Features

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.

Testing has always been a tedious process. For many students, taking the SAT means sitting for hours and rushing through problems to finish within the time limit. After the test, however, students often have to repeat the process numerous times to improve their scores. Even then, after taking the test a second time, the score may not improve much, or worse—it could worsen.

To ease the stress, students want the privilege of choosing the best scores of each test for colleges to see. This March, that wish will finally be granted. According to an article by the New York Times, the College Board, the company primarily responsible for the regulation and writing of the SAT, has decided to allow students taking the SAT exams to use Score Choice.

If you’re looking for senior Sandeep Chandrasekhar on Facebook, try typing in his new name Deep Deep Mustafa Muhammad.

A rumor that colleges and universities will check Facebook profiles and use the information to make admissions decisions has caused several seniors to change their Facebook names to make it harder for colleges to find them.

With so many students stepping up as leaders through their extracurricular and in their classrooms, it comes as no surprise that the administration has decided to harness some of this power to enact positive changes for the school by forming a leadership class.