Devin Zhao

The no-homework weekend during Spring Fling week proved to be more stressful than stress-free. 

A boys’ bathroom at SHS looks no different from any other male public restroom; there are urinals, a stall for privacy and sinks to wash hands.

This year, the price of taking an AP exam has risen to a whopping $91. While the price increase is won’t bankrupt anyone by itself, it is disproportionately high compared to the benefits the score provides.

Saratoga High's AP Lang class is one of the few that largely centers on a nonfictional curriculum, mainly on philosophy.

Twenty-five marine biology and AP Biology students took a trip to Catalina Island from Jan. 16-18.

As part of Speak Up for Change Week, the school held two assemblies, which featured a variety of speakers who shared their stories with students.

When I first made the New Year’s resolution to be nicer, I didn’t know what to expect.

The Falcons beat the Palo Alto Vikings 41-33 on Nov. 14, securing a coveted spot in the CCS playoffs — a feat they last accomplished two years ago. 

Nine juniors this year are taking AP European History as well as AP U.S. History.

Reading manga and watching anime are frequently pastimes enjoyed by a large number of students who enjoy the action and comedy woven into plotlines. When the ending of a big-name series was announced, there was some well-warranted panic among its regular viewers.

In a high-scoring contest, the Falcons generated their second win of the season against Santa Clara on Oct. 3 with a score of 41-35. However, that bright spot was demolished by a 49-0 loss to Milipitas on Oct. 10, putting the Falcons’overall record at 2-3 and their league record at 1-1.

Saratoga alumni reflect on their experiences at community colleges.

The football team last season had lots of talent in many key positions, but multiple injuries and their inability to work together to secure key wins hindered them from performing decently in their league.

Music students were pleasantly surprised on the first day of school with the addition of two new faces to the teaching staff: teacher Anthony Lanzino and student teacher Jonathan Hsu.

Traditionally, Government and Economics have been taught as semester-long classes with different teachers. Starting this year, though, that model has changed, and both are now year-long courses with an AP Government option.

The Falcons have improved from the previous year with a 10-6 overall record and a 6-6 record in the El Camino League, beating Leland and Carlmont but losing to Sequoia, Gunn and Los Altos.

Sophomore Alice He, eyes glued to a computer screen and ears encased in a set of cheap headphones, was shaking with nervousness as she clicked the button to launch her AP Chinese Language and Culture test at the AP test date this year.  

Reporter presents the process of becoming a manga addict.

Juniors got a sneak peek into a new era of computer-based testing that requires more advanced thinking skills when they took the Smarter Balance training tests during the week of April 21.

A school repair bond, which covers funding for possible renovations for both Saratoga High School and Los Gatos High School and requires 55 percent of voters to pass, is on the June 3 ballot. If passed, $99 million would be given to both schools for renovations and upgrading current technology.

Competing in the Percussion Scholastic Open category of the Northern California Percussion Alliance (NCPA) championship, the winter percussion ensemble placed third behind Amador Valley and Live Oak high schools, the other schools in their division.

During the awards ceremony of the national qualifying tournament, junior Deepti Kannan and three other competitors from Bellarmine were called as finalists in Lincoln-Douglas debate.

“I will bet anybody five dollars that at the end of the first movement [of Maslanka’s ‘Give Us This Day’ Symphony], somebody is going to clap,” musical director Michael Boitz declared to the Symphonic Wind Ensemble the period before the March 7 performance.

With a 18-15 loss against Woodside, a 15-12 loss against Los Altos and a 11-9 win against Carlmont, the Falcons are going strong with a 5-3 overall record and a 1-2 league score, earning them fifth place in the El Camino Lacrosse League. Lead scorers include senior Tony Capek and Clark Rothenburg. Seniors Billy Hanford and Tim Fisher and junior Gino Caloiaro are leading the defensive side of the field.

With CMEA and other events , musicians were busy, busy, busy.

Last June, 16-year-old Ethan Couch, with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.24, three times the legal concentration of an adult, and loaded with THC and Valine, veered off the road into cars and people in Fort Worth, Texas. The crash killed four people. Two teens in Couch’s car were severely injured.

Limiting the number of APs at schools can limit student's college opportunities.

This year, the boys' lacrosse team wishes to beat Gunn and make CCS.

Assistant principal Kerry Mohnike pointed to a sentence projected onto a board. “She went to the doctor,” said Mohnike, slowly and carefully articulating each word. Thirty-one students — all of them adults — stared at the board, carefully listening to Mohnike’s pronunciation of the sentence. “She went to the doctor,” a medley of assorted accents chanted back. 

Last year, the school district proposed BP 6146.1, a new policy that required all Saratoga High freshmen to take P.E. But it caused much controversy among many students, parents, coaches, and others, mainly from athletics and band, that it was not successfully passed.  

On the frigid field of Chabot College in Hayward, the marching band received third place in its class in the seventh annual WBA Valley Christian Quest Classic on Oct. 19.

What is this magical “curving” that saves grades from plummeting after a hard test and even boosts some students’ grades above the 100 percent mark? Curving is the distribution of grades among a class to form a bell curve, but to students, it means a whole lot more. 

The app Flow Free, rated an average of 4.6 out of 5 by 208,000 people on the Android Market, is a highly addictive Flash game where players draw “pipelines” connecting dots of different colors together. However, the pipelines cannot intrude on the boundaries of pipelines of other colors, and all the spaces on the grid have to be used.

Steroid testing is common in major league sports, but why aren't we testing for steroids in high school? The proof is there that steroids can be detrimental to students' health.

Imagine a museum built from former quarry buildings, versatile trails that support bicycles and horses as well as pedestrians, a zip line course, a fishing pond and a playground for young children surrounded by lush, colorful flora. All of these are possible attractions for a new park in Saratoga.

As students walk from class to class in their daily struggle of schoolwork and after-school activities, most are probably not aware of the facility renovations that took place over the summer to brighten up the school. 

Taiwan’s top education officials, led by Under Secretary for Education in New Taipei City Gong YaWen, visited the school and observed American education at work on Sept. 11. 

The class of 2017 now has its first group of leaders, a group that emerged from a heated election.

When I come home from school, my favorite pastime is to check notifications on my Facebook account while simultaneously watching new videos posted by my favorite YouTube channels.  So when I pledged to not use Facebook or YouTube for a week as a challenge for newspaper, my self-control was truly tested. To make matters worse, the week included Labor Day weekend with its three days of boredom. 

Honors credit is a magical thing. Got a B in an honors class? It’s now an A. Got an A? It’ll turn into something beyond an A+.

As the school year starts, education in California and across the nation is steadily changing to adapt to Common Core, a set of standards that seeks to unify materials, philosophies and assessments for all participating states by 2015.

Before the fabulous inventions of mobile applications and video games, TV was often my only form of entertainment. While I did have my favorite shows, such as “Crime Scene Investigation: Los Angeles” or “Hell’s Kitchen,” I mostly found myself flipping through dozens of TV shows that often had no point or value. 

In recent weeks, Saratoga High and district administrators have come under increasing fire for their decisions in the weeks following the suicide of sophomore Audrie Pott last September.

At the League meet held on May 1-2, diver Lukas Andreasen, eight individual event qualifiers and five relay-only swimmers made the cut for CCS, and the team placed fifth out of seven schools. 

They told him that he was too small. In 2003, Taylor Hooton was guaranteed to be in the starting rotation for Texas’s Plano West Senior High School’s baseball team. Yet, when his coaches started pressuring him to gain weight, Hooton made a decision that ultimately changed his life.

On May 5, Saratoga High will be hosting its annual Pancake Breakfast. The event, taking place from 8 a.m. from noon, features an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and live concerts from the school choir, band and orchestra along with musical groups from Redwood Middle School. 

“Why did you make these simple mistakes? How are you going to improve next time?” my mom threateningly asked me while going over test scores, her every word nipping on my mind.

What do a silly web series called “The Cyanide and Happiness Show” and the Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Sun Come Up” have in common?

As a full-fledged member of the varsity boys' swim team, sophomore Randy Tsai sports a thin, muscular build.

Every morning, AP Environmental Science and Biology teacher Kristen Thomson wakes up at 5:23 in her home in Santa Cruz. By 6:45, she has left her house to drop off her kids at the daycare.

It is hard to imagine that the necessity of Health/Driver’s Ed, a class crucial for the easily influenced teenage mind, could come into question; however, with a weakening annual budget and the high cost of classrooms and material, this could be the case.

As the competition dates of the California Music Education Association’s (CMEA) Solo and Ensemble festival near, students are busy preparing for and anticipating the fateful day.

On Dec. 13 at around 6:39 a.m., the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department learned about a potential bomb threat at Monta Vista High School.  

The Ethics Bowl team will compete in the California Regional High School Ethics Bowl Competition on Feb. 2.

Junior Kristy Lin needed a copy of the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” to help her finish her Independent Reading project due the week before finals for English.

On Dec. 10, instead of teaching World History and US History classes, teacher Jim Chin fulfilled his civil obligations by serving jury duty.

Dear year of 2012, I just wanted to thank you for not ending the world on December 21st, but instead changing it so that generations of 2013 and after can live in better conditions than today.

Band member Devin Zhao records his experiences during the Macy's Day Parade. 

Band member Devin Zhao's second recording of his experiences at the Macy's Day Parade. 

Devin Zhao's final story about his Macy's Day Parade Experiences

Which is the more time-consuming activity: marching band or football?

Four students, their identities kept a secret, were chosen by  spirit commissioner Jaya Narasimhan and assistant principal Kerry Mohnike to play the role of Freddie the Falcon, the school mascot. Tryouts for Freddie the Falcon were on Sept. 20 and 21.

Junior Bryan Chow grabs his clarinet as he makes his way to yet another three and a half hour Wednesday band rehearsal starting at 5:30 p.m. 

After months of careful planning by the music department, the members of the school’s choirs embarked on an ambitious tour in Italy this past summer, from July 5 to 18. Over the course of two weeks, 65 students traveled from Rome to Siena and performed at various locations on the way. 

When one imagines a glutton, someone plump usually comes to mind. Sophomore Anish Srinivasan’s lean 6 foot, 140- pound  frame makes one think quite the opposite.