Shreya Tumu

The school should model its AP/Honors classes after college courses — little to no homework, with most of overall course grade being determined by the midterms and final exams. Students benefit from less, but higher quality homework.

A class structure modeled on college courses would benefit the students because it allow students to absorb the important information and apply this information. Much of the work in AP and Honors classes is 100 percent necessary, but I do believe that there is good amount of work that should be omitted from the course load.

Getting up early on a Wednesday, the Leadership class served a teacher appreciation breakfast during collaboration Nov. 4, to honor the staff members for their commitment to excellent education for Falcon students.  

I feel incredibly fortunate to live in a country where people with mental illnesses are treated with consideration and compassion most of the time. 

The Teen Advisory Board (TAB) of the city of Saratoga Library hosted its biannual Coffeehouse on Friday, Oct. 30, with a Halloween-themed twist. The night, which took place in the community room, featured various performances ranging from comedic skits to acoustic singing with snacks and beverages for audience members and performers.  

Ever since the debut of the hit show “Glee” in 2009 and the blockbuster film “Pitch Perfect” in 2012, acappella-style singing has been expanding. This can be seen in several universities.

According to senior Ai Marie Asai, mixers help friends from different neighborhoods bond however, mixers have sometimes earned a bad reputation because of alcohol and drug abuse, Asai said.  

BuzzFeed has been my pre-bedtime entertainment for the past two years, and I don’t know what I would do with all my free time without its endless random videos and posts. But what I most respect about BuzzFeed is its boldness in creating inspirational, light-hearted videos often promoting gender and racial equality. 

Rants about Trump and Miley Cyrus, and Hillary Clinton.

Psychology and AP Government/Economics teacher Hana Chen is one of three currently pregnant teachers; the other two are English teachers Susanna Ryan and Kelly Wissolik. All are due in the summer and will go on maternity leave next year.  

Dartmouth College President Philip Hanlon announced a ban on hard alcohol for all students on campus in January. His decision, made in light of recent sexual assaults at college campuses, mirrors other recent Prohibition-esque bans begun by Brown University, Swarthmore College and the University of Virginia. 

Minorities such as Indian-Americans are beginning to occupy a more prominent role in mainstream media.

I've encountered a lot people criticizing why I want to be a vegetarian. They tend to ask rude and intrusive questions rather than respecting my decision. I’m a vegetarian because of ethical and health reasons, yet many people can't accept that. 

Despite two early-season team losses, the Falcon swim team has seen several CCS-qualifying performances. The team fell to Los Gatos on March 13 and Monta Vista on March 19, leaving the team with a 0-2 record as they advance towards leagues in late May. The girls’ varsity team lost 101-69 to Monta Vista, while the boys’ team lost 122-48.

The boys' swim team prepares for the upcoming season.

Current seniors Reilly Bowker and Ryan Hoag, alumnus Ryan Patrick and senior Aneesa Walden recount their near-death experience falling off the side of the road in the Santa Cruz mountains.

This year, juniors Aakash Thumaty and Spencer Yen and other representatives from nearby schools helped to host the Bay Area’s second annual High School Hackathon. Members of Saratoga’s WiSTEM and AppDev clubs also attended the event.

Like many other seniors,  Claire Strickland has a dream college: New York University (NYU). Strickland is looking for a place to be independent, and NYU fits the description: It doesn’t even have a campus center.  

On Oct. 11, hackers tapped into a third-party app called SnapSaved and leaked about 100,000 photos and videos from SnapChat users. Users were appalled and outraged by the leak, but in reality, this kind of breach was inevitable.

Emma Watson, a woman’s rights ambassador, has been all over the news with her speech at the UN in September in support of the HeforShe campaign, an invitation encouraging men to join feminism. Men do need to join the fight for gender equality in order to make significant changes to society, and the HeForShe campaign is a step in the right direction, but it is only a start.

Some burglars target the homes of Indian families during the fall.

Starting in the spring of 2016, the SAT will include an optional essay, a shortened time of three hours and a score out of 1600. Because of these changes, some sophomores and even freshmen are scrambling to take the more predictable old SAT.

As Homecoming unfolded this week, it became clear that this year would see miscommunications, mishaps and accidents, and classes had to find ways to overcome them.  

The sense of unanswered questions after the end of a movie has an easy solution: Simply turn these stories into TV shows, since a regular series allows the audience to better understand the characters and delve deeper into their worlds.

Reporter describes heartfelt experience watching the recent movie "If I Stay."

Team scores surprising, inspiring win vs. Gunn.

Eight years ago, the anime club had just three students. Today, the club has more than 25 members. On Thursday afternoons, they can be seen sitting on the floor of room 301, watching a new episode intently, with the club adviser and animated graphics teacher, Cathy Leather, sitting nearby.

Is handwriting as important now that our society is so based on technology?

One of the favorite pastimes of Saratoga students and parents is asking administrators to add or upgrade classes, especially if they can have an Honors or AP designation.  

Sixty-three students gave a pint of their blood during the April 21 on-campus drive and got a nice reward in return: a gift card for a pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream. The event was hosted by the Community Commission, with the help of the Stanford Blood Drive. 

I sometimes find myself fidgeting and clicking my pen in class during a lecture. I can’t help it; I am a teenager with all this energy pent up inside me. I have trouble sitting still and I find the only way to concentrate is by doing something constantly. The perfect solution for me and anyone else who has the same problem is to vent all that nervous anxiety by chewing gum.

Just up north in the Redwood City School District in Northern California eight staff members failed to report the  abuse of two 5-year-old special-education students. And in another incident in the Brentwood Union School District, also up north, 11 teachers failed to tell authorities about an autistic student who was being abused.  

Dozens of dystopian novels and movies follow a formulaic plotline where the protagonist stands out in society by doing something that forever changes the dysfunctional system.

Every Sunday morning from 9-12 junior Shivaram Yellamilli makes a small effort into bettering the lives of others. Like many other students, volunteers at the Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, a hotspot for teens looking to make a difference and for volunteer work. 

The upcoming dance looms over the girl's head. She really just wants to be able to go to a dance for, you know, dancing and friends. But she can’t do that because this dance is supposed to formal — and formal means dates and tickets and dresses and the whole, extremely expensive shebang. She knows no one’s going to ask her out — and, what’s the point of buying overpriced tickets if she can’t go to the dance with anyone? 

The door slams shut. Junior Alana Hess’s parents have just left the house to go out for dinner. Many teenagers would seize this opportunity to do whatever they like. But Alana cannot.  

For the first five games of the season, the girls’ varsity lacrosse team was undefeated, but an unfortunate loss against Saint Francis 12-11 at home on March 21 ended their undefeated record.

“We had four girls play club all summer and fall and with tons of girls showing up for off season workouts and captain practices, our stick skills are better than they've ever been this early on,” Jennie Werner said. 

Despite some February rain, California might endure the driest winter season since 1850, according to the French Tribune. This crisis is becoming so urgent that Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency on Jan. 17.

In his “Week at a Glace” email on Aug. 21, principal Paul Robinson announced that a “Face to Face” policy, inaugurated at senior prom the year before, would continue to be enforced during dances in the new school year. He wrote, “We want everyone to see who they're dancing with, and not have to grind away the night backwards.”

When "The Secret Life of an American Teenager" first aired on ABC family six years ago, very few people took lead actress Shailene Woodley seriously, with her cheesy role as a pregnant 16-year-old. But over the past few years, Woodley has acted in numerous big-name movies and has gained the respect of audiences across the nation.

Warning: Spoilers for “The Hunger Games,” “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” follow. Before the 75th Hunger Games began, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), the District 12 mentor, remarks, “I think these games are going to be different.” The same can be said in comparing the movie adaptation of “Catching Fire”, the second book of Suzanne Collins’s international bestselling trilogy, to its predecessor, “The Hunger Games”. Crammed with riveting scenes filmed with a non-shaky camera, “Catching Fire” wows the audience with its spectular storytelling. 

I’m not complaining. Well, I am, but it’s more of an investigative complaint. Answer me this: Why do I wake up sore every Friday morning? Just kidding, I’ll answer. Because of weightlifting. Weightlifting that I am required to do for P.E. credit. 

Rally commissioners are looking to include more games in a holiday-themed rally scheduled for Dec. 6.

A power outage that affected many Saratoga buildings, including the school, occurred at 7:52 PM, according to PG&E, on the night of Tuesday, Oct. 19. According the principal Paul Robinson, the outage was caused by a tree falling onto a transformer, which went up in flames on Herriman Avenue.  SHSTV reported that a transformer on Herriman caught fire and later exploded.

The Music Education with Saratoga High (MESH) program was started by 2013 alumna Michelle Won in 2010. After she graduated last year, seniors Lauren Casey-Clyde and Gloria Liou took the hold of the reins on this program with hopes of continuing its previous success.  

A two-story white house with a large red barn and no porch sits along Big Basin Way, behind Saratoga Creek. Built in 1875, the house and the barn are one of the oldest houses in Saratoga. And according to local legend, the house, known as the E.T. King Home, is haunted. 

Only valedictorians get close to this theoretical number.

As the sweet and elegant music started to slowly fade away, the teenagers leaned in for a kiss and a halo of misted water showered the lovestruck couple. 

High school is, mostly, a time for learning. Yet one of the biggest aspects of “the high school experience” is the pursuit of romance.