Shannon Galvin

Spring is here! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and ... the juniors are stressing. With the SAT, the ACT, subject tests, summer program applications and AP tests piled on top of one another, it's no wonder the junior class comes to school each day looking more and more like they're walking in straight from the battlefield.

Let's party like it's 1990. 1,990 pages, that is, filled with uncountable procedures, tax increases and amendments that compromise America's Affordable Health Choices Act that squeezed through the House of Representatives.

Dear Republican Party, It's been a hard year. McCain lost the presidency by a margin of 8 million votes and the Democratic majority continues to hold power in Congress. You’ve been outplayed, outdated and outclassed in the political arena. So take a clue from Obama’s campaign slogan—it’s time for change.

For almost any other occupation across the country, good performance, not how many years spent on the job or number of degrees possessed, merits the bonuses or increased pay. The time has come for public education to follow this model as well. Merit pay is a bold idea—within public education—but everywhere else it’s taken as common sense.

“All you need is love,” sang the Beatles in one of their songs. And to make Challenge Day work in the days that follow, that’s exactly what we need. On March 17, about 80 students joined together in the gym for a day to break down stereotypes and develop a community. After a whole morning of energetic icebreakers and cheesy dancing, students broke into small groups. For many, it was one of their first opportunities at school to simply talk about the troubles they had stacked on their plate.

After several years of consideration and a couple months of installation, students can now wirelessly log on to the Internet on their own laptops and iPods. Students now have the ability to conduct research for a school project on their laptop or check their e-mail at lunch.

Forget the back alleys and tinted cars, the biggest drug deals today happen in cozy cafés as jazz music streams through the speakers over the grind of coffee beans. The regular customers defy the stereotypes as well—soccer moms, high school students and business people on their way to work line up for their drug of choice. Throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens are physically addicted to it. Welcome to the biggest drug dealer in town—Starbucks.

Gripping the trapeze bar, sophomore Stacee Mendonca takes a deep breath before she jumps off the high platform and swings through the air. She maneuvers her body into a tuck and grabs backwards towards her partner, waiting for their hands to connect. She then lets go of her trapeze bar, trusting her partner as they fly through the air.

With a recent $5,000 grant from the School Site Council, librarian Kevin Heyman is determined to bring the school into the 21st century. The library is introducing two new online databases called OPAC and a bibliography generator as part of its mission to improve its resources. The new databases have been used by many other high schools for about 10 years. Students can also use these systems to familiarize themselves with other databases in preparation for research at the college level.

At 9:04 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan 20., most teachers were not lecturing or going over homework. Instead, they were streaming the inauguration ceremony for President Barack Obama in their classrooms to let students watch history in the making. However, a group of 52, including students, teachers and chaperones and a couple other individual students who traveled with different organizations had the spectacular opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. and watch the inauguration in person. Another group from Saratoga also traveled to Washington—Redwood Middle School Marching Band and Auxiliary paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue as part of the inauguration parade.

The Sports Boosters hope to build appetites and funds with a Crab Feed at the Saratoga Community Center planned for Jan. 31 at 6:30 p.m.

Forget teaching students biology or algebra, it’s time to go back to basics, back to when teachers had to remind students not to take other’s belongings and to tell the truth.

Last year, Saratoga was ranked No. 72 nationwide in U.S. News and World Report’s first annual ranking of high schools. This year, however, students were slightly disappointed to find the school’s true ranking had dropped No. 80 in second year of the ranking—behind local schools such as Gunn and Monta Vista.

You can’t always win them all, but you can definitely give them a run for their money. That’s exactly what the second-seeded Saratoga field hockey team accomplished against its rival No. 1 Los Gatos at the CCS finals on Nov. 22 at Willow Glen High School. Saratoga managed to keep the score close, but in the end the Wildcats won 2-1 to secure first place and hand the Falcons just their second loss of the year.

You can’t always win them all, but you can definitely give them a run for their money. That’s exactly what the second-seeded Saratoga field hockey team accomplished against its rival No. 1 Los Gatos at the CCS finals on Nov. 22 at Willow Glen High School. Saratoga managed to keep the score close, but in the end the Wildcats won 2-1 to secure first place and hand the Falcons just their second loss of the year.

For the past four years, the Lancers have made it into CCS finals, but this year, in an upset, it’s the Falcons’ turn. After a 2-1 home victory on Nov. 18, the Falcons are heading to the finals for a showdown against rival Los Gatos.

Forget playing it sick like Ferris Bueller when you want a day off—when students turn 18 in California schools, they are allowed to excuse their own absences. Under state law, students aged 18 and older have the option to assume all of the responsibilities and powers that are normally charged to the parent as a minor.

The field hockey team set the tone for what they hope will be a successful run at CCS championships with a 2-0 shutout against Leigh on Saturday, Nov. 15. The No. 2 ranked Falcons, with a league record of 8-1-3, faced off against No. 7 Longhorns, with a record of 10-3-1, in the CCS quarterfinals at Willow Glen High School at 2:45. Saratoga had a bye for the first round of playoffs.

The English Department and English teacher Judith Sutton received commendations last Wednesday, Nov. 5, at the Saratoga City Council for their work with the award-winning poetry program at the high school.

The whistle blows as another short corner is called against Saratoga. Due to a foul inside the goal circle, the Archbishop Mitty players get a free shot while only four Saratoga defenders and the goalie can try to stop it. Senior goalie Stephanie Douglass extends her leg and blocks Mitty’s shot as the defense scrambles to clear the ball out. The field hockey team found themselves in this position many times against Mitty under the lights on Oct. 22.

The DMV has always had a reputation for employing people who are a bit out of the ordinary. To begin with, what sane person would want to spend the day in a car with people who can barely drive? Nobody would choose to deal with people who’ve spent two hours in line waiting to just renew their license. A few months ago when I went to the local DMV office to take my permit test, I experienced the DMV in all its strange glory.

When Falcon field hockey challenged longtime rival Los Gatos at home turf under the lights, there was more than just dignity on the line, there was the first place ranking.

The days of teachers holding rulers and sending students to a corner with a dunce cap have long passed. Some teachers at a 110-student school in Harrold, Texas, have upgraded to a rather unusual technique: carrying guns. The idea sounds crazy at first but has some merit at a school like this.

Juniors were determined to show underclassmen how Homecoming quad day is done as they performed for the school at lunch on Oct. 2, but some students took offense at the racial stereotypes in the performance.

After making the semi-finals in CCS last year, field hockey is ready to hit off a successful season this year under Coach Amber Wilson. The team traveled to several tournaments in the spring and continued practice throughout the summer. Unfortunately, only weeks into the school year, several players have already been sidelined with injuries. Seniors Ashley Charette and Laura Ruddy and juniors Jessica Liscom and Diana Douglass are among those injured, and others have been out for periods of time with injuries and sickness.

Saratoga parents got to go back to high school and follow in the steps of their sons and daughters at the annual Back-to-School Night on Sept. 10. Parents spent 10 minutes in each period getting to know the teachers that their children will be with this school year. The school holds this well-attended event every year to open communication between parents and teachers and to let parents become familiar with how teachers operate their class and the expectations involved.

Few students outside of the journalism world understand the work, effort and creativity that that is needed to publish a piece of work, much less a 32-page quarterly, full color magazine. The process is made even more difficult if one is not trained in the skills needed for a journalist. However, senior T.T. Tu did not let this stand in his way as he embarked on creating a self-published “Bay Magazine” over the summer.

Saratoga field hockey opened the pre-season in style on Sept. 2, with a dominating 5-0 non-league win against Prospect on their home field. Goals were scored by seniors Kelly Darchuk and Claire Marsh, junior Anna Schroeder and sophomores Ren Norris and Kathryn Nobles. Sophomore Vanessa Block had an assist, along with Darchuk with two assists. The Falcons started with a goal in the second minute of the game as Block crossed the ball to Darchuk to score, and they never looked back.