Features

Teaching is often a selfless job. Teachers spend much of their time to ensure a better life for younger generations, but in return they are not paid the salaries they deserve and are often criticized more than they are appreciated. Still, according to French teacher Kim Bergkamp, the effort is worth the reward of knowing that she has helped her students understand a difficult subject.

“I love when a student finally gets it,” said Bergkamp. “It is really rewarding when you see a student who has been working really hard get a great test grade. Their hard work has paid off and that is fun to see.”

There is an overwhelming and ever-growing list of accomplishments that alumni of Saratoga High have achieved. Each success story seems to top the rest, yet all are unique in their own way. Alumnus Roza Pyghambarzadeh, who graduated from Saratoga High in 2007, is not only one of these graduates who have raised the bar in the past few years, but she has done it in style. Pyghambarzadeh, a sophomore at the Marshall School of Business at USC, started her own social networking website for females to “swap dresses by simply going online and browsing each other’s profiles.”

More than 80 students entered the gym on March 17, to loud cheering and high-fives by a crowd of teachers and faculty.

However, Challenge Day preparations began long before that. The planning began with seniors Mara Couch, Sanketh Katta and juniors Cindy Chang and Ameeka Shenoy. With collaboration from assistant principal Karen Hyde, countless hours were spent raising the $3,200 needed and filling out a web application for the Challenge Day Organization.

After four years of hard work and singing her heart out on the McAfee Center stage, senior Juliana Lustenader was crowned the 2009 Saratoga Idol on Mar. 4.

Lustenader has participated in the event for four years and after placing second freshman year, third sophomore year and not placing in junior year, it was her last chance at the crown. Lustenader was surprised to find out that she finally won, edging out junior Lauren Henderson, who placed second, and sophomore Amalie MacGowan, who placed third.

“I was shocked and I thought that [the emcees] were joking,” said Lustenader about the moment the decision was announced.

For Spanish teacher Arnaldo Rodriguex, culture is not something that can be just taught through books and lectures. So for the 25th year in a row, Rodriguex will be leading a group of 48 Spanish students to Cuernavaca, Mexico, for a one week study abroad program that he hopes will allow the students to completely “immerse themselves in the Mexican culture.”

“You can only learn so much from the textbooks or from the internet,” said Rodriguex, “but when you’re actually there and you see it, smell it, touch it and experience it, you get a better understanding of the Mexican people and their culture and language.”

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.

A schedule that would make every day a block day and eliminate the “Monday problem” is under consideration for next year.

The proposed schedule, according to assistant principal Brian Safine, would be an A/B system where students would alternate between periods 1, 3, 5 and 7 and periods 2, 4, 6 and 8 on consecutive school days. Some weeks a class would meet three times, while the next week it would meet twice. The periods would continue to be 95 minutes long., and a fourth tutorial would be added to the week.

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.