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LIFESTYLE 9 SCHOOL SCOPE 12-13 SPORTS 19 Reporters Students Cultural Non-Profit discuss their explore art activities Organization U.S. Postage strangest in a STEM- connect PAID superstitions focused school students to Saratoga, CA Permit No. 41 and beliefs. environment. heritage. THE saratogafalconAN INDEPENDENT HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICATION Friday, December 13, 2019 Saratoga High School Saratoga, CA saratogafalcon.org Vol. 60, No. 6 Applying Mosh madness: admin to 30+ combats aggressive colleges UPHILL clustering at dances no longer BY SofiaJones ing. Eventually the dozens on & KavitaSundaram the dance floor began moshing even though administrators have unheard of Last Saturday, about 560 stu- banned it last year. dents walked into the Large Gym Moshing is an aggressive style BY SelenaLiu BATTLE and were greeted with of dance where partici- & KevinSze decorations that included pants push or slam into oversized white curtains, each other. It usually hap- After most early-decision and “It’s letting chandeliers, flashing pens in the center of a early-action college deadlines parents know, ‘I lights and gold and white crowd. Although deeply came and went on Nov. 1, many couches for the Roaring discouraged by the ad- seniors are now halfway com- know you were 20s themed Winter For- ministration, it has oc- plete with the college application mal. A photo booth with curred numerous times process and are finishing college great at physics, a silver sparkly backdrop in on-campus dances, essays for their regular decision but it doesn’t provided students with Torrens despite the physical harm schools. on-theme photo oppor- it can cause. Senior Prosper Chiu, who is necessarily mean tunities. The very first moshing applying to 14 colleges in total, However, the fun and casual incident that sparked turmoil including the combined Univer- that AP Physics is atmosphere soon became more sity of California application, says chaotic as the music started play- MOSHING on pg. 4 he has been much less busy writ- the right class for ing essays after submitting all his your child.’” early-decision and early-action applications. — Guidance Counselor “Right now my workload is Alinna Satake Finals schedule altered not that much, since I have fewer colleges on my plate. I mainly just have UCs and four other colleges to meet learning minutes to complete,” Chiu said. “Personal- ly, this semester, I don’t think I had ACADEMIC that stressful of a time compared OVERREACHING BY AlekhyaVadlakonda The revised finals week sched- to other students, mainly because & MichaelWong ule slots the period six final on I finished most of my applications LEADS TO WIDE-RANGING PROBLEMS Monday from 1:25-3:25 p.m. in the summer.” Students will be spending more For Tuesday to Thursday, the According to a Facebook poll BY PrestonFu since we had more time to ask time on campus next week dur- first final of the day will be from & JeanetteZhou questions.” ing finals as well as during spring 8:15-10:15 a.m., tutorial from COLLEGE on pg. 4 Out of 1,134 schedule semester finals because of the dis- 10:15-10:55 a.m. and the second On Aug. 15, the first day change occurrences in the first trict’s concerns over Saratoga High final from 11-1 p.m. — 25 minutes of school, sophomore Ashlyn six weeks of school this year, and Los Gatos High not meeting later than the original schedule Pham was excited to find out 146 students replaced an Hon- the state-mandated number of in- called for. that many of her friends were in ors or AP class with a regular structional minutes for the year. Though students have already How many colleges her first-period Algebra 2 class class, according to registrar For Monday’s schedule, classes adjusted to new tutorial policies are class of 2020 with teacher Kristen Hamilton, Robert Wise. that were originally 25 minutes introduced at the beginning of the seniors applying which at that point had fewer This left guidance counsel- have been extended to 33 minutes. year to ensure more instructional to? than 20 students. ors scrambling: They needed to In addition, there is now a 40-min- minutes, district and school staff Over the next few weeks, rearrange individual students’ ute tutorial between morning fi- two new students joined after schedules, stuffing them into nals Tuesday through Thursday. SCHEDULE on pg. 2 3.7% —applying to ≤ 5 dropping their far more chal- nearly full regular classes as lenging Algebra 2 Honors. One quickly as possible. month later, 10 more students Because of the school’s 5.5% —applying to 6-10 also joined after dropping their open-access policy, students honors class just before the have the freedom to take al- school’s drop deadline. Start- most advanced, grade-level REVISED FALL FINALS —applying ing in mid-September, the class classes they want, even if their 25.9% to 11-15 had roughly doubled in size former teachers recommend and had an entirely different they avoid an Honors or AP SCHEdule dynamic than on the first day class. of school. In theory, this can benefit Monday Tuesday —applying Pham noticed the transition students in allowing them to 33.3% to 16-20 for the new students seemed a take harder classes and expand All periods are Period 5 Final little rough, since they had a lot their horizons. 33 minutes long 8:15-10:15 of work to catch up on. She also But, the policy sometimes Period 6 Final Period 7 Final —applying saw that the increase of kids in results in students overestimat- 1:25-3:25 11:00-1:00 25.9% to 21-25 the class made it tougher for ing their own abilities and not Hamilton to teach the way she observing the consequences of Wednesday had with fewer students in the changing class levels — conse- Thursday 3.7% —applying to 26-30 class. quences that trickle down to Period 2 Final Period 1 Final “Once the class grew, I didn’t the entire school. 8:15-10:15 8:15-10:15 get as much of the teacher’s at- Period 4 Final Period 3 Final tention,” Pham said. ”I liked OVERREACHING 11:00-1:00 11:00-1:00 1.8% —applying to ≥ 31 it more with the smaller class OVERREACH on pg. 3 ACCORDING TO A FACEBOOK POLL on pg. 3 OF 53 RESPONDENTS GRAPHIC BY ROHAN KUMAR AND AMANDA ZHU NEWS 1-5 OPINION 6-8 LIFESTYLES 9-11 SCHOOL SCOPE 12-13 ENTERTAINMENT 14 IN-DEPTH 15-16 SPORTS 17-19 BACKPAGE 20 The Saratoga Falcon The Saratoga Falcon 2 NEWS December 13, 2019 December 13, 2019 NEWS 3 picturethis Maintenance, green team to start composting BY CiciXu soil through the decay of organic materials like food waste. The resulting nutrient-rich newsbriefs The two gray trash cans behind the soil can be sold to the landscape industry or science building are not regular trash bins, used gardening around campus. Items that but instead are the school’s first two compost can be composted on campus include fruit bins. Eventually they will be put into the peels, cores, dead plants, pasta and other 2018-19 Falcon wins Crown Award from CSPA quad and used in an effort to reduce waste wasted food resulting from lunches. on campus. The Green Team environmental Weir and the Green Team envision The Columbia Scholastic Press Association will be pre- club, new maintenance supervisor Paul this project to be organized and run by senting last year’s newspaper staff with the prestigious Weir and administrators are working to students — something Weird calls “student- Crown Award at its 96th annual Scholastic Convention on make composting a part of the school’s mentored.” March 20. The award recognizes top student publications culture. The project could launch “When I say mentor, I’ve never across the nation and is bestowed based on overall quality as early as the end of December. seen a recycling program really in head-to-head comparisons. Crown Judges — experienced Composting, while common for be successful without somebody journalism advisers and media professionals — gather to many households in the Bay Area, owning it and fostering it like a judge publication characteristics such as design, photogra- is rare at schools, where thousands garden, tending, keeping attention phy, concept, coverage and writing. FALCON // SEAN OH of pounds of compostable material and making it seem important to The Falcon has been announced as one of the 97 news MAGNIFIQUE! | French teacher Elaine Haggerty hands sophomore Christopher Okuno a Triple E Award on goes into the trash each year. get people to participate,” Weir SOURCE: planetforward.org finalists for the award and will be presented with either the Dec. 10. Among others, junior Juan Vintimilla and sophomore Giulio Morini-Bianzino were awarded. “I don’t think there are any said. “If you just put bins out “By implementing compost in more concern that composting on campus would Gold or Silver Crown Award. It is one of 59 publications se- high schools around here that are there that are marked trash and areas, we can take out a lot of that trash and not cause a big change to the surrounding lected in the print and hybrid publication category. composting, so we would be one of recycling, they’re both going to be turn it back into fertilizer and give it back environment, but it shows progress and This is the first time the Falcon has won in this category; the first ones,” Weir said, “We’d be Weir overflowing with trash.” to the earth as opposed to letting it rot and a promising future in building a greener in the past, it has only won as a pure print publication.

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