Jenny Zhang

Football team reaches CCS playoffs.

This year 22 lucky students got to spend the last six days of their spring break with history teachers Matt Torrens and Kim Anzalone on a Wild Wild West trip to Utah where they jeeped, rappelled, hiked, biked, and did various fun outdoor activities. Open to all juniors and seniors, this history trip was organized by Torrens for the fourth time, allowing students to visit a Japanese Relocation Camp, touch a piece of B-52 that carried a nuclear bomb and crashed, look at 500-year-old Native American petroglyphs, see dinosaur footprints and participate in fun outdoor activities.

For the first time in school history, each position for next year's ASB had only one candidate and everyone ran unopposed.

"All right everyone, take out the 2006 AIME so we can go over the answers!" yells junior Amol Aggarwal over the group of students settling into their seats in adviser PJ Yim's classroom. Slowly, they reach into their backpacks and pull out their tests, and the practice session begins.

What act, in an effort to boost the economy, made available millions of dollars to help farmers meet their mortgages by giving them compensation for not producing certain crops? That would be the Agricultural Adjustment Act, of course, and on March 16 and 17, AP US History teacher Matt Torrens made sure his students knew this lesson.

You win some, you lose some. No one understands this more than the boys' basketball team, which saw its hopes of a CCS berth fade away in the waning seconds of a Feb. 12 game against rival Lynbrook Vikings. Entering the crucial game with a 4-6 record, the Falcons had hopes of defeating a Lynbrook team they had obliterated 61-38 on Dec. 18 and edged 76-61 more recently on Jan. 22.

With just under 30 seconds remaining in a crucial league matchup, raucous chants of "T-I-N-O! T-I-N-O!" echoed about the Cupertino High gymnasium on Jan. 29. But moments later, the only noise was the sound of Pioneer fans filing out the door in disappointment, as the visiting Falcons boys' basketball team managed a last-second victory against host Cupertino.

First introduced to last year's sophomore class, the Media Arts Program, or MAP, has grown to include three engaging new electives for second-year Media Arts students: advanced animation and two video production classes: filmmaking and multimedia journalism.

After a slow 1-7 start, the boys' basketball team finished the non-league season strong, posting a 3-1 record over the winter break. This four-game surge came at a good time for the Falcons, who rolled into their first league game versus Cupertino with some positive momentum. Saratoga's winning ways continued against the Cupertino Pioneers, as senior shooting guard Daniel Chou exploded for a career-high 27 points on six three-pointers while shooting an astounding 71 percent from the field.

The boys' basketball team kicked off its season with a fourth-place finish at the Westmont Invitational during the week of Dec. 1-4. "The team is doing all right," said junior forward Kent Paisley. "We're a young group of kids and we're learning our way through varsity." For the Falcons, the week began with an electrifying 54-50 win over the Prospect Panthers, keyed by junior point guard Alex Chan's clutch one-and-one free throws to put the game away.

It's not every year that a freshman gets to play on a varsity squad. This year there are two freshmen on the boys' basketball team: forwards Stevie Berman and Kyle Dozier. Neither expected to play at the top level, but both ended up donning varsity jerseys. "I got moved up in the summer [league], but I didn't think I would make it," said the 6'1" Berman, who has been playing basketball since third grade. Coach Trevor Naas decided to include the boys on varsity after seeing them play over the summer and during tryouts.

As the 2009-10 winter sports season kicks off, the boys' basketball team has high aims, despite having only four returning seniors. The Falcons will look to improve on last season's 11-15 overall record (4-7 league finish) under the direction of second-year varsity coach Trevor Naas. They also have hopes of trumping last year's first-round CCS playoff exit. To achieve these goals, they will strongly rely on three of their seniors for leadership on the court.

This year, after an unanimous vote among the seven members of the elections commission, voting returned to the classrooms for freshman elections at the start of the school year. Last year, ASB and class elections took place in the quad during lunch, an experiment that received mixed responses from students.

As many schools across the state prepare to let teachers go and cut programs next year, SHS students will have much the same school experience as they had this year. Though bracing for additional cuts this summer, the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School District (LGSUHSD) put together a balanced budget for next year that eliminates no staff and keeps classes roughly the same size as this year.

For three years, statistics teacher Seema Patel has wanted to participate in the inspirational Susan G. Komen three-day Breast cancer walk, but because of the large time and monetary commitments involved, she put it off. This year, however, Patel had a different attitude entirely.

The fate of the California budget will rest in the hands of voters as Propositions 1A-F are on the ballot for a state-wide special election on May 19. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with the State Legislature, authorized these elections as part of a budget signed into law on Feb. 19. Failure to pass any one of the first five propositions will have a direct effect on the state budget and result in a budget hole that the governor and legislators will need to fix, while failure to pass the sixth proposition will not directly impact the state budget, said district superintendent Cary Matsuoka.

As hopeful students apply for Link Crew over the next few weeks, returning Link Crew Leaders may realize that the application process has become much more selective than in previous years.

After being displayed in San Francisco for several months, poems about downtown Baghdad’s famous Mutanabbi Street, written last year by Judith Sutton’s Poetry 1-3 classes, are back at Saratoga High. The poems were on display at the Saratoga Community Library last year to commemorate the one-year mark for the tragic incident and were on display in the school library from Feb. 27 to Mar. 6 this year for the event’s second anniversary.

As part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget plan, the Los Gatos-Saratoga High School District (LGSUHSD) may soon be forced to cut its budget mid-year by 4.6 percent, or $1.3 million, according to superintendent Cary Matsuoka.

After years of lacking courts during the off-season, basketball players will finally be able to play year-round on a brand new state-of-the-art outdoor court to be installed by the end of the year. The idea, nicknamed “Court of Dreams,” was introduced by girls’ basketball coach Mike Davey last year. “Ever since I’ve been here,” said Davey, “we’ve always had a problem finding a place to practice during the off- season when everyone is trying to use the gym at once, so I think this is something we really need.”

If you walk into some teachers’ classrooms this time of year, you can see a steadily growing pile of toilet paper, canned foods, toys, children’s books, toiletries, clothes, hangers, school supplies and any other donations students have brought in on the back table of their rooms, ready to be sent to charities. These donations have piled up for one main reason: extra credit. But is it OK to use extra credit this way?

Millions of Americans looked to the presidential election with eager eyes on Nov. 4, hoping for change. In California, some of that change came as an affront to supporters of gay and lesbian rights, including many students. Proposition 8 stated “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” At midnight on Nov. 4, the proposition was passed, effectively banning same-sex marriages. As the most expensive proposition on the ballot this year, the results were anticipated by many voters, which turned out to be 52.4 percent for and 47.6 percent against.

As students and teachers enter the seventh week of the school year, many are beginning to feel the accumulated stress of almost two grading periods without a break. The schedule this year does not give a day off for 10 weeks between Labor Day and Veteran’s Day on Nov. 11. This has left both students and staff in need of a break.

When senior Aaron Garg walked into the spotlight of the McAfee Center on Sept. 28, he instantly felt all eyes turn on him. He was calm and focused as he prepared to begin his solo concert. As the orchestra behind him started to play, Garg lifted his Chinese flute and began the first song. Finally, after months of dedicated practice, his moment was here. In the show, Garg performed his solo debut “A Musical Journey Through East and West.” The California Youth Chinese Symphony (CYCS), a Chinese orchestra with about 50 members that uses traditional Chinese music and instruments, accompanied Garg.

The College and Career Center opened on Sept. 2 with a goal of getting more students to come. New staff member Bonnie Sheikh and numerous parent volunteers are helping to raise awareness and get more students to attend the college speaker sessions.