Parul Singh

The newly introduced PROTECT IP Act, or Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, PIPA for short, has caused a storm of controversy in the Internet community. And while the Senate’s intentions are sound in creating this act, their methods infringe upon basic freedoms that Americans hold dear.

Policy debate requires students to research a single topic for the duration of the year. A partner debate, policy consists of four 8-minute speeches followed by four 5-minute speeches. To be successful, teams must accumulate hundreds of pieces of evidence to support their arguments, Haran said. This year, policy debaters will be weighing pros and cons of U.S space exploration. Haran estimates that by now he has over a 1,000 pages of evidence supporting the increase of space exploration.

Twirling sticks, colorful dresses and loud Indian music are not typically seen at Redwood Middle School. However, on the night of Oct. 7, the third annual Saratoga Dandia took place in the Redwood multi-purpose room.

In recent years, the school’s debate team has only offered Public Forum, Congress and Parliamentary debate for its students to exercise their argumentative skills. This year, coach Erick Rector has decided to reinstate the much requested Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate to the team’s events.

Root beer floats, a picnic-style lunch and the opportunity to spend time with their Link Leaders attracted more than 300 freshmen to the upper field for the first annual Link Crew lunch on Oct. 12.

The parking violation: a five by three inch, neon yellow, highly adhesive sticker. The library fine: a seemingly mysterious dollar amount that just seems to keep increasing. But according to school officials, these notorious fines often evoke misplaced fear in students.

Ask a typical student whether they have taken music lessons, and most will say they have studied the piano or flute or violin at some point. But only two students at Saratoga have studied the harp.

New assistant principal Kevin Mount is hoping to “make discipline a positive learning experience” as he transitions into a job he did not expect to have this year.

Sports team captains often form the backbone of a team and are essential to a team’s success, offering motivation and encouragement to fellow team members. The road to becoming a captain, however, involves both dedication and hard work. Captains are either chosen by their coach or elected by their teammates, usually for their strength in leadership or their commitment to the team.

In an effort to go paperless, the special education department has begun the process of converting the paper files of all its students into electronic documents that will be stored on a comprehensive database. The project will significantly reduce the amount of paper currently in storage and allow for a greater ease of access to the files.

The thought of a school psychologist might conjure up images of therapy sessions, with ink-blot tests and probing personal questions. But Mark Atkinson, the school’s hard-working school psychologist and Link Crew coordinator, doesn't perform that kind of therapy.

After teaching at Saratoga High for 35 years, English teacher Paul Page thought he was finished and retired at the end of the 2008-2009 school year. But guess what? He’s back!

In early February of this year, a biology professor at the University of Alabama opened fire during a faculty meeting and killed three professors. The professor, Amy Bishop, was arrested and charged for murder. The twist, however, is that the shooting was provoked by the rejection Bishop's recent appeal for tenure.

The administration tested out a new pilot Wednesday bell schedule with tutorial between fourth and fifth period rather than after sixth on May 17 and May 24. Assistant principal Joe Bosco said the experimental schedule resulted from a schoolwide student survey, in which 63.8 percent of students answered that tutorials would be better utilized between fourth and fifth period and 62.5 percent of those who answered such said they would not mind having lunch 30 minutes later.

Imagine a person walking down a street, minding their own business, when suddenly a police officer appears out of nowhere and detains said person for the sole fact that they look Mexican. Sound unfair? Discriminatory? Well, under a new state state law passed in Arizona, this is exactly what law enforcement personnel could do.

"Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands and, maybe, nobody's ever seen/How many can you find?" The students in several different English classes looked up at the stage, listening in wonder to the words of Erica Goss.

Concussions, dislocated arms, pulled hamstrings; the list of injuries sustained by the Falcons goes on and on. Five starters, senior Adam Oreglia, juniors Alex Polcyn and James Hadid, sophomore Nicolas Doyen and freshman Chance Cox are all sidelined due to injury. "[The injuries happened] one after another and for the next two or three games we just had a really hard time coming back, but we won on Saturday against a team [Archbishop Mitty] that we probably shouldn't have," said Oreglia.

"And for individual paper, Stephen Louie." said the announcer. Honored and shocked, junior Stephen Louie was so amazed he started physically shaking as he went up to collect his ribbon at the annual Santa Clara County History Day competition. At the competition, which occurred on March 20 at Lincoln High School , Louie, along with 14 other Saratoga students qualified for the state History Day competition in Pasadena on May 8.

A Los Gatos lacrosse player sprints toward the goal, fakes left, fakes right, then swiftly heaves a 70-mile an hour toss at the net. While most people's reaction would be to duck or run, junior Gavin Peake calmly catches the ball in the mesh of his glove. As the sole goalie on the varsity lacrosse team, Peake is essential to the Falcons' success, yet most people forget just how much pressure rests on the shoulders of the goalie. "Sometimes it's all lot of pressure on me if we're in a close game, then the team blames me if I'm supposed to save it, but I understand that," said Peake.

Fraternities on the UC San Diego campus allegedly hosted a party mocking African Americans and Black History Month on Feb. 15. Dubbing the event the "Compton Cookout," the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity instructed attendees to wear clothing no smaller than extra-extra large and asked women to dress as "ghetto chicks" in an attempt to perpetuate racial stereotypes.

A chain reaction involving the economic crisis and rapidly falling education budgets has hit the teachers entering the field hard. While teachers already with a job are mostly manging to hang on to them, it has become increasingly difficult for new teachers to enter the field since most schools are not hiring.

The recent increase in accidents involving students, most notably one which involved the collision of four cars on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and another involving three cars in the school parking lot, has raised the concerns of the Saratoga community and caused many to question whether 16-year-olds should be alone on the road.

As the spring season begins, morale is high on the varsity boys lacrosse team. They have better players, a new coach and more effective practices. "[Head Coach Larry Boehm] is a lot better motivator than our old coach was. Our stick skills are definitely a lot better this year than last year," said senior co-captain and midfielder Danny Baldwin. According to Baldwin, not only is the new coach a better motivator, he is also knowledgeable about the game and is able to encourage the boys to try harder things to improve, according to Baldwin.

The recent release of the multi-billion dollar movie "Avatar" has become the highest grossing movie of all time but it has also sparked controversy from varied interest groups around the globe. The blue men with golden stripes. The lush, beautiful, and green environment. It seems like the Na'vi's world in the movie is a paradise to be envied—especially since here on Earth, the innocent world is under fire for about every controversy there could be about a movie.

Christina Wu sits down at her Yamaha C-5 grand piano at home, turning the metronome to a fast pace of 176 beats per minute. A second passes, then a burst of sound as Wu starts her daily warmup: several scales of 16th notes, going up a fifth each time until she reaches the top, then coming back down. Wu, a junior, has been studying piano ever since she was six after discovering a liking and skill for the instrument. "I've always been very intrigued by piano," said Wu. "I had a natural talent for it."

iPhones, netbooks and hybrid cars are just some of technological innovations that have come about in the past decade. Technological advances that have become so commonplace in the past 10 years could not have even been conceived of in the '90s. The school has also experienced changes in these past years and many teachers who have been teaching here since the '90s can recall a simpler time when the school only owned three computers total.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community has always been underrepresented and discriminated against, but the recent appointment of Amanda Simpson to the post of Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department is definitely a step forward for the LGBT community. Simpson was originally a male but she eventually transitioned to female in 2000. Obama's appointment of Simpson was originally viewed as a political move to increase his support—even Simpson herself expressed her fear of being labeled a "token."

It was the first day of school at Petaluma High School in 1987 All the students were wearing the stylish outfits they had carefully picked the night before—everyone, that is, except a tall senior boy who was wearing a cow costume. The oddly dressed senior boy was history teacher Matt Torrens, who wore the cow costume as part of his campaign for senior class president. His farm animal get-up succeeded in attracting attention from the students body since shortly after he was elected to the office.

A figure dressed in billowing white robes emerged from stage right. The crowd admired junior Tim Rollinson as he gracefully "floated" into the middle of Lisa Cochrum's science classroom on roller skates as the angel Gabriel and winded skillfully in and out of the tables. He swooped into center stage and beckoned for a couple of actresses to kneel.

A crowd gathered at the top of the quad steps Nov. 30, waiting in line to buy plates of chocolatey, whipped cream goodness. Students got a good taste of French culture through gooey mouthfuls of crepe, a traditional French food. The crepe sale put on by the French club also included items such as hot chocolate, cookies, large cookies and pieces of baguette with Nutella. Junior Cassie Tran, who helped out during 6th and 7th period, said she decided to sell crepes because they usually "sell really well." The crepe sale had a nobler purpose, however.

If you were going to visit the Queen of England, what would you give her as a present? Certainly, something fancy and expensive; dignified and beautiful. President Obama chose to give the Queen an iPod during his recent visit. Of course, an iPod is not complete without music, so Obama's staff graciously stuffed the device with copyrighted MP3s. This makes the Queen eligible to be sued by the RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America. Some consider this an extension of Obama's present.

Although the school recently invested money into resurfacing the tennis courts, small cracks have already formed. Although the cracks raise questions about the long-term durability of the tennis courts, the main purpose of the renovations was to make the courts "playable" again, assistant principal Joe Bosco said. "We did a $24,000 emergency safety repair in anticipation of a full-scale renovation. The courts are now safe and that was our first priority, " said Bosco.

All the students enrolled in the Media Arts Program (MAP) traveled to the Fort Miley Ropes Course in San Francisco on Sept. 18. The purpose of the ropes course field trip was to encourage to students to work together, overcome personal challenges and achieve their goals, such as building trust and team-bonding. “We were asked to do things like walking across a tightrope, boosting someone over a wall, walking across a log suspended high in the air, or zip lining,” said sophomore Antara Rao. Rao also said she felt the field trip was successful in encouraging teamwork between classmates.

How many times do you wish for a different type of learning in your class? Many students absolutely despise simulations, while others are enthusiastic and dress up for them like it's Halloween. Similarly, while diagrams may help one student learn, lectures appeal to another. Teachers often try to account for these learning styles in their lessons. And, contrary to popular belief, many teachers were students once themselves and reflect their own distinctive learning styles through the way they teach. English department head Jason Friend is one such teacher.

All the students enrolled in the Media Arts Program (MAP) traveled to the Fort Miley Ropes Course in San Francisco on Sept. 18. The purpose of the ropes course field trip was to encourage to students to work together, overcome personal challenges and achieve their goals, such as building trust and team-bonding.