, believe there is more to Nueva’s turnover rates than the effects of the pandemic.

“It would be shortsighted of us as an institution to look at this as a causal relationship to the pandemic, because the turnover in the upper school was [already] high before the pandemic,” said X. “Was it as high and were there as many mid-year departures? No, but I think it's more than that.”

Teachers have suggested the idea of hiring a dean of faculty, similar to the dean of student life position but focused on supporting faculty and listening to their needs.

“We don't have any sort of organizing group of faculty, and there's no faculty representative on the Nueva Board of Trustees, which is making the higher-level decisions about the institution,” X said.

To Fertig, considering hiring a dean of faculty is a valid inquiry.

“I think it's important that we

address what that position would do,” Fertig said. “We'll continue to look at exploring that possibility.”

In the context of the pandemic, the Nueva administration aims to prioritize student needs before tackling teacher support.

“Right now, we’re student-focused, specifically in relation to student support and mental health,” Fertig said. “I'm not saying the faculty don't

“It would be shortsighted of us as an institution to look at this as a causal relationship to the pandemic.”

ANONYMOUS TEACHER

deserve that. I just think that there's 450 of you students in this building, and I want to make sure that—with everything that's gone on in the world—that you will have access to counseling services, learning support, and health assistance.”

With the hiring of Cathy Robinson, the new learning specialist, and Aviva Jacobstein, the new full-time counselor, some of those gaps are beginning to be filled. In the meantime, Raynal looks to the future.

“I wouldn't order this pandemic, ever. There's a lot of things in the world right now I wouldn't choose to be the way they are,” Raynal said. “But I'm trying to balance the effect that it has emotionally, while believing us to be a resilient place that can find positive solutions and just keep going.”

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

Wall Street Journal (“Teachers Are Quitting, and Companies are Hot to Hire Them”), the private ducational field saw the highest ncrease in resignations, with a 148 percent increase between Jan. and Nov. of 2020, as compared to public ducation’s 40 percent and retail’s 27 percent.

“People are really, really, really, eally tired of the pandemic,” Fertig aid. “They're thinking, ‘I just want o reclaim my life. I don't want to do his for 40-60 hours a week anymore, and I'm just gonna quit.’ That is the andscape right now.”

In late January, Fertig attended a conference held by the California Association of Independent Schools CAIS), where one of the topics was the ise in mid-year departures and how California schools are dealing with it.

“With the Great Resignation, the ntire independent school sector is seeing higher than usual turnover, especially mid-year departures,” Fertig said.

On the slides for the presentation, he CAIS presenter included survey esponses of common problems from chool leaders across the state: Faculty members are exhausted. There are a ot of HR issues, including mid-year departures. When do we allow teachers o work from home? What about mental health issues amongst the faculty?

The Wall Street Journal article asserts that teachers leaving their field or new jobs is a nationwide trend.

“Burned out teachers are leaving he classroom for jobs in the private ector, where talent-hungry companies are hiring them—and often boosting heir pay—to work in sales, software, healthcare, and training, among other fields,” wrote Journal writer Kathryn Dill, drawing on federal data.

Where mid-year departures may seem like strange, abrupt nterruptions to students, for fields ther than education, the new year is he typical time to start a new job.

“Academia has a very, very specific chedule, and the rest of the world ollows the calendar year for hiring,” Zomber said. “That makes it inevitable hat people leave mid-academic-year.

Jobs don’t want to say, ‘Yeah, I’d ove to offer you this position in six months!’”

According to the Wall Street Journal article, the most teacher resignations n 2021 were filed in September, October, and November. Teachers are oveted potential employees for their high-demand skills” like “ability o absorb and transmit information quickly, manage stress, and multitask.”

The pandemic has also put excess train on teachers that there might not have been before, spurring the new wave of departures.

“These were the two single hardest years of teaching anybody has done in

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Upper school division head returns to campus“22 months and a literal lifetime later”

Liza Raynal resumes her role—with an added class and an 11-month old STORY ELLIE K. PHOTOS LIZA RAYNAL

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hen asked how many kids she has, Liza Raynal answers “451.”

Last year in March, 451 became 452 when she welcomed her son Luca into her life.

Eighteen days before meeting Luca, Raynal, in her first year as the upper school division head, logged off of a Zoom meeting, waving goodbye to her colleagues, as their encouraging voices and well wishes rang into her room.

Now, in January 2022, Raynal sat down in her new office’s chair, masked and far from her home. Past the plants resting on the windowsill, soaking up the Bay Meadows’ sunlight, Raynal can see the Rosenberg Courtyard.

After nine months of leave, she is returning to her previously held role of division head.

Raynal is a Nueva middle school alumna, graduating in the class of 1995. She re-entered the classroom in 2006, this time teaching, and later served for seven years as the middle school head. In 2020, Raynal received an invitation to become the upper school division head.

In fall of 2020, without changing chairs or locations, but using a new Zoom virtual background, Raynal worked diligently in her new role.

When the school transitioned to a hybrid model, Raynal remained virtual, being immunocompromised from her pregnancy.

When spring came, and Raynal left to care for Luca, Lillian Howard held her role. Upon Raynal’s return, Howard has since transitioned to the English classroom.

“Twenty-two months and a literal lifetime later,” as Raynal puts it, Raynal is back on campus, and plans to prioritize consistency for students as well asappreciating her new experience.

“I'm starting, but everybody else is in the middle of a year,” she said.

“By keeping things steady, and by seeing everything as new, the combined ability will let me see the places that we want to change and

grow and the places that we want to stay the same.”

Her other priority: aligning her morning departure from home with the garbage truck’s arrival, distracting Luca from his separation from his mom. Exciting enough to stop Luca’s tears, the garbage truck allows Raynal to slip into her car and make it to school.

At ten months old, Luca is learning to recognize that he can be physically separated from his mother, causing a peak in separation anxiety—nothing a garbage truck can’t fix.

As Raynal watches her son develop, the boundaries between being an administrator and mother blur.

“I think this job is as consuming as being a mom,” Raynal said.

“School is like the life of the mind.

And being a mom is like the life of the body.”

Though both roles are starkly different and require Raynal’s focus and energy, they also both provide “strength and fulfillment” for her.

“It was a pretty radical switch to go from repeating single syllable words multiple times, or making up songs all day long, to actually having to have proper adult conversations,” Raynal said.

Raynal must balance her life raising Luca, the mini Maverick, with her life supporting high school Mavericks.

“I tell myself to do the best I can wherever I am at that moment, […] to be present with my little one when I'm with him, and to be present with my students when I'm here,” Raynal said.

The byproduct of Raynal’s being a working mom, is a demonstration to her son “an example of what a woman can do in the world.”

As Raynal balances working with sleepless nights, reading stories, taking pictures, repeating sounds until they lose meaning, and keeping her son healthy, Raynal finds herself constantly learning.

“I feel like I've always believed

ALL SMILES HERE Liza and her 11 month old son Luca pose for a smile under a sunny sky

that kids can see further than I can see,” Raynal shared, reflecting on students teaching her how to listen and understand their perspectives.

“And so I hope that as a mom, that means that my kid will benefit from that. And he will feel heard, seen, known, respected, [and] loved, because you all taught me how to do that.”

While she’s spent years watching her students grow, her experiences with Luca are new, giving her “a much more intimate view of what it means to grow up.”

“It's wild to watch how learning

“I hope that he will make me a better administrator and a better teacher. I hope that I can give him that gift of being able to be who he is, and not have to be somebody else." happens,” Raynal said, referencing the significant moments of development in her son’s life— learning to make a fist, crawling for the first time, and meeting an older cousin who especially captivated Luca.

“I hope he will make me a better administrator and a better teacher,” she said. “I hope that I can give him that gift of being able to be who he is, and not have to be somebody else.”

In the parallels between being an administrator and a mother, Raynal helps to create a safe and

supportive environment to raise the next generation at school and within her own family.

“We recognize your agency and your fortitude and your intelligence and that through that respect, that maybe you won’t have to make the same mistakes we made,” she shared. “I think if we did that for our kids, or for young people in society, we would have happier young people.”

Raynal’s introduction to motherhood was far from “normal,” and not only because she wore a mask at the hospital. The transition from planning, pregnancy, to parenthood involves life changes, and during another pandemicstricken year, Raynal does not have a community of other new moms with whom she can celebrate and connect.

“You would have been in classes with [new parents] and you would have met them at the park. And that happens to a much less extent now than it ever did before,” Raynal said, who eventually joined an online group called “Corona Babies.”

As Raynal figures out the challenging job of parenting, she attempts to make new connections with people since “it's a radical life shift you should have a community for.”

And whenever Luca pulls down Raynal’s mask—in an innocent game about a global catastrophe unbeknownst to him—Liza repeats, “Oh, someday I'll explain to you what happened.”

For now, Luca is more interested in that garbage truck.

FEATURES A gateway to interdisciplinary adventure THE NUEVA CURRENT

Students spend Intersession exploring topics beyond their typical curriculum.

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rom January 4th to 7th, students attended their unique schedule of courses and were encouraged to spend the week immersing themselves in arts, sports, sciences, music and more. Intersession largely consisted of two hour morning and afternoon seminars that each spanned for two days. Additionally, there were brief, 90-minute mid-day activities and full-day intensives that further immersed students into a subject. Below are three different Intersession courses offered.

Introduction to Stained Glass

In this hands-on class, students transformed colorful panes of glass into beautiful one-of-akind stained glass suncatchers. JaYing Wang, the owner and instructor of Alameda Art Lab, taught students this timeless and yet rather inaccessible art medium.

“I put stained glass as my top choice because, to me, Intersession is a time to explore things that I don't have the time or materials to do on my own,” said Maya B. ’22.

Maya, along with a handful of other students, began the first session by choosing a project pattern designed by Wang. Then, the group huddled around Wang as she demonstrated how to use specialized tools to score and cut colorful panes of glass that are then individually grinded to perfectly puzzle together. By the end of the first day, the small class had formed a casual, chatty environment.

The next day, students worked diligently to construct the glass pieces into its final form by wrapping the edges of each piece with a copper tape and soldering onto the tape using a soldering iron and a roll of solder.

By the end of the session, each student completed the class with a beautiful stained glass suncatcher to display in their homes. “I feel like I spend so much time as a student doing complicated intellectual work, so it's so fun and relaxing to just focus on the size of a piece of glass,” Maya said.

Muay Thai Fundamentals

The gym is filled with an atmosphere of friendly competition as pairs of students face off, pads and gloves held aloft. Ryan Roy, a professional Muay Thai fighter, offered four 90 minute “Muay Thai Fundamentals” seminars as an introductory course on the ins and outs of Muay Thai.

In the class, students warmed up with jumping jacks and burpees then slipped on padded gloves and paired off to perform “the Science of the Eight Limbs,” which consisted of students using their hands, elbows, knees and shins to practice self defense-tactics. The budding Muay Thai athletes fell into a steady rhythm as they shuffled from foot to foot and threw controlled punches towards their partner’s kick pads. Though there were no prerequisites for the class, the students quickly realized that this was a high-intensity activity.

Maya S. ’25 was especially captivated by the aerobic and anaerobic sport. For her, getting assigned into this class was a happy accident.

“When I filled out the form I did not put [Muay Thai] as one of my top choices because I wasn’t really sure what it was, but then I got it and ended up liking it a lot,” Maya admitted.

Maya has demonstrated interest in enrolling in a kickboxing class (a similar type of martial art) in the past, and after Intersession, decided to join T2 Muay Thai, Roy’s Muay Thai training studio located in Mountain View. “Without Intersession, I wouldn't have had the motivation and connection to Ryan to join his studio,” Maya said.

POW! Henry S. '23 throws punches at Coach Ryan Roy during his intersession, which took place in the succulent garden.

Nueva aims for sustainability on top of flavor

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STORY NATALIE L. PHOTOS JAYING WANG, MITZI MOCK, NATALIE L.

Conservation Ambassadors: Wild America

In the packed Room 175b and Room 175c, students balance on the edge of their seats, anticipating what animal they are about to see next. Conservation Ambassadors spent the week providing students with an up close experience with both exotic and native animals through their two seminars and four activity sessions.

While much of modern human activity harms wildlife in some way, the nonprofit is dedicated to providing homes and second chances for animals unable to survive on their own. Additionally, the team utilizes their animals to teach schools and communities about wildlife species, something that will leave a lasting impression on young people.

“I think [Conservation Ambassadors] is a very good cause, and might potentially sign up for one of their summer internships when I'm older,” says Ethan H. ’25, explaining why he decided to sign up for “Conservation Ambassadors: Wild America”.

As a kid who grew up watching wildlife in National Geographic shows, Ethan had always been interested in animals, especially birds of prey.

He was delighted when given the opportunity to have a red-tailed hawk perch on his arm during the seminar.

“I definitely have not done any sort of seminar like [Conservation Ambassadors], and it was an overall amazing experience,” Ethan said.

ZOO TO YOU Animal Ambassadors gave Ethan H. '25 the unique opportunity to hold a red-tail hawk.

STORY ZARA M. PHOTOS ZARA M. & EMMA Z.

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hat will be lunch for today?

Pizza or chicken tenders?

Samosas or burgers? Students rush to be first in line and figure it out themselves.

Every day, students line up to enjoy meals prepared by the kitchen staff that morning. Yet, few students actually know what happens behind the counter to bring these meals from the kitchen onto the plates.

In 2018, Nueva partnered with Epicurean, a food service management company, to bring freshly sourced meals to students.

Erika Suttles, the general manager at Epicurean works to provide lunches to both Nueva campuses. Suttles talked about how Epicurean works to provide meals to Nueva in a sustainable way that supports local farmers and businesses.

“The produce is sourced from local farmers, our meats are sourced from

farms,” Suttles said. “We buy fresh, seasonal, organic foods from those local farmers.”

The Epicurean chefs hand-craft the majority of the lunches brought to the school tables, and they do so in a way that optimizes fresh and organic ingredients.

“I like [Epicurean’s] philosophy about fresh food: the sustainability of food, Meatless Mondays, supporting our planet, and sourcing our food from local farmers,” Suttles said. Epicurean’s local farmers are sourced within a 150 mile radius from farms such as Capay Organics and Happy Boy Farms.

According to Suttles, some of the most popular meals amongst students include chicken tenders, mac and cheese, and turkey burgers.

For Margot S. ’25, one of her favorite lunches is mac and cheese with bacon. Yet on a chicken tender lunch day with a side of potatoes and zucchinis, Margot said that it is the “best Nueva lunch” while Max S. ’25 agrees, describing the chicken tender lunch as “top tier.”

Feedback such as this of Margot and Max are used by Epicurean. They incorporate lunches that appeal to both the students and employees at Nueva through feedback forms students can fill out twice a year, specifying their favorite

meals, different meals they want to see in the school lunches, dietary restrictions, and more. The collected data is then applied through tallying requested meals that have shown up numerous times throughout the survey and possibly including that in the menu.

She talked about how monthly meal plans are tailored specifically by her in order to include fan favorites while also tying in healthy lunches.

“I get a big request for pizza and no quinoa. […] We just put a little in there to please your parents,” Suttles said.

Students can learn from this and include healthier food selections into their own meals. And it is not significantly harder to do so.

“You know it's not really a challenge [to mass produce sustainable foods from local farms] …to produce the mass numbers we do is really a

breeze. It’s not that hard at all,” Suttles concluded, confirming that cooking from local, organic, and fresh produce is not a challenge faced by Epicurean.

SPECTACULAR SCHOOL LUNCHES Some typical dishes from the café include carne asada tacos, pasta with garlic bread, and pho!

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

Nueva’s partnership with Epicurean focuses on sourcing locally and sustainably to bring healthier lunches to our table.

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OPINION

It's time to bust the filibuster STORY ROAN W. PHOTOS CNN, VECTORSTOCK

“S

am I am, Sam I am, I do not like that Sam I am,” reads Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who has single-handedly been holding the Senate floor for well over 10 hours. “Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like them, Sam I am.”

This was a filibuster held by Senator Cruz in the year of 2013 in opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act. Between the years 2009 and 2019, there were a total of 1,266 filibusters used by politicians on either side of the aisle. Now, you may be wondering what the filibuster is.

A filibuster, despite the ridiculous name, is an exceedingly simple political procedure in the Senate, often wielded by the minority, to block the passage of legislation. When a filibuster occurs, debate on the bill is held for as long as it takes for the Senate to vote to close debate. And guess how many votes you need to close the debate? 60. And how many senators are there? 100.

Since the first filibuster in 1841, the use of the tactic was scarce until the latter half of the 20th century, when it was suddenly employed by both parties to bring legislation to a standstill. However, while both parties have used the filibuster to a large extent, the procedure is used most frequently by conservatives to block anything from civil rights to voting protections. According to Repustar, which cites several sources, between the years of 2009 and 2019, Democrat minorities used 329 filibusters, whilst Republican minorities used 609.

Supreme Court, Supreme Bias

as we recently have seen. For example, Congress was unable to pass an antilynching bill until just four years ago, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was filibustered for a cumulative 60 days, the longest filibuster in history.

The filibuster is uniquely undemocratic, allowing for the minority to completely undermine the constitutional responsibility of the Senate, in which the decision of whether or not a bill passes lies in the hands of the majority. In order to save our country’s democratic process from our recent slide towards facism, it’s crucial that we pass a motion to prevent its usage ever again.

The process needed to abolish the filibuster would be simple. All that would need to be done is to get a bill containing the abolishment of the filibuster through the House of Representatives, which should be easy enough as long as there’s unison within the Democrats of the House.

After that, all that would be needed is to get a majority vote in the Senate, which may be harder, but could be done with the assistance of some more centrist Republicans.

However, with the recent tendency of Democratic Senators to refuse to block the filibuster, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the likelihood of the filibuster never going away is getting higher. Both parties are growing more and more spiteful of one another, and if we don’t destroy the filibuster soon, our country will slowly slide further into a society where the minority holds the power.

STORY SELIN K. PHOTO REUTERS, GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK

Amy Coney Barrett’s strong anti-abortion views should prohibit her from ruling on the Roe v. Wade repeal

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n 1973, the landmark court case Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court, ruling that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s right to have an abortion without excessive government interference. In effect, the decision gave women autonomy over their bodies.

Now, nearly 50 years later, a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is threatening to overturn Roe v. Wade. Dobbs is representing the state and opposing Jacksonsole abortion clinic in all of Missisipi. The deciding vote is Amy Coney Barrett, a judge who openly condemns Roe v. Wade. Allowing Barrett, who has made her extreme antiabortion opinion clear countless times, to cast a vote on this ruling is simply unjust. She is clearly unable to separate her personal views and her obligation to uphold the

UNFIT TO RULE: Judge Amy Coney Barrett, pictured, has clarified her anti-abortion opinion multiple times.

constitution in the Supreme Court, and she will undoubtedly destroy peoples’ civil liberties if she is allowed to rule.

When Barrett was nominated and eventually confirmed as a Justice on the Supreme Court in October 2020, her supporters crafted a meticulous depiction of who she was: a devoted mother, a well-loved professor, and a passionate civil rights servant. During her confirmation hearing, however, she deflected all questions about divisive topics—such as abortion—not as a sign of her indifference on the issue, but rather in an attempt to mask her extremist opinions and approaches to the law. Supporters’ focus on Barrett’s carefully crafted character is simply a way of distracting the onlooker from the horrifying record of her past political work.

While working as a federal appeals judge from 2017 to 2020, she not only voted in favor of a law that would have mandated doctors to inform the parents of a minor seeking

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The 180-year-old tradition clutching our democracy has got to go

Entertaining Entymology: The name ‘Filibuster’ comes from the old dutch word for ‘fleebooter,’ someone who took booty or loot, and was first used in 1889 to describe legislators who obstructed voting on a motion.

an abortion, but also openly suggested adoption over abortion, denounced Plan B, and advocated for other antiabortion views. While a Notre Dame law professor in 2013, Barrett signed a public letter criticizing Roe v. Wade, calling for “the unborn to be protected in law.”

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization makes almost all abortions illegal past 15 weeks— nearly two months earlier than Roe v.

Wade and subsequent decisions allow.

It bans any abortions past what the

Mississippi, the Jackson’s Women’s Health Clinic is at the center of the case, and gave evidence to a federal appeals court showing that fetal viability is impossible at 15 weeks. In reality, the vast majority of experts, including organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the New York State Department of Health, and even the University of Utah Health Program agree that the fetal viability is around 24 weeks, not 15 weeks. However, the state of Mississippi continues

A LANDMARK COURT CASE: Demostrators gather in front of the Supreme Court as justices hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health.

state calls “the probable gestational age of the unborn human,” with limited exceptions for pregnancies with “severe fetal abnormalities” such as heart defects or other severe medical emergencies.

Dobbs v. Jackson was originally enacted by a conservative majority Mississippi in 2018, led by Thomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of Health. It was blocked because of the near-immediate legal challenges that it faced at the federal level. Now, however, it’s reached the Supreme Court, where it runs the danger of being passed because of the distinct majority of conservative justices, to which Amy Coney Barrett adds.

Now, as the sole abortion clinic in

to argue that the fetus has “made important physiological developments by 15 weeks,” and that “abortions are riskier to the mother at this stage of pregnancy.”

Twice during oral arguments for this case, Amy Coney Barrett has addressed pro-choice advocates, asking, “Would banning abortion be so bad if women could just drop their newborns at the fire station for someone else to adopt?” This question is insensitive and refuses to acknowledge the risk that pregnancy itself brings to many women, some of which simply cannot afford to be pregnant. Her disregard for the real issue at hand exemplifies the fact that she is simply unfit to rule on the case.

OPINION

THE NUEVA CURRENT

15

DECEMBER 2020-FEBRUARY 2022 Cases have down down since the peak of Omicron in January 2022; the case count is now comperable to that of late 2020, when students returned to campus for the first time after lockdown. STATISTICS FROM SMCHEALTH.ORG

100%

of upper school students have received at least one vaccination dose

92%

of San Mateo County residents completed the vacciation series

Mask mandates pose a greater threat to students than the pandemic itself The administration should lead in data-backed policy by removing mask mandates on campus as soon as possible STORY SAM Z, GUEST WRITER

T

Nueva should not rush to relax the mask mandate

Though Omicron may seem to be the beginning of the end, as we wrap up the year we can’t predict what will happen next STORY GRACE F.

S

ince the first wave of vaccinations became readily available in April, mask mandates and distance restrictions have appeared to take the shape of a sine wave, with the restrictions fluctuating based on a new variant every few months.

With the most recent variant—the Omicron variant—hope has slowly started to form in the swamp of pessimism that has been the past two years. This variant, though contagious, has the mildest symptoms yet, especially with a vaccine, making it seem as if we’re close to the end.

However, Omicron, as with every new variant, has also provided a wave of precautions. The 65 percent decrease in the case rate led Governor Gavin Newsom to announce that the indoor mask mandate will be lifted for vaccinated people on February 15.

But we can never know how long the lull will last until we get to the next spike in cases. Following a low in June after most people were doublevaccinated, a new spike appeared in August with the Delta variant, finally simmering down in November when boosters were made available. Many of these trends correlated with the ever-changing mask mandates for public spaces, leading to the question

of when this cycle will end.

We can’t yet predict whether or not this easing of the mask restrictions simply indicates another low in the sine wave or a step towards normalcy.

I of course hope that we will see an end, but until we know the long-term effects, Nueva at least needs to keep their community accountable while at the school. Nueva cannot (and should not) control the individual actions of students outside of school, and whether or not students adhere to masking on their own time. However, exposure to COVID-19 always happens, so it would be disrespectful to students who are more cautious or at higher risk—or live with someone who is vulnerable—to follow the bandwagon and loosen the mask mandates at school. Even if students put themselves in positions outside of school where they could potentially be exposed, having a stricter mask mandate at Nueva could still help curb the exposures at least within our bubble.

Though I do hope that we will see an end to the pandemic, and that we will finally be able to see each others’ faces full-time, we still don’t know the long-term effects and trajectory of Omicron and the new mask regulations. In the meantime, I can only hope that Nueva continues to do everything they can in order to stop the spread and finally flatten the curve.

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

his year, countless health experts and authorities all around the country are calling for an end to emergency COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates, which is why I believe Nueva should reevaluate its health policies.

The best place to start is the facts.

The Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) data shows that the risk of mortality from COVID-19 to children is extremely low, comparable to the annual flu. For example, the 2018 to 2019 annual flu caused more excess mortality than COVID-19 did from December 2020 to November 2021—the worst 12 months for pediatric COVID-19 deaths in the United States for unvaccinated children. Additionally, studies show that prolonged COVID-19 symptoms among children are uncommon.

Nueva maintains a 100 percent vaccination rate—and I assume that we also maintain a fairly high “booster” shot rate—so, according to nationwide statistics from England, the risk from COVID-19 is decreased to almost a negligible amount.

Additionally, although vaccines are less effective against Omicron, they still remain very effective against severe illness; many cases are to be expected, but as demonstrated from the 65 percent decrease in California’s positive cases, the situation is already improving.

Now that we’ve gone over the risks of COVID-19, let’s examine the effectiveness of mask mandates.

Studies performed by the CDC and UK Health Security Agency both could not prove that increased protection from masking students was statistically significant.

Academic studies from across the US and Europe are also unable to show any significant association between masking students and decreased transmission of COVID-19. Protecting the vulnerable is crucial in any consideration of health policy, which is why I’m a strong advocate for one-way-masking. The idea behind it is that when vaccinated individuals

wear N95 masks, it doesn’t matter what others are doing around them, as those mitigation factors provide enough protection. According to COVID-19 experts at Harvard, the risk of infection is extremely low for individuals wearing an N95 mask. An N95 mask filters about 95 percent of airborne particles on top of protection provided to individuals from vaccination and presumably booster shots for the vulnerable/immunocompromised. In the current COVID-19 situation, it no longer makes sense to force people to wear cloth or surgical masks to “protect” others when there are more convenient and safer alternatives.

While signs of the developmental harms of masks likely won’t show up for a couple of years, early studies show disappointing trends: masks create barriers to speech recognition, hearing, communication, and children's ability to decode facial expressions, found prospective Greek and Italian studies. This creates an environment where it's difficult for students to keep up in class and make meaningful connections with their peers. For students who are learning languages, masks affect linguistic and speech development, hindering the learning process. Masks also severely impede emotion recognition for children. I’m hopeful that the administration will pursue risk analysis and stop mask mandates in schools before too much damage is done.

Everything is pointing towards the elimination of the mandates: low risk of serious illness, high vaccination rates, decrease in cases, milder variants, high levels of natural immunity, effective one-way-masking, and the negative developmental effects of prolonged mask-wearing.

Governor Gavin Newsom has extended the indoor mask mandate for schools past the February 15th deadline, but in the meantime, I strongly advise our school to eliminate the outdoor mask mandate.

Once the state eliminates its indoor mask mandate for schools, I urge the administration to follow suit and finally return to normal.

STUDENT STANDOFF

16

OPINION

VOL. 5 ISS. 4

2.

18.

22

EDITORIAL

Our school spirit has the flavor of spinach...

Retaining our but it has the potential to be so much more Beloved Community Our newspaper is communityoriented, and our community isn't just students.

INSTAGRAM: @THENUEVACURRENT

WWW.THENUEVACURRENT.COM

Dear readers, Nueva stands on the shoulders of our teachers. Watching these foundations shake is jarring, and has touched many students’ lives—not just academically, but personally.

For our centerfold feature article, we’ve delved into the impact of teacher departures on students and faculty while examining some of the circumstances that might have contributed to a rise in mid-year departures. We strove to take an unbiased approach and did our best to contextualize the situation, comparing it with some similar trends in teacher turnover across the country.

That said, departures are an extremely personal topic, and we value our teachers’ privacy. We don’t want to paint our departing faculty and staff with too broad a brush, or burden them with assumptions.

As always, our goal as a student newspaper is to raise awareness, distilling a complex situation into a digestible variety of facts and voices.

We deal in discomfort. But behind the detached writers’ voices, we’re students, too. And while the logistical aspects of these departures have been adequately addressed, we feel the loss of our community members as deeply as anyone.

Our teachers mentor us, witness and nurture our growth, and support us when we’re stressed or struggling. And then, after preparing us to be critical thinkers, they send us off into the world with letters of recommendation and words of advice.

Nueva is a fast-paced environment, but there’s no need to move swiftly past this news—even if there’s no end-of-school assembly, or even much advance notice, we can take time to honor and celebrate teachers who leave.

As red and yellow kindness envelopes line the walls of the second floor, we urge you to show your appreciation for our incredible, hardworking, one-of-a-kind faculty and staff, and let them know just how lucky you feel to have them.

Our paper is community-oriented, and our community isn’t just students. We will continue to amplify the voices of our teachers as best we can. Meanwhile, we look forward to our community’s growth and evolution.

Happy Kindness Week to everyone, and we hope you have a good break.

The Editors

STORY AARON H. PHOTO JORDAN M.

N

ueva’s school spirit is like mediocre cooking. Most of the time it’s passable— metaphorically and physically—but slightly dry and way too bland. Both could benefit from some added flavor: some pinches of salt, some grinds of pepper, or wallops of sriracha, chili peppers, and cayenne. Whatever it is, some type of seasoning is needed to give any ounce of taste to our school spirit.

The gym’s bleachers are nearly always empty during home games—so empty that our teams store their backpacks and shoes there as they play. As a player on the varsity basketball team, I know that this is a stark contrast to the shoulder to shoulder spectators and infinite line of cheering fans who typically confront our team as we walk into a rival’s gym.

As a student athlete, spending nearly 15 hours every week practicing for a home game only to walk into a gym occupied by more visiting fans than our own is disappointing. Although Nueva has never been a sports-focused school, we should still show our pride and support for the vast array of teams who dedicate their time and bodies to represent our school.

According to Athletics Director Chris Wade, there are around 100

student athletes participating in either cross country or basketball, with very little crossover (pun intended) between the two. There are 451 Nueva high school students, which means ~22% of our high school population participate in these two sports alone. This ~22% still excludes the soccer teams, the tennis teams, volleyball teams, and so on. With so many athletes within our school, how can our school spirit be so low? Our community lacks pride in our school’s achievements.

Of course, sometimes it can be hard to take pride in our school’s athletics when companies like Niche, a website that ranks and reviews schools, grade Nueva’s sports program very low. Even though this is an arbitrary grade given to us by an arbitrary website, Niche’s grade is how many other schools and prospective parents will view our athletics. A wrongful view of our community because Niche.com’s grading system is more representative of the low school spirit and confidence in our sports than anything else. We all have the power to control our school spirit; whether we’re in the stands or on the field, we can all contribute to improving our school’s morale.

There is an unspoken love for our school in the student body. There must be. The wall of sticky-notes appreciating the school and teachers within and the screams as Maverick mascot runs through the halls

prove this, but we must express it more. We can sing it, cheer it, even scribble it in big blue bubble letters, but whatever it is, we undoubtedly must show it more. With every breath, show sites like Niche.com and readers who believe the C+ grade how wrong they are. Prove their assumptions wrong by reviving the translucent ghost who roams the gym floor; by chanting chants so loud the steel structural beams of our building shiver; and by being the rivals who terrify each and every prepubescent teen who walks through those gargantuan crimson red front doors. Show them what it is to be a Maverick.

SERVES UP Alumna Willow Taylor Chiang Yang '21 spikes the ball during a volleyball home game with few spectators on the bleachers.

CORRECTIONS The Nueva Current welcomes comments and suggestions. We seek to publish corrections and clarifications in the subsequent issue. Please email any corrections to thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org.

Corrections: Issue 3, published Dec. 17, 2021: On p. 2, in “Nueva celebrates National Transgender Awareness Week,” photographer Mitzi Mock’s name was mispelled. On p. 3, in “Parli wraps up fall season in top seed,” Rohan S. ’23 was not credited for the photo. On p. 4, in “Taylor Swift’s best song just got better,” Gyllenhaal was misspelled. On p. 5, in “Reviewing Banksy,” there was a missing “a” in Girl With a Balloon. On p. 6, in “A refreshing remake of a musical theater classic,” the word “Shakespearean” was misspelled. In the same article Leonard Bernstein’s name was misspelled. On p. 8, in “A fond farewell for Feland,” the words “Darth Vader” should be capitalized. On p. 9, in “South Asian Affinity Group aims to create a safe space for students,” junior Anoushka K.'s name was misspelled. On p. 10 and p. 11, in “Founding Faculty: how has the upper school evolved since its inception?”, “teachers” should be “faculty”. On p. 12, in “A tense silence at Chinese-Taiwanese dinnertables,” there is a missing hyphen in Tsai Ing-wen. On p. 14, in “Happy Holidays: Making the holidays more culturally inclusive,” there was a missing “one” in the Christmas to Hanukkah ratio. On p. 17, in “Nueva Classes, as Myers Briggs Types,” “Myers-Briggs” was missing a hyphen.

On p. 18, in “Crossword Puzzle: Holiday edition,” the clue name should be spelled “Hakoda” and not “Hakota”. On p. 19, in “Girls basketball team rebuilds foundations with new players,” coach Larisa Nakasone’s name is misspelled. In the same article the team’s record was 1-3, not “3-1”. On the same page, in “Boys basketball evolves to accommodate more members,” senior Tyler H.'s graduation year is ’22, not “’23” nor “’21”. Also on the same page, in “The ball is back on the girls soccer field,” the accompanying photo was taken by Diane Mazzoni and Mira D. ’22 was missing a graduation year.

THE NUEVA CURRENT

ENTERTAINMENT

Crossword Puzzle

BY CHARLIE D.

17

MASTHEAD THE NUEVA CURRENT Student Newspaper of The Nueva School EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief Anouschka B. ’22 Design and Social Media Editor Emma Z. ’23 News Editor Isabelle S. ’23 Opinion & Managing Editor Anisha K. ’22 Culture Editor Grace F. '23 Features Editor Ellie K. ’24 Entertainment and Sports Editor Serena S. ’23 STAFF Josie B. ’25, Claire D. ’22, Aaron H. ’24, Selin K. ’24, Natalie L. ’25, Amiya M. ’25, Zara M. ’25, Jack P. ’25, Sam T. ’22, Roan W. ’24, Isabella X. ’24 Faculty Advisor LiAnn Yim

ACROSS

1. Demonstrations from an annoying couple 5. Virginia 10. Table or bluff 14. "I am not that I am."

15. Jump variety performed by 56-across 16. Word before "N" or "campus" 17. December, for many 19. Rob for 12th, e.g.

20. Cross Country motto 21. Harshly snows 23. Eggy prefix 24. Indian city whose name derives from "sword blades" 25. Royal abode 29. Possible inscription on a candy heart 33. One of 6 elements in Genshin Impact 34. Greased 35. Program managed by the USFWS 36. Holiday rumored to have been created by a company 39. Non-gendered in English 40. Jump variety performed by 56-across 41. "_ Got Mail" 42. Lone 44. Brawls 45. Culinary puppetmaster?

46. Anderson or Chao 47. Speaker Nancy 50. Unique for its lack of speed limit 55. Name derived from Ireland 56. Men’s figure skating gold medalist 58. Actor Malek 59. One and the same 60. What you might see an imposter on?

61. Smaller port 62. Something to pay attention to when solving a problem?

63. Type of inedible butter

1. “_ or it didn’t happen.”

2. Dash about 3. Water in Spain 4. Playstation maker 5. Precursor to samosas 6. Finale 7. Rank, archaically 8. Moon-bound spacecraft acronym 9. Youngsters 10. Physics follow-up 11. Foil alternative 12. What one might hold in the Senate 13. Cyndi Lauper and Coulter 18. Common gift for 36-across 22. Saw 24. Places to get sandwiches 25. Some have dark ones 26. Floral prefix 27. Even 28. Reddit open session 29. Link shortener 30. Provide with, archaically 31. Longitudinal force in physics 32. Retort to “or no” 34. Bad-tempered 37. Investigates 38. La luna companion (with el) 43. Some humor 44. Both tin and heavy 46. Capital of the Hubei province 47. 9th grade trip destination 48. Epochs 49. Appendage 50. What you might feel on your heartstrings?

51. Loops in 52. Laughter 53. Biological precursor to blood 54. Subset of the US department of energy 57. Best below 50

500 print copies are distributed for free to students and faculty members in all three of Nueva’s divisions.

The Nueva Current is a member of the NSPA and the CSPA. The Nueva Current was a 2019 Pacemaker Finalist.

QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, OR SUBMISSIONS? We welcome your voices. We accept photographs, illustrations, articles, and other pieces of work. Please email us at thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org or reach out to Opinion & Managing Editor Anisha Kumar at anikuma@ nuevaschool.org STAY CONNECTED thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org www.thenuevacurrent.com Twitter & Instagram: @ thenuevacurrent 131 E. 28th Ave., San Mateo, CA 94403

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

DOWN

The Nueva Current strives to provide informative and impactful articles for our community. Our issues cover stories related to our school, the Bay Area, California, and other relevant spheres. We are dedicated to helping readers understand the ways in which we can all make a difference in the world around us. The opinions expressed in The Nueva Current belong solely to the writers and are not a reflection or representation of the opinions of the school or administrators.

18

ENTERTAINMENT

VOL. 5 ISS. 4

Pandemic puppies, one year later These canines have only known life in isolation. How are they coping with a new normal?

PHILO: Freshman Maya S. and her fifth grader brother, Ryo S., pose with their puppy Philo

TAHOE: Christine Z. ’24 poses with her doodle, Tahoe, by the beach

KIPPER: Freshman Charlotte R. cuddles with her Kipper on the couch

F

or over 23 million people in the United States, the cure to their lack of social interaction and curbing of their usual activities during the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t come in the form of chat spaces, Zoom calls, or video games.

Instead, individuals of all ages turned to an affectionate and effortlessly adorable antidote for their loneliness: puppies. According to the ASPCA, more than 1 in 5 American households adopted canines during the pandemic.

Maya S. ’25 was no exception. In October of 2020, Maya's family officially adopted an adorable—and exceptionally fluffy—goldendoodle named Philo. The adoption had come after months of researching and scouring the internet to find their perfect pup.

Philo wasn’t the only aspect of the adoption that was perfect. October 2020 also happened to be the ideal time for Maya and her family to bring a pooch into their household. The pandemic allowed them to reserve time for the newest addition to their family without neglecting the external world or their other obligations.

“It was nice because we were always there. We didn’t have to go to work and we didn’t have to leave him at home alone. There was always someone to take care of him,” Maya said.

As students returned to in-person learning, the transition back to normalcy brought with it numerous benefits, but for Maya and her dog, the adjustments haven't been easy.

Maya said, “Over remote learning, I used to be able to go downstairs and visit him between classes, but now I’m out a lot more and it takes time to get home and see him.”

Determining who looks after Philo at what time has grown increasingly challenging as each member of Maya's family returns to their respective in-person commitments.

“When he was a little puppy, we had a schedule where everyone in the family had a time, but there have been a lot of changes,” Maya said. “Now, we just don’t have as

2.

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22

STORY JOSIE B. PHOTOS MAYA S., CHRISTINE Z., CHARLOTTE R.

much time.”

Christine Z. ‘24 has been dealing with similar challenges. In 2020, Christine adopted a puppy named Tahoe. Like Sprosts, Christine considered the pandemic to be the ideal opportunity to adopt. Her newfound leisure was not only helpful, but also extremely comforting during the trying and exhausting period.

“I felt really happy with my dog, and it was just nice to have a companion at that time,” Christine said.

Unfortunately, the return to in-person schooling has strained the connection between owner and dog. Christine has struggled to reclaim the sense of companionship she felt throughout the pandemic.

“I feel like since we have switched to in-person, he sticks to my mom more because she takes care of him more. I miss that time in the pandemic,” Christine said.

The shifts have been challenging, but despite the complications of an ever-changing pandemic, both puppies and their owners have benefited from the deep relationships formed during that time.

“It’s been hard, but at the same time I know that he’s always at home when I need him,” Maya said.

While Charlotte R. ’25 is a more recent dog owner, she has also learned her fair share of lessons from her canine companion. Charlotte adopted her puppy, Kipper, named for a British children's television series, around three months ago.

“I’ve learned to empathize with my dog a lot. For example, when I don't want to go outside at 10 p.m. to walk him sometimes, I just have to remember that he's probably been holding it for hours,” Charlotte said.

While caring for a puppy can be tough at any time, let alone during a pandemic, Charlotte has been nothing short of grateful for Kipper's warm presence in her life.

“To wake up to such a cute little puppy face every morning just makes my day,” Charlotte said.

Faculty new year's resolutions

What are Nueva faculty members aiming for in 2022?

Morgan Snyder

Jen Paull

I-Lab Design Engineer/ Design Thinking Teacher

Humanities & WRC Director

Surprising no one, for the year ahead I hope to read more for pleasure!

I like to doodle my resolutions! My word of the year is “Rise.”

Liza Raynal

Hillary Freeman

INSTAGRAM: @THENUEVACURRENT

WWW.THENUEVACURRENT.COM

Upper School Division Head

Dean of Student Life

I hope to cultivate the kind of strength known to the humble and mighty mycelium.

Comic "Wordle Hurdle"

STORY JOSIE B.

I really don’t make New Year’s resolutions! I try to better myself, in some aspect of life, by 1% per day, every day of the year. There’s ALWAYS room for growth!

BY ANISHA K.

Jonathan Quick English Teacher

Being more proactive instead of reactive when I'm moving from task to task or when I hang out with my family at the end of the day.

Jeremy Jacquot Science Teacher

I would like to better manage my work-life balance. (It’s a resolution I’ve been working on for years to mixed success!)

THE NUEVA CURRENT

Girls soccer sprints into CCS season

Winning as one STORY SERENA S.

I

n the wake of senior nights and rivalry games, the promise of playoffs on the horizon as the winter sports regular season comes to an end. For the 16-player boys basketball team, this means they will soon have to say goodbye to their seven senior players who have been core to the team’s development and chemistry.

“We have what I would characterize as a ‘big brother little brother’ bonding,” said head coach Barry Treseler. “The seniors definitely take the lead and they have done that again this year while bringing younger guys along.”

Nathan L. ’23 has been on the varsity team since his sophomore year and believes the seniors were central to his experience and growth as a player. He reflected on how he and his teammates will have large shoes to fill next season. “[The seniors] set a gold standard of what leadership should be and I just hope I can emulate that for the incoming players,” he said.

Finishing off the regular season with a record of 10-2 and as second in league, the team is going into Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs, embracing and appreciating the opportunity to compete and doing it “as one.”

“We either win as one or lose as one… we don't point fingers at each other when things go wrong and that has been something that has set us up for success,” Treseler said.

Nathan’s hope is to “cherish every moment” as COVID-19’s interruption altered last year’s season and prevented the normalcy of frequent matches and team gatherings.

“We’re going to enjoy the game. Enjoy what it brings, enjoy what it brings to your teammates,” Treseler said, echoing Nathan’s sentiments about CCS. “We’re going to give everything [we’ve] got knowing that [we] have a chance to win a championship.”

STORY AARON H.

I

n the games preceding the Central Coast Section (CCS) playoffs, the girls soccer team confidently overtook Summit Preparatory on Feb. 5 for the second time this season with a final score of 6-0, easily dominated 8-0 against Cristo Rey on Feb. 4, and on Feb 3. edged out Design Tech 2-0 for the win. This was the three game win streak the girls soccer team had as they faced school rivals and non-league team Crystal Springs on Feb. 9, but unfortunately lost 2-0.

But a few losses after such a dominating season has not prevented the girls soccer team from making CCS for the third year in a row.

“We have put in a lot of work and effort to be here, while also bonding

SPORTS

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throughout the season,” said center defender Zoe B. ’24. “The team has an extremely positive outlook towards CCS and we know it’ll be a hard journey.”

Going into CCS the team is undefeated in the PSAL North League with a 7-0 record and an 8-3 overall record. This season is most reminiscent of their 2019-2020 season in terms of win percentage, where they were similarly undefeated in the league 10-0.

Gotta get your head in the game STORY SERENA S.

F

inishing off their regular season with a record of 5-4 and as the fourth seed in the league, the 13-player girls basketball team has immensely grown since the early days of their season.

While the team took some time to find their chemistry, Emma M. ’22, one of the captains, believes they are now “more of a unit than [they’ve] ever been.” and commented on how “every person is stepping into their own skill set.”

Off the court, a large part of this bonding manifests during away games, van rides blasting Taylor Swift, and a spontaneous trip to watch the sunset after a match in Pescadero—one of the most memorable moments of the entire season for the players.

Along with the rise of team bonding, head coach Larisa Nakasone emphasizes basketball as much of a mental sport as it is a physical one.

From pregame visualization exercises to five-minute meditation breaks at the end of practice, the team feels the added focus on mindset has been incredibly beneficial.

“I think it has helped us grow as players but also grow as people,” said captain Anya P. ’22. “If you see yourself making a free throw, it actually translates to how you behave on the court.”

The team’s senior night on Feb. 9 proved to be bittersweet with five players graduating and leaving the team next season.

Anya, who has been on the team since her freshman year, is sad to say goodbye but also believes that much good can also come from her and the rest of the senior’s departure.

“I think that us not being there is going to give a really great opportunity for some of the other players who aren't as comfortable or confident to step up and take that place of leadership, to find their spot on the court and on the team,” Anya said.

Although the team is currently unsure of whether they will play in the California Coast Section (CCS) playoffs, their goals for any upcoming games remain the same: have fun and make sure to get your head in the game.

STORY AMIYA M.

S

ilhouettes pinned under giant field lights and the sound of soccer cleats sprinting over turf fills the air with thrilling exhilaration.

The field is white-washed, wild, and adrenaline-powered, echoing with cheers—it’s nights like these that the boy’s soccer team especially looks forward to.

The team has closed in on historically strong sports school Summit Shasta, beating the Daly City team 2-0 on Feb. 4. Their coach, Sergio Rivera, was absent from the match, but following the lead of senior captains Ayaan B., Coby W,, and Yahli E., the team overcame all hurdles and blazed into victory.

Sophomore Gabriel A. ’24 recalled that after the game, a little kid who he didn’t recognize tapped him on the shoulder and asked for a photograph.

“Maybe he thought we were famous,” Gabriel joked.

Yet their success on the field was rooted in a foundation of strong team bonding.

“The community of the team is extremely supportive, and we all push each other to play our best,” Landon X. ’25 said. “Part of this great atmosphere

is created and set by the seniors, especially the captains and coaches.”

“Our [athletics] program’s about experience … about growth, about really making some meaningful memories that stick with us,” said Athletics Director Chris Wade.

Now well-acquainted with the stillongoing pandemic, the boys soccer team has found a way to carry on the goals of the Nueva athletics program. More students are participating, building a good culture, and roster numbers have continued to grow. Despite the COVID concerns, only one game this season was postponed. Wade also applauded the work of Rivera, who only in his second year of coaching the team, has revitalized the team after last year’s COVID-restrained athletics.

This season has been upand-down, filled with some successful and disappointing moments, but for Wade, it was “really moving and

empowering to see [the] students walk away from a result where they did their best.”

When asked, Logan X. ’25 agreed: “We haven't won every game but I've enjoyed every step along the way no matter win or loss. We always have each other's backs and always pick each other up when we're down, the support everyone gives each other is amazing.”

On Friday, Feb. 11, in their Senior Night game against ACE Charter High School, the Mavericks won 9-0.

Each of the nine seniors on the team scored one of the

goals, including goalie Sam R. ’22.

“It was an incredible feeling,” said Sam T. ’22, who joined the team this year.

“None of us were expecting to end our season on such a high note.”

THE NUEVA SCHOOL . 131 E. 28TH AVE., SAN MATEO, CA 94403

The community of the boys soccer team: how teamwork bolsters victory

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Beloved athletic trainer takes on new role: motherhood

After five years of taking care of students, Mallory Celaya Alviso focuses on welcoming first child STORY AARON H. PHOTO NUEVA ATHLETICS

D

own a lengthy hall, past five restrooms, and one office, students for the past five and a half years could find US/MS Athletic Trainer Mallory Celaya Alviso. And if she wasn’t in her office, Alviso—and her stuffed medical bag—was most likely at a Nueva sports game cheering on fellow Mavericks.

However, despite her many years at Nueva, Alviso will part ways with Nueva on Feb. 28 in preparation to welcome her first child into the world.

“It’s bittersweet,” Alviso said. “It is hard to leave Nueva after so long, but I am excited to start a new chapter.”

For students, her departure is more bitter than sweet. Nathan L. ’23, who visited Alviso’s office on many occasions, will miss being able to meet with her.

“I was sad about my injury, but Mallory cheered me up,” Liao said. “She talked about high school crushes and it was funny. She has always been helpful, supportive, and caring. I wish her and her [future] child the best.”

Deebo does it all STORY SAM TATEOSIAN PHOTO NFL

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O

ne of the most undeniably powerful moments from the 2021-2022 NFL season was Deebo Samuel slumped forward with Odell Beckham Jr. consoling him after the 49ers’ loss in the AFC championship.

Over the last season, Samuel has shown how versatile he can be, finding himself high among the ranks of other multipositional players like Cordarelle Patterson and Taysom Hill. It was this skill that allowed him to be the single greatest contributing factor to the 49ers’ darkhorse deep playoff run this season.

Listed on the roster as a wide receiver, Samuel hauled the ball in a lot at the beginning of the season, racking up an impressive 882 receiving yards by the end of week nine with an incredible amount from yards after the catch. It was this outstanding ability that caught Shanahan’s attention, and in week 10 after the niners’ backfield was plagued with injuries, he began to create run plays designed for

Paul B. ’22 is another student who has visited Alviso “a million times.”

“My favorite Mallory visit was when I asked about my thumb hurting and she said, ‘it’s starting to fall off,’” Paul recalled. “She has always been super supportive and positive and full of energy, and she always comes to all of our [basketball] games and is ready to help us.”

Many of Alviso’s favorite moments from her time at Nueva are the times she spent with students—in her office, driving students to games and practices, on courts and on sidelines.

“Having those moments where students joke around with you is really nice,” Alviso said. “Just getting to know students each time they come in, not just as an athlete but as a person, is awesome.”

Although her role centered around supporting student athletes, Alviso’s impact was widespread within the athletic community.

“Mallory has been like a sapphire to Nueva,” upper school history teacher and boys varsity basketball head coach Barry Treseler said.

Treseler and Alviso have gotten

POWER TRIO Together, PreK-12 Athletic Director Chris Wade, Mallory Celaya Alviso, and Director of Track/Cross Country Robert Lopez helped to expand Nueva's athletic program offerings and oversaw the pause and then return of athletics activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

to know each other over the three seasons Treseler has been head coach and, according to Treseler, “the dozens of players a year,” he sends to her.

Although Alviso will not miss the swarm of students in need of KT Tape as soon as the clock strikes 3:10 p.m., she longs to continue “watching students grow, being a part of that growth, and seeing the athletics flourish.”

However, this may not be the permanent end to her time at Nueva.

Alviso writes in an email to the community, “Who knows, when the time is right, perhaps I might be back on the sidelines rooting on our Mavs once again.” Until then, au revoir, Mallory Celaya Alviso.

LETS GO MAVS Alviso cheers on the boys varsity soccer team in full Nueva gear.

The San Francisco 49er’s star wide receiver has been crucial in every part of the offense Samuel, signaling a new start for the 49ers offense.

In the Niners’ next game against the Los Angeles Rams, Samuel caught the ball for 97 yards, an impressive accomplishment for any wide receiver, but also he was able to gain 36 yards on five rushing attempts. By comparison, Indianapolis Colts running back Jonathan Taylor, this season’s leader in rushing yards and yards per carry, averaged five-and-a-half yards per carry. Of course, Samuel’s average of 7.2 yards per carry comes from a much smaller sample size, but it’s still nothing to scoff at.

After week 10, Samuel continued to baffle defenses by putting up impressive numbers, with a season high 79 yards in the very next game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

However, possibly his most impactful play came in the 49er’s final regular season game to clinch a spot in the playoffs. The game started off depressingly bleak with the Los Angeles Rams taking a 17 point lead before halftime. In one of the most A STRONG START Tyshun "Deebo" Samuel had racked up 882 receiving yards by the end of week nine, leading coach Kyle Shanahan to design run plays for Samuel

electric games of the season, Kyle Shanahan deftly guided his team to score 10 unanswered points.

Still down seven points with time running out, Samuel and the Niners needed a big play to keep their playoff hopes alive. On what seemed like just another run, quarterback Jimmy Garopollo handed Samuel the ball on the Ram’s 24-yard line. Instead of barreling through defenders and weaving his way down the field like fans have come to expect, Samuel stopped short of the line of scrimmage, and just as he was about to be steamrolled by eighttime Pro-Bowler Von Miller, he let the ball fly. Samuel’s throw zipped directly into the hands of a wide-open Jauan Jennings, who stumbled backwards into the endzone, tying the game at 17 points apiece.

Later in the game, Samuel had another game-changing play when down seven again, the Niners battled down the field. Garopollo’s 44 yard connection to Samuel was instrumental in setting up the game-tying touchdown that would send the game to overtime and cause a 49ers win.

Although San Francisco ultimately fell in the NFC championship, none of their success would’ve come without their star wide receiver, running back, (quarterback?) and now, the best “wide back” in the NFL.