Ketaki Shriram

Last November California voters voted in favor of Proposition 8, which reversed a previous state ruling that gay marriage was legal. It was a shocking blow to supporters of gay rights and equality. The decision made by voters in California to restore and continue marriage discrimination in what has always been considered an open-minded state is shocking.

It’s the day before finals and an anxious junior logs onto Aeries in hopes of checking his multitude of borderline grades. The student attempts to calculate the scores she needs on his semester exams to see how she should balance her study time for each of her subjects in order to secure grades that she finds acceptable. To her overwhelming dismay, the student discovers that Aeries is, in fact, entirely shut down. The district has deemed it prudent to shut down Aeries one week before the end of each grading period, a decision that has led students to have numerous headaches and panic attacks, making it a dubious necessity at best. Many students who enter finals with borderline scores are unable to check their grades and determine what score they require on a given final exam. Unfortunately, despite numerous complaints, the administration has been unresponsive to student angst regarding Aeries.

Venturing into the library, one is confronted by a vast array of students attempting to access standard sites on school computers, but to no avail. YouTube? Blocked. MySpace? Forbidden. Facebook? Access denied. The district has gone overboard in its quest to, according to the filter that appears when students attempt to access the aforementioned sites, ensure that students “should only be using school computers for educational purposes.”

After a long night of incessant partying and heavy drinking, a student finds himself with two options: spending the night on the host’s front lawn or risking death by hopping in a car with an alcohol-influenced driver, two decidedly less-than-pleasant choices. Soon, however, if a proposed plan to reinstitute the Safe Ride program at Saratoga High goes through, the student may have the far more preferable third option of chartering a volunteer to pick him up and drop him off at home, no questions asked.

The Celebrate Saratoga Street Dance, a popular and well-received event by all of Saratoga, has been changed this fall to appeal more to an older population. Celebrate Saratoga has been going on for 19 years, and last year entertained 30,000 people. It now will be called “Taste of Saratoga,” and will be held from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sept. 20, a change in timing dictated by the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce.

After a win over Los Gatos on April 2, the Falcons find themselves in second place in the De Anza league and in a good position for CCS, which begins May 6. Despite several injured players, the team has come out strong in the second half of their season, with better teamwork and more wins. Although they suffered a disappointing loss in the Charger Classic tournament in mid-April, the SHS team rallied to beat Mountain View the following week and kept their second-place ranking in the league.

After 12 years of competitive swimming , senior Hayes Hyde has chosen to take her sport to the college level. After being offered a position on the swimming team at Yale University, Hyde has accepted the recruitment and plans to swim all four years of college.

Following the announcement of assistant principal Gail Wasserman’s retirement, the school has named guidance counselor Brian Safine as her replacement, beginning in the 2008-09 school year. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to lead students at SHS,” said Safine. “I’m very happy about the direction the school has taken in the five years I’ve been here, and I’m happy to move that even further.”

The story first appeared in the March 21 issue of The Saratoga Falcon. At the end of this school year, the school will say goodbye to one of its most beloved staff members: assistant principal Gail Wasserman. She has chosen to retire at the end of this year after 36 years in local education. A replacement for Wasserman has not been found yet; the position has been advertised , and interviewing will begin in April. Staff and students alike are unwavering in their admiration of the assistant principal and contributions to the Saratoga school system.

The No Child Left Behind Act, originally enacted in 2002, promised many educational improvements for the youth of America. Underprivileged children had the hope of being educated as well as wealthier kids. Public schools all over America were curious as to how the bill would improve the education students received. Five years later, it appears that few of the original goals have been met. Congress has finally begun to rewrite the bill. Big mistake. The act needs to be cancelled to repair some of the troubles it has caused over the past five years.

This story was originally published in the April 4 edition of The Saratoga Falcon Boys’ volleyball is kicking it up a notch for the second half of their season, with easy wins and good overall performance against other schools in the De Anza league. “We’re working on our weaknesses and filling in for our losses because some people are injured,” said junior Shawyon Malek.