september issue 2015
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Copy EditorsKayla AldridgeAaron HalfordMacrae Sharp
Rebecca SmalbachCaleigh Stephens
News EditorsCamille Kawawa-Beaudan
Megan MillardGregory Block
Feature EditorsAnnie Forsman
Nicole Stock
Opinion EditorsEric Ahern
Geneva Gist
Sports EditorsOvie Crum
Adam Kreitzman
Lifestyles EditorsHannah Blazei
Ella Cook
Editors-In-ChiefOlivia Dominguez
Shiriel King AbramsonBella McWhorter
Matt Ross
Redwood High School395 Doherty Drive, Larkspur, CA 94939
www.redwoodbark.org
Review EditorsJulia Cherner
Heidi Roenisch
Spanish Editors Madison BarsiHenry Tantum
Video EditorHayden Blum
Social Media ManagerKylie Kvam
Snapshot EditorChloe Wintersteen
Web Developer/ NewsletterKevin Makens
Sam Slade
Business ManagerSarah Kimball
Survey ManagerKeely Jenkins
ReportersIsabella Alioto, Danny Avins, Michael Benz, Addison Brady, Kaylee Bushell, Emily Cerf,
Catherine Conrow, Luke Dahlin, Sabrina Dong, Jason Fieber, Annie Fogarty, Jenna Herz, Andrew Hout, Max Josef, Maxime
Kawawa-Beaudam, Isabelle Marmur, Robin Naylor, Anne Pritikin, Kendall Rhoads, Sam
Sheridan, Sydney Soofer, Cosmo Taylor, Mary Winnick, Simone Wolberg, Pearl
Zhong
AdviserErin Schneider
District reaches decision on funding for solar panels
On March 10, 2015, the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) was granted permission by the Board of Trustees to begin building solar panels in the East and West parking lots.
After months of consultation and legal work, the TUHSD signed a contract with SunPower Corporation for carport solar photovoltaic installations. SunPower controls the design, method, techniques, and procedure, as well as the engineering of the solar panels and the overhead structure.
The total cost of the project is almost $3.5 million. The TUHSD received $600,000 from bonds passed by the public in 2006, according to a presentation from The Public Financial Management, Inc. (PFM), a company hired to be the financial advisor to the district.
“We’re [using] $600,000 in bond money that we already have,” said Principal David Sondheim. “We have to come up with [$2.7 million], either in cash or financing.”
Sondheim said that the TUHSD currently has the opportunity to pay for the project in cash, or else they could buy a lease for the project. Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Facilities Sally Swan confirmed that the District has opted to purchase a 10.5 year lease.
Principal David Sondheim stated that the TUHSD has the possibility of obtaining $160,000 for the project from Proposition 39, the California Clean Energy Jobs Act. With those funds, the TUHSD needs approximately $2.7 million to finance the project.
Additionally, the school will receive about $120,000 a year for three years from Prop 39, according to The PFM Group’s presentation.
The 2006 bond money will fund the initial payments, according to the Power Purchase Agreement, an agreement that defines the terms of selling electricity and the finances of a project. The District will pay for energy delivered by the solar panels during a period of 20 years, and included in the payments will be the sink fund payments.
According to California Government Code, public agencies may only sign a contract with a private energy conservation company if the public agency’s governing board decides that the cost of receiving energy from a public company, which is the default source, would cost more than buying energy from the private company, the option that’s being considered.
The Public Financial Management, Inc., a company hired to be the TUHSD’s financial advisor, examined the district’s energy needs and concluded that installing solar
panels would reduce the use of nonrenewable energy in the district and lower electricity costs.
The project is estimated to produce almost 34 million kilowatts of solar production in the next 25 years, which would save the District more than $10 million. The District has also been advised by PFM to invest a total of $100,000 in a sinking fund, an account to save money for future predicted use, such as reparations or replacements at years 11 and 21, according to the PFM’s presentation on Aug. 11.
The TUHSD is to pay SunPower every month for the work that was completed that month, as outlined in the Engineering, Procurement and Construction Agreement. The price will be determined by multiplying the amount of work completed each week by the percent of the contracted price allocated to those tasks. However, 5 percent of
District given Program Improvement status after low participation in state tests
each invoice will be withheld until the completion of the project, when it will be turned over to SunPower. The entire project will take 11.5 years to pay off, after which the TUHSD will fully own all of the structures.
The district is expected to pay roughly $2.7 million for the project, in addition to $40,000 in closing costs, adding up to total of almost $2.75 million for the project as a whole.
The Board of Trustees discussed plans regarding when to install solar panels in the East parking lot on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
By Camille Kawawa-Beaudan
CONSTRUCTION WORKERS have been working with SunPower Corporation to install carport solar photovoltaic installations in the West Parking Lot. Construction was approved in March.
Photo by Camille Kawawa-Beaudan
The state of California has assigned the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) Program Improvement (PI) status for the 2015-16 school year after the disabilities subgroup did not meet the state participation requirement rate for a state mandated test during the 2013-14 school year.
The disabilities subgroup is defined as students who are in an individual education program.
To meet the state requirements for participation, the whole district and each subgroup must have a participation rate of 95 percent. According to an email sent to parents on July 22 from Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services Tara Taupier, the District’s disabilities subgroup had participation rates of 94 and 92 percent on two different subtests of the state mandated testing.
The disabilities subgroup was the only subgroup that did not meet the participation rate, the reason for which is unknown.
PI status is only given to districts and schools that accept Title I funding and that did not meet the participation requirement rate.
“Title I funding comes from the government specifically for students who are either socioeconomically or academically disadvantaged,” Taupier said.
“[The District doesn’t] get a lot of Title I funding, but we get a little and because [the District] takes Title I funding at all, we are subjected to [PI status].”
Unlike Redwood, the Tamalpais, Drake, and San Andreas high schools each receive Title I funding, which is granted based on the size of the socioeconomically or academically disadvantaged population. About 8 percent of the district’s student population falls into this category.
Individual schools can also be given PI
status; however, Redwood as a school could never fall into PI status because it does not receive Title I funds.
Recently, the district has not met the participation requirement rates of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP), a new testing system that has replaced the state mandated assessments that put the district into PI status, according to the email Taupier sent to parents.
The CAASPP test was created by the
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) in alignment with the common core standards, according to a presentation from a TUHSD Board of Trustees Meeting on March 24.
This test was taken by 11th graders during the 2014-15 school year. Neither the District as a whole nor any of the high schools within the District met the 95 percent participation requirement rate; therefore, Taupier anticipates remaining in PI status for the 2016-17 school year.
Taupier said that parents waiving their students out of testing decreases the district’s participation and is a reason why the district did not reach the 95 percent participation goal.
“It’s not like [the students waived] are removed from the population and don’t count at all—they count as a non-participant,” Taupier said.
According to Taupier, both Redwood and Drake high schools had at least 10 percent of the junior class waive out of testing.
The district is currently working on a plan to increase participation rates.
“Part of it is communication out to families to indicate how important participation rates are and to make sure all families understand that a waiver counts as a non-participation for the district,” Taupier said.
By Anne Pritikin
Photoillustration by Camille Kawawa-Beaudan
bark.redw
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redwood high school • 395 doherty dr.,larkspur, ca 94939 • volume LVIII, no. 1 • september 10, 2015 • www.redwoodbark.orgGirls’ Tennis Patxi’s Pizza Michael Schwartz17 19 23
Photo Survey:
What are you looking forward
to most this year?“Not getting booed
at the rallies”Jenna Neustaetter
“Graduation”
Mitchel Heckmann
“Making bank as a ski instructor”
Zach Tull
“Getting involved with the school”
Haleh Popalfreshman seniorjuniorsophomore
bark Page 2 • News September 10, 2015
Advanced Drama debuts 1980s dark comedy sensation
Advanced Drama will premiere their latest production, Heathers: The Musical, on Oct. 7.
The show is a contemporary comedic production that shows the cruel world people live in by over-dramatizing several different controversial subjects relevant to teenagers, such as sex, drugs, humor, and alcohol, according to Advanced Drama advisor Britt Block.
The show originated from a comedy film in 1988 and is about a stereotypical high school ruled by the popular clique of three girls all named Heather. The show deverts from racy and questionable subjects into the darkly humorous world of murder when the sociopath, JD, is introduced.
The Redwood Advanced Drama department has never produced a show as intense or vulgar as Heathers, according to Block.
“[Heathers] is vulgar. It’s cussing, it’s sex, it’s drinking, and it makes fun of all of that, too. People are going to react like crazy,” Block said. “But at the same time the play really shows the high school life everyone thinks they live in, even though
it really isn’t.”Director Anna Smith believes that the
show is worth putting on stage, although some audience members will be alarmed.
“I think that one of the reasons I wanted to direct this show is because it is breaking down that barrier about what happens in high school,” Smith said.
The play will be produced from beginning to end with no censorship of the performance content.
“It’s about how ugly the culture is. That’s really what the play is about, how brutally people treat each other. If I cut that, I’m making it nice and I don’t want to make it nice. It’s not nice,” Block said.
Smith has been working hard with the 25 students in the Advanced Drama class and after school. The rehearsal process officially began a couple days before the year started.
“It’s interesting to work on this piece with this group of students and I think that part of me was always ready to work on this play, but I was still a little bit nervous that the content was a bit too daring for them,” Smith said.
Redwood is the first high school in California to perform Heathers: The [email protected]
By Kendall Rhoads
Larkspur seeks public input on proposed library constructionBy Annie Fogarty
SENIOR PAIGE COLVIN belts out in song during Heathers: The Musical rehearsal on Wednesday, Sept. 2 as cast members (left to right), Ally Orrick, John Mulvey, and Kylie Smith, watch.
Photo by Kendall Rhoads
The city of Larkspur is advancing its plan for the new public library and community center that will be built on Doherty Drive by opening the project up to public opinion.
The planning council has extended the process even further from board meetings to public discussion, in which community members can contribute their opinions on the design and features of the building.
“There is a lot of public concern about the project,” said Neal Toft, Director of Building and Planning.
To address the concerns, there are a series of town meetings open to the public. The first meeting was held on Sept. 2, and meetings on Oct. 7 and Nov. 14 will follow.
Larkspur Mayor Larry Chu said the meetings are intended to get feedback from the community that could then be integrated into the design of the space.
“We are trying to find out from people what they consider to be the community character of Larkspur, and ask, what does Larkspur mean to you?” Chu said.
The city has hired Leddy Maytum and Stacey Architects to design the center. The planners aim to incorporate sustainability, technology, and incorporate the community’s architectural character as well.
Initiated in 2013, the library and community center plan has been directed by the Library and Recreation Community Planning Committee. The 2.4 acres of land are located along Doherty Drive in the Roselane development.
According to Chu, the use of the library will be adjusted in order to suit more of the public’s needs for meeting areas and technology. It is intended to be a cohesive blend of a library and community space.
“A library is no longer just a traditional book repository. It is a meeting center and needs to accommodate 21st century technology,” Chu said.
The new community center will include study areas, small group discussion rooms, and larger event rooms.
The current library located in downtown Larkspur has been open since 1913. According to Chu, it is too small and no longer meets the needs for the size of the population.
Junior Estelle Ronayne, a Larkspur Library employee, agrees with Chu that the old library can no longer accomodate the number of visitors it gets.
“The [current] library is a symbol of Larkspur,” Ronayne
said. “But I do think that more space would be a plus.”Chu says that the old library may potentially be
converted into additional City Hall office space or public meeting space.
Larkspur Library & Community Center Parcel
THE CITY OF LARKSPUR is discussing its plans for the new Library and Community Center, which is to be located on Doherty Drive. The town wants to modernize the space with 21st century technology.
Photoillustration by Camille Kawawa-Beaudan
[Heathers] is vulgar. It’s cussing, it’s sex, it’s drinking, and it makes fun of all of that too.Britt Block,Advanced Drama advisor
Musical onstage because the performance rights only became available within the past year.
Junior Sophie Landeck has taken on the role of Heather Chandler, the leader of the Heather clique.
“Heather Chandler has to be so extremely mean, or else the point of the show will not come across,” Landeck said. “She’s a powerful, manipulative queen
bee and that all needs to be expressed on stage.”
“[The students] are working hard, enjoying themselves, and committing all this passionate energy into exploring the issues that are putting them on the stage,” Block said. “It really touches on the stuff that we don’t want to look at at Redwood.”
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 3 • News
Temporary third lane proposed for Richmond-San Rafael Bridge
Assembly member Marc Levine released a bill on Aug. 18 which would require a third eastbound lane to be opened immediately on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
The legislation would require the California Department of Transportation to create a temporary third lane out of the current breakdown lane, which would relieve the traffic temporarily until a permanent solution could be constructed.
From 2013-’14, a record 126.28 million vehicles crossed the bridge, up 0.5 percent from the year before, and up 12.2 percent since a six year decline in traffic ended in the 2010-11 year, according to the Bay Area Toll Authority.
“Evening commuters sit idle, polluting the environment, and losing time they could otherwise be spending with their families,” the Aug. 18 press release said.
The renovation would also include the addition of a new bicycle and pedestrian path on the bridge, along with barriers to separate the bicyclists and pedestrians from the vehicle on the bridge, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
Math teacher Rebecca Kittredge, who commutes to school across the bridge from Berkeley, said that an added lane would make her commute faster and easier.
“I think that a third lane, particularly on the bottom on the way back to the East Bay, is clearly necessary,” Kittredge said.
Less traffic on the bridge would also allow her to stay at school longer in the afternoon, according to Kittredge.
Overall, the entire permanent renovation of the bridge would cost an estimated $70 million, including $32 million for renovation of the eastbound lane, $30 million for the bicycle and pedestrian lane, and $8 million for the planning and environmental review of the project, according to the MTC. The proposed bill, however, would impose a much cheaper, immediate opening of the the current breakdown lane, until the permanent renovations could be completed.
According to sophomore Max von Franqué, the opening of a third lane would benefit him and his family. His father, who works at Kaiser in San Rafael, has issues regarding many of his co-workers who live in Richmond and are forced to commute across the bridge in heavy traffic in order to get to work.
“I think a lot of kids at Redwood and a lot of kids in
Marin go to Kaiser as their pediatrician or for other things, and a lot of staff members at Kaiser have to turn down jobs there and work closer to their home because of the commute,” von Franque said. “That means that you are getting fewer doctors within the hospitals, and the doctors who are in the hospitals, like my father, have to do more work and have to cover for the doctors who can’t be there.”
Von Franque also believes that an added lane would result in environmental benefits.
“Instead of a [lengthy] car ride with cars just sitting in traffic and burning fuel, you’re having now maybe a 20
minute car ride,” Franque said.A third lane would increase safety on the bridge,
according to the press release by Levine.“[The traffic] creates an unsafe situation and collisions
as motorists change lanes in gridlock traffic,” the Aug. 18 press release said.
The proposals are scheduled to be considered for approval by the MTA and the Association of Bay Area Governments in September.
By Henry Tantum
PROPOSALS TO CREATE a temporary third lane on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge will be reviewed in Sept. The lane would ideally quell traffic on the bridge until a permanent solution could be constructed.
Photo by Henry Tantum
bark Page 4 • News September 10, 2015
Redwood TV implements changes for new year
Link Crew initiates ‘houses’ program for incoming freshmen
Redwood TV has aired for four years, but this year’s crew has made significant changes that distinguish the show from years past, including new hosts, gear, and additions to the cast.
The most apparent switch is the selection of two new hosts, seniors Kendra Loo and Jamie Solis, who are replacing last year’s hosts, Eric Ahern and Bailey Osborn.
“So far, [Loo and Solis] have been working together really nicely,” said junior Garet Jatsek, one of the show’s producers. “We’ve gotten really lucky the past two years.”
“I am a little bit more goofy than he is, but it works really well because he has a lot of great ideas,” Loo said in regard to her co-host.
In the past, the hosts of Redwood TV have been chosen by the crew of the show and Leadership teachers David Plescia and Jennifer Madden. However, this year, according to Jatsek, it was Madden and Plescia who chose the anchors.
Loo hopes that she can bring fresh ideas and more vibrancy to the show. In particular, she wants to feature different clubs, interests, and sports teams on the show, and bring back the Redwood Munchies segment from the 2013-14 season.
“I think that we could involve a larger part of the student body and highlight what is going on around Redwood,” Loo said.
Adding more footage of various activities and sports teams appearing on the show was something that the Redwood
TV cast was hoping to accomplish last year as well, but this year the show is making it one of their primary goals.
According to Jatsek, getting additional content of sports and clubs will add six to seven hours to the filming process.
Filming, however, is only a portion of the work that is put into each video. According to Jatsek, before an episode is ready for broadcast, it must go through nearly nine or ten hours of editing.
In addition to more total time spent making each video, the crew is equipped with higher quality gear for the new season.
The program received $12,000 from
donations made by parents in the 2014-2015 school year to purchase cameras and whatever other equipment the crew may need.
In addition to last year’s crew members, seniors Annie Forsman and Kimberly Vela, and juniors Garet Jatsek and Sam Slade, there are two new producers this year: sophomores Jack Green and Emma Ross.
The cast hopes that the new producers can bring a creative and comedic aspect to the set, which will carry into the show.
By Luke Dahlin
On Friday, Aug. 14, 87 upperclassmen Link Crew leaders gathered in the gym to prepare for Freshman Orientation. The day was designed to introduce the 493 freshmen to the school, and featured activities and conversations ranging from locations of classes to academic and social advice, to implementing a new “housing” system for the students.
Link Crew teachers Erik Berkowitz and Katie Slattery have created four “houses,” and each house is made up of five “mentor groups.” All current freshman students and future incoming students will be placed into a house, or grouping of students, and will remain with that house throughout all four years at Redwood.
Additionally, each mentor group is comprised of 26 freshman students, four Link Crew leaders, and one teacher.
The groups will meet eight to ten times throughout the year to check-in with students regarding their academic, social, and emotional growth, and well-being.
There are four houses in total, each named after a specific destination in Marin: The Beach House of Pt. Reyes, the Bridge House of the Golden Gate, the Tree House of Muir Woods, and the Mountain House of Mt. Tamalpais.
“One of Link Crew’s main goals was to try to create more of a community feel at Redwood. We started to see that there was a lot of divide between the grade levels, so what we wanted to do was not make it so segregated and try to mix kids together more across grade levels,” Slattery said.
Slattery and Berkowitz believe that if students begin to mix across grade levels, the overall social culture at Redwood will change dramatically, to become a more inclusive student body.
“We see a little bit of that collaboration with Link Crew when we have upperclassmen helping underclassmen, and we are trying to build that bond, so now we’d like to add in other grade levels as well,” Slattery said. “One thing we talked about is if we can start to change the attitude and culture early on, then maybe when we are all together, it won’t be as divided.”
The housing system started with the current freshmen, the Class of 2019, and within the next four years, will become a “naturally occurring” phenomenon, according to Slattery.
Berkowitz and Slattery used a software program made by Link Crew to organize and sort students across feeder schools and by gender, ensuring evenly distributed houses.
Berkowitz added that he sees a lot of potential for personalization within the new housing system.
“I think the most fundamental, most basic [goal] is to
have kids feel more connected to each other and to the school. But once that happens, when you feel comfortable in a group, you’re then more free to do all kinds of other things,” Berkowitz said. “There are conversations at a larger systemic level, but because it’s new, we’re just kind of waiting and seeing what percolates.”
Senior Jessica Flaum has been a member of the Link Crew class for two years, and believes that the housing program is a positive adjustment to the social culture at Redwood.
“The idea is that once these freshmen become seniors, all the grades will be in a house, and it’ll be a unifying mix of freshmen and seniors into this house, instead of just grade level,” Flaum said.
Flaum also said that meeting multiple times throughout the year with the mentor groups and Link Crew leaders will be beneficial to continuing relationships over the entire year, instead of just at Freshman Orientation.
Berkowitz added that with the use of Instagram accounts and Facebook pages, the freshmen will be able to
stay in communication with their Link Crew leaders and mentor groups about events, meetings, and activities.
“Every Friday at lunch, there’s going to be an event, and we are hoping to gear them more so that anybody who happens to be on campus may want to come, instead of just for the freshmen,” Berkowitz said.
Slattery said that the Friday “mini-events” will be casual, including activities such as lawn games and face painting, but the Link Crew class will still be putting on some of their larger events such as Cocoa and Cram and Hot Dog Day.
According to Slattery, even if all the ideas for the program don’t fully pan out, she and Berkowitz would still have achieved their fundamental goal of making more connections and making Redwood feel like a smaller community for new students.
By Macrae Sharp
FRESHMEN GABE JOHNSON, Miles Dean, and Nathan Kim (from left to right) play Twister during a Link Crew mini event on Friday, Aug. 28.
Photo by Macrae Sharp
REDWOOD TV CREW members junior Sam Slade and seniors Annie Forsman and Kimberly Vela (from left to right), film for the next segment of Rewood TV.
Photo by Luke Dahlin
• President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal has received support from 42 Democratic senators as of Sept. 9, ensuring that the deal has enough votes to withstand a congressional challenge.
• Local authorities identified a body washed up on Stinson Beach as a 50-year-old man from San Francisco.
news box.
• The Marin Audubon Society purchased 5.2 acres of Corte Madera marshland and is currently raising money to restore the land.
• Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed for refusing to sign-off on marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was released on Sept. 8.
All news events occured in the past week.
Art teacher brings ‘Joy’ to teachers and students in private performancebarkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 5 • News
Staff and students gathered together in room 501 to listen to an intimate performance by Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy on Wednesday, Aug. 12. The artist was brought to Redwood as part of the “Bring Joy to Your Workplace” contest won by art teacher Nikki Mortham.
The contest, presented by local radio station Live105, awarded Mortham with the opportunity after she was selected from a random drawing.
Anyone who worked for Redwood was invited to the event. About 50 members of Redwood staff and their families attended, as well as a few students who were close with Mortham. The radio station asked for total attendance to remain small to maintain the feel of a private event, according to Mortham.
Mortham felt that the private concert brought her closer to the Redwood community. As a teacher in only her second year at Redwood, this gave her the opportunity to create new friendships with teachers she didn’t know previously.
“The best part of the experience was that I got to share it with everybody here,” Mortham said. “Since that experience, teachers who have never talked to me before are saying hi to me and introducing themselves.”
Junior Talita Stiles, who also attended the event, felt that it established a feeling of closeness among those in attendance.
“It was really sweet. A lot of staff members brought their younger kids,” Stiles said. “It was cool to see them in a different environment.”
Mortham also thought that concert gave the teachers a unique experience to share with their families.
“I think that the teachers who got to share it with their families were really excited too, and were really appreciative,” Mortham said.
According to Mortham, Joy was very accommodating. “He’s not just a big rockstar showman. He’s just a nice,
humble, Australian, gorgeous man,” Mortham said.Although the teachers, students, and families were not
his typical crowd and may not have been familiar with his music, he was a “good sport” to everyone, according to Mortham.
“He laid down on the table to take this one picture, and one of the teachers said to the photographer ‘Can we touch him?’ and [counselor Ian] Scott, said ‘He’s a human, you should ask him if you want to touch him,’” Mortham said.
Room 501 was the perfect setting for the private
concert due to its good acoustics, large space, and view of Mt. Tam, according to Mortham. The combination of the location as well as the fact that Joy was performing in a workplace rather than a bigger room such as the gym or Little Theater created a more intimate setting.
Mortham was already a big fan of Joy and had seen him perform live in concert a few times before, but never this intimately. Her love for the artist was what made her want to enter the contest in the first place.
“Anytime I hear anything involving Vance Joy I enter it...I’d do anything to meet him,” Morham said.
Both Mortham and Stiles cited Joy as an inspiration to their art, Mortham as an artist and Stiles as a singer and guitar player.
Mortham said his relatable lyrics make his music fun
to play in class, and make people feel good. “His voice isn’t perfect, but it’s unique, and it matches
so well with the songs he writes. So it’s almost like perfection in imperfection,” Mortham said.
Stiles cited a similar idea of being able to relate to Joy’s music.
“When you’re listening to his songs, you feel what he’s feeling. When you’re sad or really happy, he has [a] song that can fit with what you’re feeling,” Stiles said.
SINGER AND SONGWRITER Vance Joy poses on a table surrounded by teachers and their families and special students that were invited to a private concert after art teacher Nicole Mortham won a radio contest.
Photo courtesy of Live 105
By Emily Cerf
Junior varsity football team disbands in the midst of shrinking numbers
The junior varsity football team was disbanded this summer in favor of a freshmen-sophomore team due to a shortage of players in the program. The lack of participation presents a multi-faceted challenge for first-year head coach Allen Talley.
Even though Talley, who was promoted from his role as the Giants’ defensive coordinator last spring, has brought high expectations to the program. Many players who would have played JV dropped out of the football program, leaving a dearth of extra bodies. As a result, Redwood could only field two teams instead of three.
Junior Billy Lewis, a second year varsity player, expressed frustration at the lack of players, and cited a problem with dedication.
According to Lewis, last year’s frustrating season is the cause for people deciding to drop football.
“Last year, we had [Alex] Kosinski, [Ryan] Pozivinec, and [Jake] Curhan, and we were expecting big things to happen,” Lewis said. “Unfortunately, we only went 4-6 and people gave up on the football program as a result.”
Lewis said that the team isn’t dwelling on the past and is instead looking forward to the upcoming year.
“This year we need a different mindset,” Lewis said. “We lost [63-0] against Marin Catholic last year, and it’s time for people to show it on the field.”
The sudden drop in participation has left Athletic Director Jessica Peisch searching for answers, as even she is unsure of the reason for the exodus of players.
“Right now, there are a few theories about why people aren’t continuing with the program,” Peisch said. “But those are
just theories and we cannot be totally sure.”Peisch said it is possible that head
trauma and concussions, which have become more associated with football, have discouraged some people from playing.
“[Player health] is one of the theories,” Peisch said. “We have a student-athlete handbook that covers health, which is a good way for parents to learn about the risks involved with any sport.”
Talley wasn’t concerned, as he quickly deflected the idea that this is a long-term problem.
“We are going to be okay,” Talley said. “We just didn’t have enough players this year, so we had to combine teams, but it shouldn’t be something that lasts a long time.”
According to Talley, the main focus of the program is to make sure that the kids participating are getting the most coaching and instruction possible.
“As long as we can keep kids in the program and instruct them, then we will be happy with the program,” Talley said.
Talley predicted that the football program numbers will go back up by next year due to the efforts they are going to in order to welcome younger players.
“We want to welcome everybody who wants to participate to the team,” Talley said. “We are constantly building the program around the younger kids.”
Lewis also added that he wasn’t convinced concerns about safety should deter players from suiting up for football.
“We got new helmets this year that are
much safer,” Lewis said. “I think people are being too concerned.”
Lewis claimed that football has become a much safer sport recently, and shouldn’t have a negative connotation.
“I don’t think safety should be a problem with football, considering the safety standards are constantly getting better,” Lewis said.
Athletic Trainer Americ Alvarado also dismissed the notion that concern regarding head trauma and concussions played a large role in the lack of numbers.
“I think it might account for 10 percent of it,” Alvarado said. “Here at Redwood, we are extremely well-educated in how to deal with and prevent concussions. We always want to let parents know that there are steps in place to recover if it does happen.”
Alvarado added that concussions are a much smaller problem in high school compared to the professional level, which has come under fire in recent years for the effects of head trauma.
“It’s tough to see your idols on TV quit because of injuries,” Alvarado said. “At the end of the day, the players in [the NFL] are paid to take the damage that occurs to their body over time.”
Alvarado also said that past injuries and concussions shouldn’t deter a player from participating in a physical sport such as football.
“A player could come back from an injury and have the best season of their career,” Alvarado said. “There is a risk of getting injured in every single sport, and that shouldn’t stop kids from participating in them.”
By Adam Kreitzman
JUNIOR NICK DESARNAUTS drills ball security during a practice on Sept. 8. Disbandment of the JV team has restructured the program to have a combined freshman and sophomore team and a Varsity team.
Photo by Danny Avins
opinionopinion Page 6
Summer should be a time to forget about the pressures of school and truly relax. No tests, no essays, no distractions. A time where my friends and I can go on the road trip we’ve always talked about, or spend days on end at the beach.
But this summer, I found myself trying to hang out with friends, only to hear that they were busy. One was writing college essays at a camp sponsored by Cal, another was taking Chemistry at the College of Marin, and another was studying to take the SAT for a second time.
I fear these friends are emblematic of the recent trend toward participating in academic activities year round. No longer is it enough to be worked to the bone during the school year, but it is now necessary to do something academic during the summer in order to be competitive when applying for college.
I hear warnings from my classmates that colleges will think I’m lazy if I spend my summer reading by the poolside, or on a trip with my family. Nothing less than 100 percent effort is acceptable, during the summer as well as during the school year.
The internships at science research foundations, the literature camps at Stanford––everything is designed so that we are always doing more, stressing more, worrying more about how many summertime activities colleges would like to see on our resumés. There is always another ACT to take, or more work experience to gain.
This, however, is not a real summer. It’s a mere shadow of one, the bright colors of the sunset in the Headlands dulled down to the off-white color of a Scantron.
This is the erosion of summer as we know it. Now, it is looked down upon to spend the summer
with friends. Though summer might not be arranged into ninety-minute block periods, it is now seen as something to be achieved, something to power through.
Summer should mean freedom and represent
happiness. It should not be viewed as a series of obstacles to dodge before getting back into the grind when school starts again.
The days of summer shouldn’t be defined by how many volunteer hours you still need to complete, nor the number of practice tests you still need to take.
And yet, the season we used to consider a break from hard work is now measured by the amount of hard work
we complete. We are caught in a race where the only prize is year-
round exhaustion. I fully admit that I’m a willing participant in this race.
I want to be competitive for college admissions, and so I, too, feel the need to fill my summers with standardized test preparation and academic camps at elite universities.
I wish that my summers could be the simple, carefree ones glorified in movies and books, but expectations from colleges make that impossible.
Even during the snatched moments when I’m relaxing with friends, there’s still the nagging urge to do something more productive with my time.
I felt just as stressed this summer as I did the previous school year, probably because I had just as much busywork to do and just as many books to analyze.
Students, parents, and teachers should not take this deterioration of summer lightly. Before high school, summer was a safe space to unwind from the stresses of school before the next school year came to wind you back up again.
But with all the work we are doing over the summer, there is no time to unwind at all.
School is blending into summer, and summer is blending into school.
Colleges say they want students with a passion, but we cannot have a passion when our free time is filled with academic work and test prep.
Ten months in school is enough time to learn and stress and test and resume-build.
Let the other two months of summer be a time of peace, relaxation, and enjoyment of our teenage years.
Academic programs and goals dominate our school year. They shouldn’t dominate our summer too.
Summer sun overshadowed by school pressuresBy Rebecca Smalbach
Despite his dangerous ideas, candor ‘Trumps’ allBy Gregory Block
Illustration by Eve Anderson
William Jennings Bryan, a loud, active Democratic presidential candidate from the early 1900s, once said, “An orator is a man who says what he thinks and feels what he says.”
When I read this quote, I cannot help but think of Donald Trump. Though he is not my ideal orator, Trump says what he thinks, and that’s not always a bad thing, especially considering the lack of interest in politics among teenagers today.
I am part of an increasingly apolitical generation of teenagers. Half of all millennials are self-identified political independents because of their dissatisfaction with politics, according to a 2014 Pew Research study. To make matters worse, only 50% of eligible youth voters (ages 18-29) voted in the 2012 election, according to analysis from Tufts University.
Part of the reason for low levels of political interest may be that many people do not understand what politicians truly believe or want for America. So while Donald Trump’s views can be derogatory and disrespectful, the candor he displays could help change my generation’s lack of political interest.
Let me be clear: Donald Trump is not the man I want sitting in the Oval Office. His beliefs and values are skewed and his radical ideas are turning the GOP presidential race into an absurdity. But as the debates have begun and public interest has risen, Trump has garnered the admiration of many conservatives.
And why? He says exactly how he feels, without a concern for what anyone thinks. Although Trump’s bluntness is offensive––he has degraded women and Latinos––if used to emphasize
progressive policies, it could be an effective strategy for any politician hoping to earn the support of young voters.
Trump has strong views on immigration, and believes that all undocumented immigrants should be deported to their country of origin. He has
called for an end to the birthright principle, a policy that guarantees citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Trump disregards “political correctness” and believes that politeness is part of the problem in today’s society.
In a country where politicians try
so hard to appease the population, many political commentators note that Trump’s bluntness makes him a popular GOP candidate in the presidential race.
There are reasons why Trump speaks so openly. As a multi-billionaire campaigning against millionaires, he has the financial stability that other presidential candidates lack.
While other GOP candidates have to make sure they are pleasing their donors, Trump has the freedom not to care at all.
Trump’s speaking style could help change teenagers’ lack of political interest. Although I don’t want teens degrading women, or calling for the deportation of entire peoples, it seems that a more blunt political style could attract more young voters.
If many politicians were completely open with their thoughts, our apolitical generation could begin to take interest in the presidential race.
Voters will only trust a presidential candidate who does not hide their beliefs. While this honesty won’t please everybody, at least we’ll know their stance on social problems.
It would be dangerous for the United States if Donald Trump did become president, but the candor he has demonstrated should be modeled by other politicians in the race.
Once the other candidates begin to speak their minds, the political interest of millennials could return, bringing more young voters to the polls and boosting popularity for more moderate candidates. And then maybe Trump will go away for good.
Illustration by Gregory Block
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 7 • Opinion
Police power restricted by negative public opinion
Events including Ferguson and the death of Eric Garner have recently brought the issue of police brutality to light. However, casting blame upon all police officers for the actions of only a few is more detrimental to our society than it is helpful. The negative attention on the police has theoretically handcuffed them, limiting the extent to which officers are able to carry out their jobs.
Society’s view on the amount of aggression police are allowed to exhibit rests on a hypothetical pendulum. When crime rates rise, police become more aggressive and as a result, crime rates fall. Then, society stops thinking of crime as an imminent issue and concerns shift back to police aggression. As a result, police are told by their officials to back off. However, once criminals realize the police are withdrawing, they start committing more crimes.
Anthony P. Coles, a former Deputy Mayor of New York City under Mayor Rudy Giulani between 2000-2001, gave his perspective on rising crime rates. Coles is now a partner in the New York office of DLA Piper, one of the largest law firms in the world.
Coles recounted that under former Mayor Giulani’s office from 1996-2001, the murder rate in New York City was lowered from 2,100 murders a year to 600 a year. This was the largest reduction of crime rate any city in the world had ever seen.
Crime rates dropped under Giulani due to his support in giving police the power to use necessary force in efforts to stop crime. Coles is correct in believing when police crack down on crime, it creates a safer, no tolerance type of culture.
As the current mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio has limited the amount of authority police officers hold by restricting certain tactics, resulting in a crime rate that rose 20 percent in the first two months of 2015.
“In every large group of people you will have a few bad apples, but the mayor [Bill de Blasio] believes that a few bad apples represent the entire crop, which just isn’t true,” Coles said. “A few brutal cops are not representative of the entire New York City police force.”
Society’s recent view of police has been warped by the immense publicity of police brutality, not just in New York City, but in the entire country.
We should face this issue head-on by allowing police to have leeway in certain circumstances, such as the use
of aggressive tactics, though still punishing the use of excessive force.
Although much of the police force in Ferguson, Missouri, has been depicted as brutal, they are not an accurate representation of all officers across the United States.
Though most youth generalize American police to be crooked and corrupt based off of what they hear on the news, police officers for the most part are there to help their communities by lessening crime and protecting citizens.
Kris Rockwell, a police officer for the Central Marin Police Authority agrees that the public opinion of police officers has grown increasingly negative.
During times of high crime rate when the police are needed to step in, the media rarely runs stories of their faults because people are desperate and focused on lowering the crime rate. When crime occurs less frequently, society thinks of the police as an unnecessary legion.
“[Younger people] are not necessarily growing up with the attitude toward authority that maybe their parents or
grandparents grew up with, so I think younger people are questioning authority a lot more these days,” Rockwell said.
Perhaps we are currently in the midst of one of the swings of the hypothetical pendulum, where crime is low and society is beginning to focus more on police officers’ faults rather than their successes.
My underlying concern is that if, in the future, we sanction police extensively, crime will come back in full force.
Americans should understand that our nation’s police hold a critical position in society. We must not disrupt the balance or we could be looking at major spikes in crime.We should try sanctioning police on a lower level so our crime doesn’t rise exponentially.
Illustration by Asha Cummings
By Andrew Hout
All of us will, at some time, face the death of our elders, our loved ones, and ultimately ourselves.
Given medical advances, a growing percentage of us will confront life-or-death decisions –– decisions that were once in the hands of fate.
Although it may be an unpleasant subject, we owe it to ourselves to anticipate and face the end of life. This delicate process should be left to the individual and the family, not the state.
In that vein, California legislators once again blundered, hindering our reputation as an enlightened, forward-looking state. They failed to pass a sensible and hypertechnical bill that would have helped alleviate the suffering of many of California's terminally-ill patients.
The defeated bill, SB 182, would have provided near-death patients, under certain very restrictive requirements, the option to request a lethal prescription from their doctors. The bill, known as the the End of Life Option Act, would have limited the right to only those candidates with a prognosis of death within six months, as submitted to and verified by a governmental committee.
Multiple safeguards were included in the bill to mitigate fears of potential abuse. It required patients to be “of sound mind,” as determined by doctors and psychologists, in order to make such a request, to speak to at least two doctors about their decision, and to, in the end, take the medication themselves.
The bill included a new felony-level penalty for abuse: forging or altering a
lethal drug request. Forcing someone into requesting a lethal drug would likewise be a felony under the new terms of this bill. Both of these new crimes would be enforced by a state-mandated local program.
While one may say that no safeguards are 100 percent foolproof, we must consider the other side of the equation––that many people, especially in their waning years, are suffering unwillingly, inhumanely and unnecessarily. Were it not for the coercive effect of the state, this would not be the case.
In short, SB 182 allowed for a rational, informed, medically sanctioned and deliberate ending of one’s life.
Medical professionals agree. “Americans should enjoy a right guaranteed in the European Declaration of Human Rights––the right not to be forced to suffer,” said Dr. Faye Girsh, president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, an international alliance of 52 member organizations from 27 countries.
It is imperative we acknowledge this natural right, according to Girsh. With the defeat of this bill, the state is making intrusive rules over free people’s decisions. There is no overriding state or societal interest in prolonging people’s suffering.
As compared to other laws of a similar nature, the now dormant California bill is fairly modest. It only pertains to a fraction of the terminally ill population. Similar, more ambitious bills have already been passed into law in Oregon, Washington, and Vermont.
For example, The Oregon Death with Dignity Act, in effect since 1997, hasn’t been used recklessly or caused undue suffering, as some doubters allege.
Nearly all Oregonian patientds to date, 89.5 percent, died in the comfort of their own home, the Oregon Public Health Division found. Their reasons for choosing to die were completely reasonable, justifiable and beyond question by any non-fundamentalist perspective.
By Simone Wolberg
Illustration by Simone Wolberg
Cancer patients were the top Death with Dignity users in Oregon, constituting 70 percent of the patient pool. The Oregon Public Health Division found that the most common reasons for the request were “loss of autonomy (91.4 percent), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (86.7 percent), and loss of dignity (71.4 percent).”
None of the requests were the consequence of a merely passing, short-term depression.
California communities are also in favor. Hundreds of California voters agree that SB 182 should have passed and should be brought again to a vote at the next opportunity.
According to a government-contracted research firm, nearly seven in ten California voters support the Death with Dignity bill. Eighty-two percent agree with the survey’s statement that, “A terminally ill, mentally competent person should be able to make a private decision to end their own life, in consultation with their family, their faith, and their doctor.”
With such overwhelming support in our own communities and beyond, it is a disgrace that the bill was blocked in committee.
My great aunt has undergone kidney dialysis every other day for the past decade. She lives with daily pain. People like her, in every home across America, should at least have the choice. In a theoretically “free” society, such significant personal decisions must be left to the informed individual and family, rather than the state.
With a right to live, a right to die is imperative
bark Page 8 • Opinion September 10, 2015
Head injuries force football players to make smart choices
The Northwestern University football team’s recent effort to unionize calls to attention one of the biggest problems in football today: the constant danger of suffering serious injury from playing.
The main motive behind the Wildcats’ decision was a pursuit of benefits that would come from being part of a union, with health insurance foremost among these perks. Football has always been known for the susceptibility of its participants to concussions and injuries in general, a stereotype that has come to light again recently.
In March, former 49ers linebacker Chris Borland made an early curtain call to his football career due to a fear of future injuries. Borland has been open about his rationale for retirement.
What stood out most to me about what Borland said was how fans view football safety. He believed that fans couldn’t appreciate the dangers of the sport from their couch. He said that if any fan were to play one game of football they wouldn’t love the game the way they do anymore.
I can admit that I am probably one of these fans. I have never played one down of organized football in my life, but still love the excitement that the game brings to my household every fall Sunday. And when concussions or other safety issues are brought up I hardly give it a second thought. But is it time to give it that second thought?
I’m not saying that football should be banned at any level—that would not be fair to the fans or to the people who choose to play the game. I just think that we need to realize how much is at stake when playing, especially for people who are playing at such a young age.
While organizations like Pop Warner have taken massive strides to make the game safer, they cannot remove the natural danger from the game. Despite using better padded helmets that are built to protect against concussions, the hits, along with the general wear and tear of football, puts the players at constant risk of head injuries that can affect their lives in the future.
There are countless stories of former NFL players
who had to deal with psychological difficulties in their lives because of concussions they suffered while playing. Linebacker Junior Seau, for example, was inducted into the Hall of Fame this year despite controversy surrounding him and head injuries.
Seau committed suicide in 2012 because of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a form of neurodegenerative brain damage, caused by the wear and tear of playing professional football for 16 years. Seau’s family was one of few that allowed research to be done on Seau’s brain following his death.
While this is an example of someone who played football for virtually his whole life and played an especially dangerous position, severe brain injuries are
still a legitimate possibility for kids or teenagers who play the sport. It only takes one bad play to cause a concussion. Once someone suffers one concussion, their likeliness to suffer a second increases. Once they have two, they are more likely for a third, and so on.
No football organization ignores the dangers of the sport, and strides are being made to make the game safer at every level. However, players and those allowing them to play need to realize the prevalent danger that comes in just playing the game.
By Aaron Halford
By Jason Fieber
Illustration by Emma Winkler Prins
Marin County’s forbidden fruit: ‘the ghetto’
In the past three weeks, I’ve received a remarkable number of offers to see the new hit movie “Straight Outta Compton,” which documents the history of N.W.A., arguably the most famous “gangsta rap” group of all time. As a white male living in an affluent community, the offers made me very curious as to my friends’ motives behind their desire to see the movie.
Since the movie’s release on Aug. 14, it has been the highest-selling film in theaters, according to Rotten Tomatoes, generating more revenue than the next two movies on the list combined. Here in this community, it seems our only taste of this supposed “ghetto culture” comes from the media, music, movies and television.
Without the media’s depiction of what a ghetto is, I would define a ghetto as a place where people resort to violence and selling drugs as a result of several factors, including a lack of hope, inspiration, family stability, education, and fortune, as well as the necessity to live.
However, these days it seems that the media’s documentation of activity in poor neighborhoods glorifies the extremes of violence and gang activity as well as sexism and objectification of women. Sexism and violence are virtually unseen in our Redwood bubble compared to the entertainment industry’s depiction of “ghetto” communities.
According to the 2012 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, Marin County ranks a close second in California in median household income, and seventeenth in the country. The wealth, quiet suburban lifestyle, and lack of both ethnic and socioeconomic diversity that surrounds us has generated a lingering curiosity about marginalized communities among many of the county’s youth. But we should redirect our curiosity from the stereotyping of poorer communities to actually understanding the problem and
helping create change.The “ghetto,” or at least many
teenagers’ perception of it, represents an edgy, risky and exciting lifestyle far from anything most people in our community have come close to experiencing. When I walking through the Redwood parking lot, I hear derogatory lyrics blasting from luxury cars. I hear students passively listening to lyrics about gun violence, strip clubs, and other problems virtually nonexistent in our community. Some of these students know it’s wrong, and yet they do it anyway.
Teenage rebellion is not new. We rebelled in the 1950s, when rock and roll music took over our minds. We rebelled in the ‘70s, when the sexual liberation movement took over our souls. Today, however, we don’t need to listen to music with demeaning lyrics in order to rebel.
The “ghetto” is viewed as taboo for many adolescents in our community. As a result, Marin’s youth views the forbidden fruit, the vicarious thrill of a contrasting lifestyle, in a positive, scandalous way.
It seems many of my peers have become so fascinated with the differing way of life in disadvantaged communities that they
are almost astonished it’s someone else’s reality. They listen to music that describes a harsh life, yet look past the struggle and meaning behind it, and continue to use derogatory language such as the “N” word without understanding the historical context that accompanies it.
Poverty and adversity are so close,
yet so far from our Redwood community. A mere 10-minute drive away lies Marin City, whose median household income remains almost $30,000 below Marin County’s average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One could even drive as far as 20 minutes to Richmond, whose median household income is almost $50,000 below that of Marin County. Though Redwood remains a short distance from these places, I continue to hear people throw around stereotypes and persist in associating these cities with danger, drugs and violence,
never having been to the areas themselves to be any the wiser.
According to a Redwood student who lived in Oakland, a place I’ve heard many refer to stereotypically as “ghetto,” he claimed to have received many cliché questions upon his move to Marin, like, “Did you hear shootings?” and “Did you deal [drugs]?”
Out of fear, ignorance and misunderstanding, it seems that we continue to ignore local issues. Many of us travel to foreign countries to complete service in impoverished areas, spending thousands of dollars while completely
bypassing the issues that lie minutes away.
While I’m not saying these places don’t deserve assistance, we need to
focus our attention on the issues that remain in close proximity
to our school and immediate community.
The inner-city lifestyle depicted by the entertainment industry unduly exalts the most pressing issues of the impoverished, leading those of us in wealthier communities to a skewed understanding. When we don’t have this understanding, we don’t think we need to help, inadvertently
slowing potential growth in lower-class communities. How can those living in “the ghetto” rise out
of their situation when those with more privilege overlook their issues?
In a our well-educated community, where we are surrounded by success and high aspirations, it is our responsibility to embrace our privileges, take initiative and enhance our understanding of socioeconomic issues in order to progress.
Illustration by Asha Cummings
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 9 • Opinion
Barks& Bites
A BITE to involuntar i ly getting seventh periods. Now we have 50 minutes fewer to pracrastinate after school.A BARK to 371 out of the 493 freshmen. Thanks for filling the void of the 2015 class.A BITE to juniors parking in senior row. Consider this your warning.
A BARK to boxed water. We guess it’s hip to be square.A BITE to the new CEA food. If you put a bowtie on a trash can, it’s still garbage.A BARK to the superintendent, Dr. Yoshihara. Pro tip: Don’t let your significant other cyber bully people you dislike! A B I T E t o a f t e r- s c h o o l conditioning for spring sports. The only conditioning we need right now is air.A BARK to the new solar panels for giving us a place to do shady business at break.A BITE to the jam-packed
staircases. Our dream of human dominos has never been this close to a reality.A BARK to the person who taped Donald Trump pictures inside the urinals with the caption, “He’s pissing on our country.” If only we could relieve him of his candidacy.A BITE to sophomores who wave around their lanyards. We didn’t know scooters needed keys now.A BARK to the TUHSD for going paperless with progress reports. Why not just get rid of grades altogether?
BARKS and BITES are the col lect ive opinions of the BARK staff concerning relevant issues. BARKS are in praise of accomplishments, while BITES criticize decisions or events.
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Have an opinion regarding anything that appears in the Bark or in general? We encourage our readers to submit letters to the editor. Letters to the Bark should be 500 words or fewer, typed if possible and signed. They must be submitted to room 177 or the Bark mailbox in the facility. They may also be emailed to [email protected].
August 23 marked the eighth annual GoToplessDay, an event where women in more than 60 cities across the world exposed their breasts in an effort to desexualize the female body as part of the Free the Nipple Campaign.
Free the Nipple is a movement founded by filmmaker and equality activist Lina Esco that aims to remove the double standard regarding the censorship of women’s bodies. It has recently found popularity among social media platforms.
In recent years, feminism and gender equality movements have affected change in society through popular social media and advertisement campaigns. But by enforcing a dress code at Redwood, we are further engraining a cultural attitude that women’s bodies are not their own and that they are sexual objects, the very ideas that these movements are trying to counteract.
Last year, the administration changed the junior and senior girl jerseys from baseball- style shirts with buttons in the front to more modest football-style jerseys because of a concern that the shirts were too easy to unbutton. This year’s jerseys again changed style––this time to a sleeveless lacrosse penny––despite large student support for the baseball fit that was once again turned down by the administration.
Many schools in the United States have a dress code that dictates what is appropriate for students to wear. These regulations are most often directed toward girls, with rules that prohibit strapless tops, spaghetti straps, and shorts that are above fingertip length.
In AP European History, there is a brief unit of study on Renaissance art that shows nudity. Teachers justify the study of nude bodies by saying that it is a lesson in respecting the human form and appreciating its beauty. And yet, these same teachers continue to ask students in strapless tops to put on sweaters to cover themselves. If we teach students that the human form should be appreciated, we must uphold these same principles in reality.
At Redwood, it is not uncommon to hear teachers and students comment on girls’ outfits, criticizing the visibility of bras or the length of skirts. Some say that low-cut tops and short skirts are distracting to male students, and thus should not be worn.
When we call a girl’s body a distraction, her
body becomes an object. We assume that she is dressing for sexual attention, when really, it might just be a hot day and she likes the way that skirt looks with her sandals.
But it should not be a girl’s concern if she is distracting, and it definitely should not be a girl’s fault if a guy cannot stay focused on the task at hand.
By arguing that it is a woman’s duty to ensure she doesn’t distract men, we are condoning the idea that “she was asking” for sexual attention if she chooses to wear a low-cut top and a tight skirt.
This claim of distraction is unfair to both boys and girls. We cannot know that a boy is distracted because of a girl’s outfit, so it is unfair to assume this about him. We must stop making assumptions that are unfair and often do not have evidence to support them.
In any case, girls should be allowed to wear what they want, as it is their body and their reputation on the line. If students would like to dress provocatively, that is a conscious decision they must make for themselves, as they are old enough to make such choices.
Dress codes are in place because some believe that too much female body exposure is disrespectful and offensive. Others rationalize that students should dress as they would in a professional environment.
But school is not an office––it is a place of education, and it should be a safe place to explore our identities and physical expressions as developing adults. We must not tell students to dress the way others prefer.
Women have been told to cover up for centuries, as if their bodies are not beautiful, but rather objects of sexual value. We must stop assuming that women dress for men, and act as a community to encourage freedom of expression. It is time to end the dress code.
Patience with the dress code wears thin
bark Page 10 • Feature September 10, 2015
Five seniors spend their junior years traveling and studying abroad
Seniors Delaney Benstead, Taylor Benstead, Mia Samson, Ryan Swanson, and Marisa Robinow each spent portions of their junior year studying abroad. The Bark spoke to them about the highlights and challenges of their experiences and why they made the decision to go abroad. All five of them said they would recommend the experience of living in a foreign country and cited immersion as the best way to learn a language.
RENNES, FRANCE
Delaney Benstead and her twin, Taylor, both decided to leave their lives in Marin to study abroad their junior year. Delaney chose to go to France with School Year Abroad because she had been studying French at Redwood.
She stayed with a French host family and studied at an American school with 70 other students, but all of her classes, excluding English and Precalculus, were taught in French.
“[The trip] was intense coming from only two years of French,” Delaney said. “From day one, they would say instructions like ‘We are going to the train station and this is how you get there’ in French and I had no idea what they were talking about. It was kind of a shock and I needed to figure stuff out really quickly.”
Because the French education system is structured differently, with six to seven weeks of school and then two weeks of break, Delaney was able to travel both with the group and with friends.
“The first week we usually did field trips and the second week we could go wherever we wanted with whomever we wanted,” Delaney explained.
Delaney said that while experiencing a new culture was great, she found it hard to connect with people, even her host sister, due to differences in customs.
“It’s kind of a trade-off. The French are a lot colder than I thought they would be, meaning it wasn’t the easiest to talk to them,” Delaney said. “In America, if I’m upset with my family I can just say what’s upsetting me and talk about it. With my host family, if they were ever upset we wouldn’t even talk about it, we’d just sit in silence.”
Delaney recommends the experience of studying or living abroad to everyone who can.
“You just grow so much as a person living somewhere you don’t know the language,” she said. “Your perspectives change immensely.”
Like her sister, Taylor Benstead also spent her year abroad with School Year Abroad, but in Italy.
“I’ve always wondered about what else is out there, like the classic ‘Marin Bubble,’ but I never really thought of it as a bubble, I thought of it more as a building block,” Taylor said. “I got to build off of that and see what else is out there.”
Taylor said that the biggest challenge for her was the responsibility of being independent from her family back home.
“One of the first things we did was go to Rome,” Taylor said. “They basically said, ‘Here’s your assignment. Go figure it out and we’ll see you in school on Monday.’ So we had to figure out where all these things were––it was basically a scavenger hunt around the whole city––and how to get back.”
Taylor said that through the challenges, she learned much more than what a school could provide, and came to see the value in “getting lost.”
“Getting lost is not the worst thing, whether it be direction-wise, whether it be situation-wise,” Taylor said. “That’s one of the main things I learned. Exploring different opportunities and getting lost are some of the best things that could happen to you because you get to figure out things in new ways.”
Because of her decision to immerse herself as much as she could, Taylor became very close with her host family. She said that the language barrier is only as hard as you make it.
“If you surrender to each situation to each circumstance and say, ‘Oh, I just don’t understand,’ you’re just limiting yourself and your opportunities,” Taylor said. “I would recommend pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and taking risks. Those are some of the most important learning tools in the world.”
MURCIA, SPAIN
Mia Samson spent her junior year studying abroad in Spain with Rotary Youth Exchange. She lived with a Spanish family while a student from Spain stayed with her family in the United States.
“Going into the year, I just did not know Spanish,” Samson said. “I was always the worst in my Spanish class. But I got there, and you just pick up the language so fast.”
Samson attended a Spanish school and all of her classes were taught in Spanish. She said that when you’re immersed in a language, you have no choice but to speak it.
“It was a lot of hand motions at the beginning but you just really pick it up easily because you have to communicate,” Samson said. “I had a host family, so I had to tell them what I needed. [Communicating in Spanish] wasn’t a ‘have-to’ after a while, it became a ‘want-to,’ and I was spending my nights on different translator apps just trying to learn more of the language and immerse myself.”
Samson said that while it was hard to be away from people at home and see them go through experiences she wasn’t a part of, she faced one of the biggest challenges when she returned and wanted to share her experiences with her friends but didn’t know how.
“It’s unexplainable––you can’t explain a whole year,” Samson explained. “Everything changes around you––where you are, your people, your language. All of the sudden your life just drops and it’s a whole new one. You change everything. It’s hard coming back and your friends not really understanding that completely.”
CELEBRATING NEW YEARS EVE, sisters Taylor and Delaney Benstead overlook the town of Rennes, France from a bridge.
Photo courtesy of Taylor Benstead
ROAMING THE STREETS of Cordoba, a town two hours outside of Murcia, Spain, senior Mia Samson, left, and her friend Raegen Tarantino admire the architecture.
Photo courtesy of Mia Samson
BARCELONA, SPAIN
For Ryan Swanson, the decision to study abroad was quite last-minute. Two months before the school year began, he decided he wanted a change and ended up choosing to spend his junior year in Spain. He didn’t go with a program because he already knew a family living in Spain. Swanson lived with them for the year and played tennis.
Swanson attended a Spanish public high school with two of his host siblings, one of whom is now staying with his family in Marin for the year. He said that the biggest challenge of the experience was getting situated there.
TOURING BARCELONA, Spain, senior Ryan Swanson and his mother visit the Catedral de Barcelona.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Swanson
VISITING AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU, a Holocaust concentration camp in Poland, Marisa Robinow poses on train tracks.
Photo courtesy of Marisa Robinow
“I had to get acquainted really fast. It was kind of a live or die situation,” Swanson said. “So I had to learn Spanish and figure everything out very quickly.”
Though Swanson had minimal experience with Spanish, he had taken two years of French previous to his trip, which he said helped him learn Spanish faster.
“I was fluent after about 4 months. You have to when you’re in Spain,” Swanson said.
Swanson said it was hard to have enough self-motivation to move to another country when he was unfamiliar with the language. However, he believes the experience was ultimately worth it.
“It’s hard to push yourself to where you’re comfortable living in another country and stay committed to that idea,” Swanson said. “Overall I had an amazing experience. I learned the language, experienced a new culture, and it changed my life. Making yourself do it is the hardest part.”
Marisa Robinow decided to spend the second semester of her junior year in Israel with a program of the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY) called EIE High School in Israel.
“I’ve been going to Jewish summer camp for 10 summers and I loved it,” Robinow said. “It’s exposed me to a new side of the Jewish community. It was my junior year and I was kind of sick of the same old thing. I had always heard so much about Israel and I always wanted to go there.”
Her four-month trip consisted of 11 hours of schooling a day, and twice-a-week field trips around and outside of Israel.
Robinow and 72 other students in the program hiked Masada, a historically significant site, spent a week in Poland visiting Holocaust concentration camps, and swam in the Dead Sea, among many other trips.
“We’d go to the places we were learning about in Jewish history and see what had happened there, which was really cool,” Robinow said.
Robinow said she only knew very basic Hebrew going into the trip, but the experience of living in Israel and immersing herself in the language made her much more confident in speaking and writing it.
“I learned so much more [Hebrew] outside of the classroom, being in Israel and hearing people speak and living in the land and learning the culture,” Robinow said.
Robinow said that one of the hardest parts for her was dealing with the added responsibility of managing her time.
“One of the biggest challenges was learning to balance school and fun,” Robinow said. “You want to have fun and hang out with your friends and go have adventures, but at the same time you have a lot of schoolwork to do.”
Robinow added that while leaving home for the trip was a tough decision for her to make, she ultimately felt she would miss out on more by staying at Redwood.
“I would recommend pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, taking risks––those are some of the most important learning tools in the world,” Robinow said.
By Julia Cherner
VITERBO, ITALY JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 11 • Feature
‘Godzilla El Niño’ to bring intense storms this winterBy Pearl Zhong
Infographic by Pearl Zhong
The Pacific Ocean is currently experiencing unusually warm water temperatures, which is a symptom of an El Niño weather pattern. According to Dr. Warren Blier, a Science and Operations Officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, it is known as the ‘Godzilla El Niño,’ and is predicted to create powerful storms, delivering much-needed water to California’s grueling four-year long drought.
Blier said El Niño is defined as unusually warm ocean water temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
“In an El Niño event, [the weather] gets a bit warmer than it typically would,” Blier said. “It has impacts on the general weather patterns across the globe.”
According to Blier, El Niño is at a strength where it could last several months, meaning unusually wet weather could hit California residents this winter.
Blier also said that while the El Niño itself does not present any danger, there is a possibility that the increasing frequency of storms and strong winds could generate hazards.
According to AP Environmental Science (APES) teacher Joe Stewart, the likelihood of having large storms this winter is between 82 and 97 percent, meaning flooding may occur in areas surrounding Redwood High School, as it is just a few inches above sea level.
APES teacher Mitch Cohen said that winds blowing from the south push water upward, which could add several more inches of water to the sea level, increasing the chance of a flood.
“If you have a big high tide corresponding with a lot of rain, there's just nowhere for that water to go,” Cohen said.
As for California’s drought, Blier said that the rain caused by El Niño will not solve the water shortage entirely, though it will help reduce the extremity and replenish dry soil and reservoirs.
“If things turn out the way we’re thinking now, it should help a lot in making the drought much less severe, but one wet winter can’t make up for four dry years. It’s
certainly a big step in the right direction,” Blier said.According to Cohen, unlike much of California, Marin
County’s reservoirs are fairly full. However, because the rest of California relies on the snow packs of the Sierra Mountains as their main water source, the snowfall generated from El Niño will be beneficial to relieving the drought.
“That’s the beauty of the snowpack—it’s a stored reservoir that can slowly melt off in the spring,” Cohen said.
To predict the likelihood of El Niño, Blier said that
scientists model physical processes in the ocean with mathematical equations and calculate them to predict what the future atmospheric conditions will look like.
“Since so many of the different techniques that are being used to do this keep coming up with the same answer, the confidence is high that this is what we will probably see,” Blier said.
Leave it all on the course:
Sweating, aching, and yearning for the finish, his feet trudged along San Francisco’s hilly streets at 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 23 for the 38th annual San Francisco Marathon.
In a sea of more than 25,000 runners, senior Cole Schneider, number 10987, was spotted in the crowd, wearing a neon green longsleeve shirt and blue running shoes. He was 10 miles into the 26.2 mile marathon.
His pre-run meal consisted of scrambled eggs and peanut butter, and it seemed to be working for him.
“I ended up running it because of a bet with my uncle. He dared me to run it and I had to beat him out so I ran it. Of course he didn’t run it though, so it was
just me,” Schneider said.Schneider said that, unlike most other
competitors, he hadn’t trained before running the marathon. But he was not alone, as many other amateur runners were racing down the streets alongside future Olympians. This was the first year the San Francisco Marathon was officially sanctioned as a USA Track & Field qualifier race for the 2016 Olympic Team Trials, though no runners qualified for the Olympic trials.
“At the start, there was just a huge mob of people around me. There were people on the sides spectating too,” Schneider said.
Although he lacked the months of training that many competitors possessed, he persevered toward the finish line.
“I kept thinking when it would be over and looking for the finish line,” Schneider said.
Schneider had his phone in a running band around his arm to see how many miles he had left, but there were also signs along the way.
“It was quick. I wouldn’t stop for water. I would just grab a cup and keep running,” Schneider said.
Schneider said there were other stations along the way providing multiple services with trainers and food.
“In the beginning I drank a lot more water, but as I started getting farther along, I could feel the water in my stomach, so it was hard to drink more,” Schneider said.
This was Schneider’s first time running a marathon.
“It was a mindblowing experience,” Schneider said.
Hours later, Schneider stood at the finish line caked in sweat and keeled over. The race was finally over.
“By the end I was done. I was unbelievably tired,” Schneider said.
Schneider said he felt he was mentally ready to run at the start of the race, but as time went on, his emotions quickly changed.
“It’s definitely hard with no training. I
could feel it all over my body. Just a little bit after the start I was dying,” Schneider said.
After crossing the finish line, Schneider arrived at a station that supplied water, coconut energy bars, bananas, coconut water, and chocolate milk. Schneider later collected a finishers’ medal.
“They also had space blankets, which I wrapped around myself to keep warm,” Schneider said.
As one’s body temperature drops significantly while running, space blankets provide a source of warmth for the competitors after the race. Schneider had to use the space blanket for about 20 minutes to reheat his body.
Once Schneider got home, he felt tremendous pain.
“I couldn’t even walk. It was one of the
By Kaylee Bushell
worst feelings you could think of just all over your body,” Schneider said, adding that it took him a week to fully recover after the event.
“There were just tremendous aches and pains all over, so I just sat on the couch and watched a lot of Netflix,” Schneider said.
Despite the temporary pain and fatigue, he is proud to say he completed the San Francisco Marathon.
“It was one of the biggest accomplishments I’ve done. My family, and especially my uncle, was impressed,” Schneider said.
Schneider is not sure if he will run the marathon again next year, but if he does, he plans to prepare in advance.
CELEBRATING HIS COMPLETION of the marathon, senior Cole Schneider smiles for the camera while sporting his new medal.
Photo courtey of Cole Schneider
NEARING THE FINISH line, senior Cole Schneider perserveres, about to fulfill his uncle’s dare.
Photo courtesy of Cole Schneider
A dare motivates senior athlete to run San Francisco Marathon
Picture this: The bell rings. Hoards of students simultaneously surge out of classrooms and stumble through over-packed hallways. In their attempts to make it outside, students get jostled in the crowd, and struggle to stay on their own two feet. Teachers, on the other hand, avoid this mess at all costs, and remain in their rooms until the initial flood drains away. The environment isn’t chaotic, nor is it unruly, but everything is a tad too cramped for comfort.
It’s lunch time at Redwood High School. Enrollment at school has gradually increased since
1993, when 1,062 students attended, according to the California Department of Education. This year, 1,785 enrolled students roam our halls, 493 of whom are freshmen, making this year’s freshman class the largest in more than 20 years.
As enrollment numbers increased, concerns regarding the quality of education arose among parents and students.
Does a larger number of enrollees truly dilute students’ learning environment? Counselor Lynne Kennedy doesn’t think so.
“The reason teachers aren’t feeling a big effect is that our class sizes didn’t
have to get bigger b e c a u s e the district hired more staff to accommodate the increased number of students,” Kennedy said. “It’s a testament to our
funding in this district.”According to
Kennedy, increased enrollment has resulted in the hiring of new staff in every department.
“Our schedule is student-driven, so
it’s important for us to get
the numbers from students of classes they want to take so Mr. Sondheim and the district office can decide how the numbers translate into teaching bodies for each of the departments,” Kennedy said. “Mr. Sondheim did a phenomenal job staffing and building what we call the master schedule, the big puzzle of what’s offered every period. He’s the mastermind of the master schedule.”
When formulating the master schedule, counselors and administrators make sure not to exceed a class’s maximum capacity, which varies from subject to subject, and is determined based on the type of work in a class.
The maximum class sizes this year typically fall between 25 to 30 students, excluding Physical Education, which has a maximum class size of 39 students. According to Kennedy, only three or four class sections are at maximum capacity.
“For the most part, it felt like there was a little more wiggle room in scheduling students this year,” Kennedy said. “We had a little more flexibility with the staffing ratio, and it felt like fewer classes were as full as they had
been in the last few years.” According to math teacher
Julie Norwood, the math department collectively decided to make calculus classes larger in order to maintain a smaller student-to-teacher ratio in lower level classes. As a result of increased enrollment, the math department grew significantly this year due to the introduction of new teachers and more math sections.
“You’d much rather have a calculus class at 30 than an Algebra at 25 or 30 because [calculus students] are independent, older, and in a higher level math class,” Norwood said.
While 5 sections of calculus are being taught, a record-breaking 20 sections of geometry have been split up among eight or nine different teachers, according to Norwood.
Kennedy noted a negative consequence of increased enrollment in terms of scheduling: fewer free periods.
According to Kennedy, in order to meet the needs of all students, more required classes had to be offered during seventh period.
“The people who wanted a free seventh period were shocked when we couldn’t accommodate,” Kennedy said. “That was probably, from a counseling perspective, the hardest thing since most kids who want a free seventh period have very good reasons for needing it.”
By Chloe Wintersteen
Growing enrollment spurs new hires and scheduling adjustmentsOvercrowding
You’d much rather have a calculus class at 30 than an algebra class at 25 or 30.Julie Norwood,math teacher
Freshmen Class Sizes2008 - Present
Infographic by Sam Sheridan
Students who were granted a free seventh period were chosen by a lottery in the scheduling computer.
“The computer prioritizes academic classes, gender balance, etc. over free seventh’s,” Kennedy said. “Most of the kids who wanted it just couldn’t get it, and Mr. Sondheim said that trend is going to continue at Redwood.”
For teachers, the most challenging aspect of increased enrollment is room sharing.
Mitch Cohen, AP Environmental Science and Integrated Science teacher, who has taught at Redwood for 20 years, said he first started sharing a classroom last school year.
“For decades, pretty much all teachers had their own classroom,” Cohen said. “During the periods that I wasn’t teaching, I had my classroom to set things up. Now, it’s challenging to find a quiet space to work because there’s another teacher.”
Even though it’s inconvenient to not prepare for classes in the rooms in which he teaches, Cohen said he has made accommodations.
“Ultimately, at the end of the day, is it going to impact your education because I had to share my classroom? Probably not,” Cohen said.
Cohen, who has witnessed the global population double in his lifetime, believes Redwood is already taking effective measures to account for its own microcosmic population increase.
“We can help to minimize our ecological footprint through the lifestyle that we pick,” Cohen said. “Redwood has already taken measures to a certain degree. The art building that you see out there was a result of the projections of increased enrollment. We have the footprint here to accommodate for more students, and we can add more classrooms if need be.”
College and Career Center Specialist Paula Vantrease, who attended Redwood between 1967 and 1971, said that more classrooms were utilized to host Redwood’s entire population when she was in high school. Vantrease estimated that approximately 2,400 students were enrolled at the time.
“There were about the same number of students in each of my classes as there are now,” Vantrease said. “But you have to stop and think. We had more teachers, and we didn’t have the computer labs, so more classrooms were available.”
According to Vantrease, Redwood’s classroom layout was entirely different. The only rooms that have remained
Growing enrollment spurs new hires and scheduling adjustmentsin the same location are the library, and the counseling office.
The classroom layout of Vantrease’s time was, in part, due to the fact that Redwood offered a variety of different classes when Vantrease attended, including chorus,
jewelry making, and home economics, among others.
Accommodations for Redwood’s large population size were not just limited to the classrooms.
The Covered Eating Area (CEA) was truly a covered eating area, which allowed for more students.
“We had the inside of the CEA, but you could get food from two sides, and on the other side, where the district office is now, you could get food and eat in an open covered eating area,” Vantrease said.
Even though Redwood was overpopulated when Vantrease
attended, she thinks Redwood feels more crowded now.
“We actually used our lockers, and you only carried the books that you needed,” Vantrease said. “We didn’t have backpacks! Backpacks take up a lot of space, so I don’t feel like the halls were any more crowded then than they are now.”
Despite the large population size, Vantrease met some of her closest life-long friends at Redwood.
“There’s no way I could have gotten to know the 600 students in my grade, but even though it was bigger, my closest friends are still some of the friends I had in elementary and high school,” Vantrease said. “I found my people, and then size didn’t matter.”
Overcrowding
I found my people, and then size didn’t matter.Paula Vantrease,Alumna and College and Career Center Specialist
Freshmen Class Sizes2008 - Present
bark Page 14 • Sports September 10, 2015
Girls’ volleyball set to succeed in upcoming season
With the addition of only three new players this year, the girls’ varsity volleyball team is composed of experienced teammates that have already developed strong chemistry both on and off the court.
This year the team is hoping that their experience and close friendship will help them win MCALs, which they lost to Branson last year.
“Volleyball is a sport where we need chemistry and connection to be successful on the court, so our coach is encouraging us to spend a lot of time together outside of volleyball as well,” said three year varsity player Elly Lundberg, who recently committed to play beach volleyball at Arizona State University.
Outside hitter McKenzie Cooke explained that having good chemistry on and off the court helps the players trust each other during games and pushes the girls to work harder during practice. Cooke stressed the importance of healthy competition amongst the girls and that they all have respect for this competitive drive.
“We are all really used to playing with each other, which is really important for the team and is going to make this season even better,” said senior libero Lily Barber, who has started on the varsity team all four years.
Barber, who has committed to play at Cornell, will be one of the team’s strongest players, according to assistant varsity coach Breana Thomas.
The team is composed of six returning seniors and three returning juniors. Team captains will be seniors Marguerite Spaethling, Lily Barber, and Elly Lundberg.
Senior Amanda Lamar is returning as a middle hitter and Kylie Kvam will again be a right side and outside hitter.
Although the team is composed of many returning players, one major difference this season is that senior Elly Lundberg will be playing all six positions instead of just middle hitter.
Head coach Katie Pease wanted Lundberg to play in the back row this season because she played a lot of beach volleyball over the summer, which helped her further develop her passing skills .
While many of the girls have played beach volleyball, Lundberg and junior Mari Molina are the only two players on the team who have been playing beach volleyball competitively and will continue to do so at Arizona State University and Stetson University, respectively.
Molina, who has played on the varsity team for the past two years, is returning as the team’s center.
“She is going to be an amazing defensive weapon as well as set the tempo of the team with her great decision making and location on the court,” Pease said.
For the most part, practices will be run the same way as in years past, but this year they will be longer, according to Lundberg.
“We are really focusing on staying competitive during
By Catherine Conrow
practice and making quality reps every time we are doing a drill,” Pease said.
The girls are also trying to focus less on which teams they will be competing against and instead will put all their attention on improving their skills.
“In the past few seasons we focused too much on who we are playing during practice, especially when it came to certain teams, such as Branson,” Barber said.
The team has also started to work with a new conditioning trainer twice a week to help the girls with specific exercises that will be helpful for volleyball.
“We used to just run the mile which doesn’t actually help any volleyball skills but now we are going to work on vertical training, speed, and quick intervals, all of which actually apply to volleyball,” Barber said.
According to both Pease and Thomas, the junior varsity and freshman teams also have a lot of potential and depth.
“I have been here for 18 years and from top to bottom, freshman player to varsity player, this year rivals any of our other top years,” Pease said.
Because the varsity team is composed of six seniors, it is really important for the older players to train the younger
players to take over their positions next year, according to Lundberg.
“The biggest difference this year is that the JV team is completely filled with kids that could potentially make varsity, there isn’t anyone there that couldn’t find a spot on varsity next year,” said Thomas, who coaches the junior varsity team.
“Our program is really fortunate that we got a really big, really good freshman class, which provided us with the opportunity to make the whole program strong,” Thomas said.
According to Thomas, the top junior varsity players will be freshmen Ella Spaethling and Brittney Klein.
“Since we made the team where every kid can get a shot at playing varsity, there’s a lot of kids to watch and I definitely would count on the freshman bringing their A game,” Thomas said.
The girls will host their first league game of the season on Wednesday, Sept. 16 at 6 p.m. against San Marin High School.
SENIOR LILY BARBER prepares to set the ball for her teammate during practice in the small gym. The team’s first game will be on Wednesday Sept. 16.
Photo by Kaylee Bushell
Girls’ water polo looks to continue climbing the MCAL ranksBy Max Josef
SENIOR JENNAFER SCHOONOVER passes the water polo ball during practice on Sept. 9.
Photo by Kaylee Bushell
If you can outswim the other team you don’t necessarily have to have the skills to beat the other team.Alicia Vargelis,junior
After a 15-11 season and a sixth place finish in MCAL, the girls’ water polo team will look to improve their conditioning and teamwork on offense as they head into the 2015 season.
The team, led by last year’s leading scorer senior Jennafer Schoonover, will try to build on its momentum in league play after finishing the regular season with two straight wins and a playoff appearance despite not making it the previous year.
“Our team is currently being infused with new talent,” junior Courtney Morris said. “In 2013, we had 12 girls [on the JV team]. All of them were freshmen and all had basically never touched a water polo ball before. We barely had any [substitutes]. It was difficult to play tournaments because of it,” Morris said.
Senior Charlotte Montoya feels confident that the team will be restocked with new talent and will still be competitive
when the seniors graduate. According to senior Katie Isaacson,
many members of the team have played together for four years.
“We have a lot of seniors, 11 to be exact, which, along with the fact that a lot of us played club water polo, will definitely
help us,” Isaacson said. “Our counter attacks, swimming and hole set, which is our main goal scorer who is positioned in front of the net, are probably our biggest strengths.”
Despite these strengths, the players know they need to continue to work hard.
“Our main goal is to work more on our plays and come out strong. We are especially working on our conditioning.
Because if you can outswim the other team, you don’t necessarily have to have the skills to beat the other team,” said junior Alicia Vargelis.
Coach Kirsten Frazer, who has been Redwood’s head girls’ water polo coach for the past two years, is confident in the team’s potential this year.
“The thing that sets this team apart from other teams in the league is that the team is really eager to learn. The team’s eagerness will hopefully not only develop this current team, but will carry over to others,” Frazer said.
According to Frazer, the team is not focused on beating one team specifically, and they prepare to play every team with the same intensity. Currently, the team is most worried about getting ready for the
season and working on their offensive fundamentals.
Though the team may not be focused on beating one team, the team is definitely looking at their opener against Marin Catholic.
The team kicks off its season on Thursday, September 17 against rival Marin Catholic at Redwood at 5 p.m.
Cross country team races to maintain top spot in MCAL
New girls’ field hockey team introduced this fallbarkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 15
By Nicole Stock
By Keely Jenkins
After a record-breaking 2014 season, the girls’ cross country team is working hard to continue their winning streak while the boys aim to join the ranks.
Last season the girls cross country team did well. They set a new record for Marin County in the MCALs, won the North Coast Sectionals, and placed sixth in Division II at the state meet. This success is expected to continue despite the loss of Mary Monda Oewel, a 2015 graduate who placed ninth at the 2014 state meet.
In the Marin County Athletic League, the first five people on each team score points and the sixth and seventh work to displace other competing athletes in order to limit them to the smallest amount of points possible.
“This is a really tight core of girls and we have a very solid top five and a very solid six and seven,” said head coach Laura Schmitt.
In order to maintain their top spot, the varsity team captains organized a summer running group that met six days a week at eight in the morning.
“We do a lot more running, to build up a base, instead of fast stuff such as mile repeats,” said junior Glennis Murphy, one of the five team captains.
This season’s team captains are Andy Ehrenberg, Campbell Nolan, Rachel Bordes, Glennis Murphy, and Annie Fogarty. All of the team captains are on
the varsity team. In addition to the team captains, Jake Schmitt, Laura’s son, helps direct practices. Jake is a Redwood graduate and is planning to compete in the Olympic trials in 2016.
In addition to running every day after school, both the boys and girls varsity [email protected]
SENIOR ANDY EHRENBERG and junior Andrew Thomas lead the pack of Redwood cross country runners.
Photo by Keely Jenkins
SENIOR KAYLEE BUSHELL fights off a defender as she tries to gain possesion of the ball.
Photos by Sam Sheridan
Redwood’s field hockey team is off to an exciting start in its inaugural season.
The team of 25 girls was created by senior Emily Caindec, with the help of Athletic Director Jessica Peisch and coach Jen Reidy, and consists of players from all grade levels.
Together, they have been working to create a girls’ field hockey team for the past two years.
According to Caindec, the most difficult part of the process was how long it took to turn the idea into a reality, which was especially long because their plans to have the team ready for the 2014 season didn’t pan out.
“We had been working on the budget for the 2014 season, but we didn’t get the new sport into the budget on time in 2014, so we ended up having to wait another
year until the sport could actually start,” Caindec said.According to Athletic Director Jessica Peisch, her role
in the creation of the team was working with the current coach and the district athletic coordinator to figure out the budget, the items needed, and setting the coach’s stipend.
Coach Jen Reidy said that she worked alongside Peisch and Caindec, as well as the Tamalpais High School Union District to help put together the proposal, budget, and the parameters for the creation of the team.
According to Peisch once the sport was approved by the school board, they had to ensure they ordered all of the proper equipment on time.
Although this is the team’s first season, over 50 girls attended the first day of tryouts, according to Caindec.
Caindec said that a lot of girls were interested in field hockey because it was both a new sport and less competitive than many other sports at Redwood.
“We still had to have cuts because we had so many girls come try out, but recruiting girls was not a challenge,” Caindec said.
According to Reidy, over 70 girls came to the information meetings prior to the start of the season.
“There was a tremendous interest in more women’s sports, and my hope is that we start with the varsity team, and with enough parents and athletes speaking up we can more quickly add a JV team,” Reidy said.
Although the girls’ field hockey team is not part of a league, they plan to play the teams at Marin Catholic, St. Ignatius and Berkeley University two times each during the season, according to Caindec.
Caindec said she first got the inspiration for the team while playing a game similar to field hockey during physical education class.
“After having a shoulder injury from volleyball, I knew that it would be a challenge for me to play to play overhand sports in high school,” Caindec said. “When we played a game similar to field hockey in PE, a group of friends and I joked around about how it would be fun if Redwood actually had a real team, and with that inspiration, I seriously started thinking about it and approached Ms. Peisch.”
Additionally, Caindec said that Title IX, which
runners went on an altitude training trip to Tahoe in July. The trip was not a vacation since the team ran twice a day to build cardio strength. The trip also served as a way for the team to bond and practice healthy diets.
“People think running is kind of an
individual sport but especially in cross country it’s not, because the whole team is scoring,” Murphy said. “If you have a close team you can set goals and do better.”
For the boys team, prospects are looking up. An influx of soccer players and freshmen have caused the team to grow in numbers. As of right now the cross country team as a whole is just under 100 kids, according to Schmitt.
Senior Andy Ehrenberg, another team captain, is leading the pack. Last season he ran the three-mile in 15 minutes and 32 seconds at the North Coast Sectionals, which placed him in first for the event. At the State meet he placed 11th in Division II.
“My main goal is to win the state meet for Division II,” Ehrenberg said. “I am the second-fastest returning runner for that division so I think that I actually have a pretty good shot at doing it.”
Campbell Nolan, Andrew Thomas, and Zach Patel have also been training over the summer and are expected to have successful seasons.
This season both the boys’ and girls’ teams are striving to earn the state title. Last year a number of injuries and illnesses impacted their state race so the runners are optimistic about the title being in their reach, and are running six days a week to earn it.
NICOLE NOTTER, number 18, faces off against an MC opponent during their game on Sept. 3.
prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity, according to the United States Department of Justice, made it easier to create a new sport.
“Once we started looking into the addition of a new team, we realized that Redwood was lacking one sport for girls,” Caindec said.
However, Peisch said that the previously unequal number of boys and girls sports teams was not a deciding factor in the decision to add the girl’s field hockey team, and that the team was created solely based on the need and interest for it.
There was a tremendous interest in more women’s sports.
Jen Reidy,girls’ field hockey coach
We still had to have cuts because we had so many girls come try out, but recruiting girls was not a challenge.Emily Caindec, senior
Rowers represent United States in global competitions
Senior Nic Baretto commits to Berkeley
By Kylie Kvam
While most seniors were spending their summers preparing for their college applications or enjoying the sun, seniors Erin Gray, Brandon Levy and Mark Levinson represented their nation in global rowing competitions.
Gray and Levy were both chosen to train for the The CanAmMex Regatta, an eight day long regatta held in Mexico City from July 6 to 13. The competition included Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
Levinson was one of 27 junior men selected to race in the 2015 World Rowing Junior Championships at Lagoa Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
CanAmMex
Just days after finishing competitions for their club team, Marin Rowing, in Sarasota, Fla., Gray and Levy attended tryouts for a junior national rowing team.
The two endured three weeks of tryouts and training, Gray in Connecticut and Levy in Pittsburgh. At the end of the three weeks they were eventually selected to take part in the 2015 CanAmMex Regatta in Mexico City, Mexico.
The competition was held from July 6-13 at the 1968 Olympic venue, Virgilio Uribe, which sits 7,382 feet above sea level, causing for a few complications for some of the U.S. Rowers. According to USRowing, at least three junior men passed out in their boats on the first day alone.
But the altitude didn’t stop Gray and Levy. Gray’s women’s four seat and eight seat boats won both gold medals and Levy was the coxswain for a gold medal winning eight boat.
“I still can’t believe that we won,” Gray said, “I think for me going there and not even expecting to make a boat
and then actually going to Mexico and winning, I still can’t get over it.”
RioAfter hearing stories from his coach about previous
U.S. teams being crushed at the World Rowing Junior Championships, Levinson was scared of what the
competition was going to be like, but he had confidence that his team wouldn’t be like past years.
The men’s eight boat placed second to the Netherlands, and was able to prevent Germany from being back to back World Champions.
“Our coach before the race told us that if we can’t get first secure your spot in second, so that is what we did,” Levinson said. “For the last 500 meters we were already being walked through (completely passed) by the Netherlands so we maintained our strong rhythm and made sure Germany didn’t pass us at the finish line.”
The opportunity to compete at the World Junior Championships has been a dream of Levinson’s ever since he started rowing.
“It was not something I expected, but I am honored to have been part of that team and represent our country,” Levinson said. “I have always looked up to the guys I have know that have competed at Worlds and so I think they have been very good role models.”
Throughout the summer, Levinson’s fellow teammates created a humorous Instagram account, @jntsweepbros, to chronicle their journey to Rio. The account included full bios of each team member with matching candid photos and pictures of the team competing (and eating) their way to Rio.
All three plan on continuing to row after they complete high school and Gray and Levy aspire to compete at the 2016 World Championship Regatta in the Netherlands next summer. Currently none of the rowers have yet to commit to compete in college.
SENIOR ERIN GRAY holds an American flag with her boat over the summer after representing her nation as a rower.
Photo courtesy of Erin Gray
Soccer to change to the winter
season
For the first time in Redwood history, both the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams will be playing their seasons in the winter, between December and February.
Traditionally, the boys would play in the fall MCAL season, and the girls in the spring. However, after a vote in March 2013 by members of the MCAL Board of Managers, the decision was made that all MCAL soccer will be played in the winter beginning in the 2015-16 season.
According to senior forward James Ingledew, many players and coaches believe the fields will be overscheduled.
“I don’t know how they’re going to fit JV into all this, and there’s also the girls team, so I think there’s going to have to be a game every single day. I don’t think it’s going to work at all,” said Ingledew.
Junior forward Estefany Guevara thinks that this move also may hurt the team morale.
“A big part of the team was having the same group at the same time and place every day,” Guevara said. “The switch may mess up our practice schedule, which could really be a burden to our team chemistry.”
Both Guevara and Ingledew strongly believe soccer should have remained the way it was prior to the season change.
However, the move may have some benefits, according to Guevara.
“We do get to play new teams from different areas, and we also get more time to play club [season]. Instead of just playing MCAL teams, we will be playing teams from all over the Bay Area, which will be a cool experience,” said Guevara.
The MCAL season for both teams will begin December 5 as both teams take on Terra Linda.
Page 16 • Sportsbark September 10, 2015
SENIOR NIC BARETTO practices his backhand while scrimmaging against his younger brother Paul.
Photo by Hannah Blazei
By Heidi Roenisch
By Danny AvinsTamiscal senior Nic Barretto committed to University of California, Berkeley for tennis on Tuesday, Aug. 18.
Barretto, a four-star recruit on a scale from one to five, based his decision to commit off several criteria.
“I knew that I wanted to stay close to home so there were only a handful of schools I was seriously looking at,” Barretto said. “My dad played tennis at USF and my brother is a sophomore on the team now, so it was really between Cal and USF.”
Another factor that contributed to his decision was the competitive program at Cal.
According to the Pac-12 ITA rankings, last year’s Cal team had five all-conferences players, including one of the top 50 singles players nationwide.
Berkeley has won two team NCAA national championships in its history, but has been dominated by Pac-12 rivals Stanford, USC, and UCLA in recent years.
Barretto will look to reverse that trend and help Cal return to former glory.
Barretto was also influenced by the high quality of Berkeley’s coaches.
“I love the coaching staff. That’s easily one of the best things about the program,” Barretto said.
According to the Cal athletic department, head coach Peter Wright has coached the Irish Olympic tennis team and has been the head coach at Berkeley for 23 years.
Wright was recently inducted into the USTA NorCal Tennis Hall of Fame.
Barretto was not initially in contact with Cal, but after visiting the school and meeting the coaching staff he was offered a spot on the team.
Despite his commitment, Barretto will continue to play a demanding tournament circuit in order to continue improving.
Starting in mid-September, Barretto will play a tournament every other weekend.
Barretto explained that he will focus on more local tournaments during the fall and attend bigger national tournaments in the spring.
Barretto’s longtime tennis partner and younger brother Paul is a five-star recruit.
Barretto said that he wanted to continue his career with Paul, but was unsure of their future together.
“Obviously I would want Paul there with me, but he’ll probably try to shoot for the best school he can. Yesterday [Sept. 1] was the first day coaches could contact him and he got a lot more emails than I did, so we’ll see where he ends up,” he said.
Barretto joins football player Jake Curhan, who was recruited as an offensive tackle last year, as the second senior currently committed to Berkeley in athletics.
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 17• Sports
From hardwood floors to sandy courts, senior Elly Lundberg and junior Mari Molina became the first two verbal commits out of Redwood for the fast-growing collegiate sport of beach volleyball.
Lundberg, going into her third season on Redwood varsity volleyball, decided to shift her focus from indoor volleyball to beach midway through her junior year and commit to Arizona State University in July.
Playing as Lundberg’s partner in many beach tournaments, Molina decided to commit to Stetson University after switching her focus after her sophomore season.
Lundberg and Molina to commit for beach volleyball
JUNIOR MARI MOLINA and senior Elly Lundberg pose outside during a high performance beach volleyball tournament in Santa Monica on July 19.
Photo courtesy of Mari MolinaMOLINA JUMPS to strike the ball in a game of beach volleyball.
Photo courtesy of Mari Molina
After re-calibrating her skill set, Lundberg spent her free time adjusting to the differences of beach, playing in beach tournaments when she wasn’t playing indoors for Redwood or her Absolute Volleyball club.
She played against women who had tremendous beach experience.
“Playing for just one year definitely gave me a disadvantage,” Lundberg said. “I was going up against groups of girls that had been playing together for several years.”
Despite the game of sand volleyball being soft and harder to jump on, sand volleyball requires partners to take on many roles at the same time.
“For my whole life, I played as a
middle hitter,” Lundberg said. “With beach, you and your partner have to be a setter, blocker, Libero, and outside hitter simultaneously.”
Molina said that having just one partner requires a different mindset than having five others on the indoor court.
“If your partners not doing well, you’re not doing well-- no matter what,” she said. “Indoors, if one teammate isn’t doing well, there’s five others that can still win the game.”
Arizona State stands in the Pac-12 division, and the coaches have high expectations for Lundberg.
Not only is she anticipating to start her freshman year, she must find and develop chemistry with a partner for the season.
Lundberg feels this might be difficult because she has a strong and unique personality.
Lunberg said that it is important to really connect with your partner both on and off the court so you can be successful.
Partners train together daily, which would be impossible without haviung a special connection with them.
As for Molina, she has decided to not play indoor volleyball her senior season.
So she will be able to dedicate the rest of her time to beach proceeding the upcoming junior season for Redwood varsity.
Molina will spend this next summer in Los Angeles for over three months.
She will be playing in beach tournaments and practicing every day in order to fulfill her hopes of becoming one of Stetson University’s best.
“[Lundberg] is going to ASU expecting to be one of their top players, and I want to go into Stetson being one of their top players,” she said. “They expect me to train extremely hard, eat healthy, and take care of my body for the time being.”
By Addy Brady
Tennis winds up to start the season with an ace
The girl’s varsity tennis team looks forward to exploring group chemistry and developing good doubles in the coming season despite this year’s reduction in player numbers.
Out of the 41 players who tried out, 20 made the team, bringing in two new freshmen as well as one junior who transferred back to Redwood from Saint Ignatius this year.
The team had to drop from 26 to 20 players due to limited coaching and court space.
“It’s just hard to turn away people that are interested in playing. Unfortunately we only have six courts. Last year we kept 26 girls and it was very difficult to manage play time. Anything really over 16 gets really tough,” said coach Marlies Zeisler.
According to Zeisler, there are no plans of expanding the tennis program.
Doing so would mean that every tennis program in the league would also have to expand, so that each team has an equal level opponent.
Junior Natalie Epstein said that tryouts were based on ten-point tiebreakers, in which the coaches record scores and look for skill in the players.
According to junior Alexa Mizenin, in previous years when there were too many players, each player would have to take turns using the small number of nets and would sometimes have to travel to Piper Park to use the extra tennis courts.
“Last year there was always an uneven number and some of us would have to work out between the courts, envisioning the net, just playing on the red part of the court. That was hard,” Mizenin said.
Coach Zeisler believes that it’s possible for a practice to just consist of drills, however the players who make the team need actual playing experience on the courts to improve.
“When you only have six courts you need one court for singles players, that’s just two girls on a court. We can run drills and do ten to twenty people on a court, but
By Sabrina Dong
SOPHOMORE DEVON CUSAK prepares to return the ball during practice.
Photo by Sabrina Dong
they really need the playing experience. That’s what really makes them good competitors,” Zeisler said.
Epstein feels that having a smaller team has already changed the social dynamic.
“I think girls are getting to know each other better. We get to play more people because we can spread out more and everyone can talk to new people,” Epstein said.
Mizenin felt that having a smaller team was advantageous because the smaller the number of people, the more time the coaches can spend with each player.
This way the players have more personal time with the coaches to work on their weaknesses and build upon their strengths.
“A big strength we have is that everyone enjoys playing and they work really hard at practice. Everyone who’s there wants to be there, which leads to a not only hard-working team, but a happier team as well,” Epstein said.
Zeisler believes that this year, the whole team is composed of very strong, talented players.
“We are very deep this year. We are going to go far with depth. We have a lot of skill all the way down to number twenty down the ladder,” Zeisler said.
According to Zeisler, though their depth may be good, the group’s goal this year is to work on their number two and three doubles teams, volleys, and overheads.
“When you play six singles and three doubles it usually comes down to that two and three doubles team, who has a deeper team, and can really win when it’s close at the top,” Zeisler said.
To make a good doubles team, the coaches pair together two players who have excellent communication and chemistry.
“You really need one leader on the doubles team. You need one person who’s really going to kind of take control and help the other person,” Zeiser said.
“You need to have a great net person and potentially a great ground stroker to set up the net person. Communication is huge in doubles.”
The team’s first home match was on Tuesday, Sept.. 8 against San Marin. Redwood girls won 9 to 0.
The team’s next match will be Tuesday September 15 at 4:00 pm against Marin Catholic.
bark Page 18 • Sports September 10, 2015
Track runners cross-train to prepare for their season
Boys’ varsity water polo hopeful about their upcoming season
By Isabella Alioto
Though the girls’ varsity track team is months away from competing, the athletes on the team are using the fall to prepare for their season. Every day, just 20 minutes after the last bell of the day rings, several of Redwood’s sprinters gather at the track with the cross country team to join their practice.
In hopes of improving their endurance and staying in shape year-round, nearly ten of approximately 40 sprinters from the track team practice with the cross country team daily. The majority of these girls didn’t previously play a fall sport, and decided this year to stay active year-round so they will be prepared for the spring.
“It’s been really interesting because we’re all sprinters, not just track athletes,” said junior Shauna Ewry.
Since track runners are used to sprinting short distances as opposed to jogging long ones, the group often runs with the JV cross country runners because the Varsity runners’ workouts generally require endurance that track athletes do not have. Also, the sprinters occasionally run separately at a pace more sustainable for them.
“We have to start somewhere because a lot of us aren’t good endurance-wise––we are good at going fast in a short time,” said senior Audrey Smith.
Joining the cross country team hasn’t been solely about improving the sprinter’s endurance. After practices, the track runners generally do drills specific to sprinters without the rest of the cross country team.
The team expects the results of this upcoming track season will be even better than last year. Smith said she hopes the work she does this fall will pay off when she and a few other girls race the 400 meter race in the spring.
“Running cross country will help my endurance a lot in [the 400 meter] race because the 400 saps your energy,” Smith said. “Having the endurance for that race is really helpful.”
Ewry also believes that running cross country will help improve her time in the 400 meter race.
“Although [cross country’s] different, it’s really helping some of our longer sprints,” said Ewry, who already noticed improvements in her endurance while running the 400 last week.
Additionally, Smith hopes that running with the cross country team this fall will help prevent shin splints and other injuries that can occur from jumping into a season
unprepared. She also believes that this will bond the team before the start of the track season.
After practicing with the cross country team this fall, the girls will participate in a track program with their coaches throughout the winter.
By Hannah Blazei
After their dual MCAL and NCS wins last season, the boys’ varsity water polo team approaches this season with mixed emotions. The beginning of the season, although exciting, has been an intense snap back to reality. Many returning varsity athletes are starting to realize that they lost more than just their starting lineup, when over half of the team graduated last season.
Senior Dea Edington, a second year varsity player, sentimentally described the chemistry of last year’s team.
“They knew each other so well and they were friends outside of polo, whereas I’m only friends with a couple of the guys on the team outside of polo. We just don’t have that connection,” Edington said. “Last year, they knew what the other player was going to do from the moment they passed them the ball. This year it’s kind of a crapshoot.”
Edington attributes this impressive team chemistry not only to friendships, but also to experience. Many of the key senior athletes on last season’s team had been playing water polo together for years. This season, on the other hand, he expects to be starting alongside players with whom he has never engaged.
Junior Francesco Cico, a returning varsity athlete, said he already feels the loss of key players, including his older brother Giorgio Cico. Despite sharing Edington’s bittersweet feelings, he hopes that with the right kind of leadership, the team will have the opportunity to build up to where they were last year.
“Last year, we were really good. [The graduated seniors] were at the top of their level and established a great work ethic and they had been playing for a while together so they had good team chemistry,” Cico said.
According to Cico, players such as junior Wyatt Barker, who step up and take leadership roles, will be key factors for this year’s success.
“I’m really there just to make sure
the team’s doing their best at all times,” Barker, first year varsity player, said.
According to Barker, Cico exemplifies leadership qualities as well by being verbal and building up team morale during practice.
All three varsity players share a fear of Drake’s team this season, and what the Drake athletes are capable of achieving. Although Redwood beat Drake 9-6 in the MCAL championship game in the 2014 season, Cico doubts that a win against this year’s team is attainable.
Cico attributes this prediction to his intimate relationship with the Drake varsity players, and his first hand experience playing alongside many of Drake’s key players on their Sleepy Hollow Aquatics (SHAQ) club team this past off-season.
Cico, as well as Barker, has been playing with the same group of boys for
many years on the SHAQ team, under Drake’s head coach Matt Swanson. This summer, the club team won third in the Junior Olympics, resulting in a national ranking.
Cico said he thinks next year the SHAQ team should be able to win it all. Cico and Barker have witnessed their SHAQ teammates’ incredible skill and said they are definitely afraid to face them in the high school season, even though most of their key players are just entering sophomore year.
Cico and Edington are in agreement that this will be a developmental year for the team, as they will have to focus on team chemistry as well as physical skill.
According to Edington, the team is physically built but much smaller than last year’s players.
In an attempt to compensate for this
difference, this season’s team puts an emphasis on swimming during practice to increase speed and stamina. Edington predicts their tactics will have to be different and they will have to play smarter.
A lot of the weight will also fall on Coach Rudy Kardos’ shoulders. Kardos won MCAL Coach Of The Year last year, after successfully taking Redwood’s team from the bottom of the barrel to the top.
According to Barker, Kardos is already pushing the team to its best.
“He’s really made sure that we’re in shape and that we’re ready to go on game day, which is really important,” Barker said. “You don’t want to come off the bench flat or lackluster. He’s definitely improved the team.”
Despite the differences in this year’s team, Edington still expresses high hopes for the season to come.
“I think the seniors have the mentality that this is our last year together––we’re doing this to have a lot of fun together. We’re aiming to win MCALs again, and that’d be awesome, but I’m just happy to be with my team one more year,” Edington said.
In addition to emulating the tenacity, chemistry, and mental game of last year’s team, Edington hopes to strive for his additional personal goals.
Since Cico, unlike Edington, does not have to say goodbye to high school water polo after this year, his season goals are geared more towards long term outcomes.
“I just want to rebuild the program because it kind of took a hit with all of the seniors leaving. Obviously I want to do really well this year too, but also build it up for future years,” Cico said.
The team played their first game of the season on Sept. 9 at Las Lomas High School. They will participate in the John Schmidt Invitational this Friday and Saturday against Bellarmine High School.
JUNIOR FRANCESCO CICO winds up to shoot the ball over three defenders during practice.
Photo by Hannah Blazei
THE GIRLS’ CROSS COUNTRY team warms up before a meet at Tennessee Valley against Maria Carrillo on Friday, Sept. 4.
Photo by Keely Jenkins
reviewreview Page 19
‘Beauty Behind the Madness’ surpasses expectations
The Weeknd’s highly anticipated album “Beauty Behind the Madness”, released Aug. 28, is a somber and well-crafted sophomore effort from the alternative R&B artist.
“Beauty Behind the Madness” launches the formerly mysterious face behind The Weeknd, Abel Tesafeye, into stardom. With the single “Can’t Feel My Face” reaching #1 on the Billboard Top 100 and a VMA performance, Tesafeye has crossed completely into mainstream culture, while still hanging on to the alternative label.
But unlike the usual bubblegum pop often enjoyed by the masses, “Beauty Behind the Madness” has a pervasive dark tone. Even the upbeat and Michael Jackson-esque “Can’t Feel My Face” has dark thematic elements, with lyrics describing drug addiction.
Every song on “Beauty Behind the Madness” contributes to the album’s cohesiveness, with each song focusing on similar themes, and all letting Tesafeye’s haunting vocals take center stage. The album is well put together, with flawless production and no weak-links.
Lyrically, the album focuses mainly on sex, drugs, and Tesafeye’s inner demons.
The opening track “Real Life” starts off with guitar riffs and transitions into Tesafeye’s description of his mother’s warning that he would destroy himself one
Photo courtesy of Republic Records
By Caleigh Stephens
By Sam Sheridan
day. While not a particularly memorable song, it is very effective in setting the tone
of the album in both style and theme, as he continually comments on the wrong
choices he has made, while still remaining unapologetic.
A number of high-profile artists are also featured on the album. Tesafeye teams up with Ed Sheeran for “Dark Times,” Lana Del Ray for “Prisoner,” and British singer Labrinth for “Losers.” The featured artists fit in well with the album, each adding a distinctive flair while meshing nicely with Tesafeye’s style.
The album also includes the song “Earned It,” which had been previously released only on the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack to much success. The mellow song is driven by a simple bass line contrasting with high-pitched vocals.
The album’s second single, “The Hills”, released in May 2015 and peaking at #4 on the Billboard Top 100 chart, is one of the best on the album. The song gives Tesafeye’s voice an almost lo-fi quality, with all parts complementing and blending together in a way different from other songs on the album.
Tesafeye’s echoing vocals have an ethereal quality as the album closes with “Angel.” An unaccredited female voice joins Tesafeye halfway through the song, playing the part of the angel Tesafeye sings about, creating an atmosphere of finality fitting for a final track.
“Beauty Behind the Madness” lives up to its name, bringing beauty out of the dark topics addressed.
PATXI’S PIZZA, a recently opened restaurant located in the Bon Air shopping center in Greenbrae, serves a satisfying BBQ Chicken deep dish pizza.
Photo by Sam Sheridan
Patxi’s Pizza delivers depth to Bon Air dining scene
Patxi’s Pizza has already proven itself as one of the superior chains in the Bay Area, and with its newest location at Bon Air Center, a large variety of deep dish and thin crust pizzas are only a quick trip from Redwood.
Patxi’s interior has a modern decor, with five large TVs over the bar playing a wide variety of sports, from hunting to football. The downside is, however, that these screens are only visible from the bar area of the restaurant. The walls are covered in thin wooden panels, and the light aluminum chairs are reminiscent of The Counter in Larkspur. There is also an outdoor patio that is surprisingly sheltered from the noise of nearby Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.
There is a bustling atmosphere as soon as the customer walks into the restaurant and there will likely be an enthusiastic Redwood student greeting customers by the door. Though there is a social vibe, the tables are spaced far enough apart to allow an audible conversation. The loud music playing in the restaurant, however, can occasionally be overwhelming.
Patxi’s Pizza offers a variety of appetizers, from artichoke dip ($9) and bruschetta ($11) to warm brussel sprouts ($8 for small, $14 for large).
Patxi’s serves typical dinner salads such as butter lettuce, arugula, chopped and Caesar, which range from $6 to $15. With bland green peppers, overpowering olives, and an insignificant amount of vinaigrette, the Greek salad was unimpressive and will leave the consumer hungry and unsatisfied.
The customer service at the restaurant was also sub-par. Even after persistent asking, the water took 15 minutes to arrive because of a waiter meeting occurring at 5:30 p.m.
However, after a salad and a 30-45 minute wait, a deep-dish pizza will surely satisfy a built-up appetite.
The BBQ chicken deep dish had small pieces of tasty BBQ chicken complemented by flavorful bacon marinating in a molten flow of cheese. This gooey cheese and chicken combination is drenched in tomato sauce and laid atop a chewy yet flakey crust that’s similar to a Pillsbury biscuit. Patxi’s Pizza even provides a side of honey to squirt on the crust for dessert, a delicious treat they call “honey on the bone.” The pizza is topped with thinly sliced jalapeños that add complexity to the flavor without overpowering it.
Patxi’s deep-dish pizza comes in a 10-inch, 12-inch, and 14-inch size, which range anywhere from $20 to $30.
They also sell thin crust pizza that comes in 10-inch and 14-inch sizes, and cost anywhere from $12 to $30.
There are many types of deep-dish pizza on the menu. The “Vegan” offers whole-wheat crust, spinach, garlic, red onion, and vegan cheese. The “Matt Cain,” named after the Giants pitcher, features pepperoni and garlic fennel sausage.
Both the deep dish and the thin crust pizzas are customizable, with a choice of meats, cheeses, and vegetables.
Though a trip to Patxi’s is a splurge, it’s definitely one of the better sit-down restaurants in Bon Air Center and is worth trying if you want a full stomach and an empty wallet.
bark Page 20 • Review September 10, 2015
Little fear, excessive talk in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’
AMC’s horror drama “Fear the Walking Dead” premiered on Aug. 23 to a record-shattering debut audience of 10.1 million viewers, but left me unsatisfied.
The so-called companion series to the AMC megahit “The Walking Dead” takes place in modern day Los Angeles and follows an incredibly dysfunctional family as they do their best to survive the beginning of a worldwide zombie epidemic.
“Fear” opens with a compelling introduction scene, when protagonist Nick Clark wakes up from a drug-induced slumber in an abandoned church to find a zombified friend consuming the innards of a fellow junkie.
It was the kind of exhilarating scene that “Fear the Walking Dead” was expected to produce, but the remainder of the 90-minute premiere moved slowly, featuring dialogue reminiscent of a soap opera, and worst of all, had minimal zombie attacks.
“The Walking Dead,” introduced in 2010, began a few months after the world had already fallen into chaos. The show follows a diverse group of survivors making their way through the zombie-infested American south.
The show has broken viewing records, won multiple awards, is rated at 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and is my personal favorite show on television.
“Fear the Walking Dead” has been long anticipated by “Walking Dead” fans hoping for a chance to finally learn how the world spiraled into zombie-ridden anarchy, but so far we are still confused on what
By Eric Ahern
started the epidemic. However, rather than giving fans a
scientific explanation for the approaching apocalypse, “Fear” focuses on the struggles of a single family as they deal with the world’s descent into madness.
Instead of the intense, stomach-turning gore that all zombie fans know and love, the pilot of “Fear the Walking Dead” was defined by a sluggishly moving plot composed of stiff dialogue, making the show feel more like a CBS drama than an AMC horror.
The pilot was centered around four of the program’s main protagonists, who make up a mixed family with some serious trust issues.
Cliff Curtis, who appeared in blockbuster films such as “Live Free or Die Hard” and “Training Day,” is Travis Manawa, a middle aged high school English teacher who is constantly attempting to establish a good relationship with the children of his fiancé, Madison.
Kim Dickens, who was featured in “The Blind Side,” stars as Madison Clark,
THE COMPANION SERIES to “The Walking Dead” stars (from left to right): Kim Dickens (Madison), Cliff Curtis (Travis), Alycia Debnam-Carey (Alicia), and Frank Dillane (Nick).
Photo courtesey of AMC
Predictable characters of ‘Mistress America’ comically come of age
a guidance counselor at Travis’ high school who is not afraid to go the extra mile to look out for her students and for her own children.
Frank Dillane plays Madison’s adult son Nick Clark, a drug addict junkie with a bad habit of running away from home and getting himself into sticky situations.
Alycia Debnam-Carey is Madison’s honor student daughter, Alicia Clark, who spent the majority of the pilot episode discussing her bright and successful future with her boyfriend, Matt.
Any fan of “The Walking Dead” might be able to predict that things might not exactly work out the way Alicia and Matt have planned…
Even though the premise is strong and the creators (who are the same for the show’s sister series), have proved their abilities to run a critically acclaimed zombie program time and time again, the pilot episode of “Fear” would leave any “Walking Dead” fan asking for less dialogue and more undead carnage.
Based off the pilot episode, it doesn’t seem as if “Fear the Walking Dead” will be able to live up to the expectations that are being demanded of it.
However, if the plot quickens and the anticipated gory content is featured, “Fear” has the potential to become a show nearing the level of greatness that its companion series has achieved.
“Fear the Walking Dead” airs on AMC on Sunday nights at 9 p.m.
A down-to-earth main character. An enigmatic antagonist. An unexpected adventure. An internal social conflict. A breaking apart. A coming together. These are the same elements of every “coming of age” story, and “Mistress America” proves to be no exception.
“Mistress America” begins with the main character, Tracy (Lola Kirke), an introverted 18-year-old homebody and writer, attempting to assimilate into the culture of Barnard College in New York. When her only friend, Tony (Matthew Shear), seems to drop her friendship when he begins dating another girl, Tracy becomes increasingly desperate to make friends, leading her to reach out to her mysterious step-sister-to-be, Brooke. Tracy and Brooke become closer and eventually embark on a series of comically misguided adventures.
Although the plotline fails to deviate from the all-too-familiar “coming of age” structure, there are certain aspects of the film that add an undeniable bit of character to the otherwise flat plot.
Even though there is minimal character development, certain minor characters, such as Tony and Tony’s laughably possessive girlfriend, Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), engage the audience with their moments of banter and antics. However, their comedy is not enough to compensate for the lack of chemistry between Tracy, Brooke, and the supporting characters––the only truly developed and realistic relationship is that of Tracy and Brooke. “Mistress America” would hardly have been different had there only been those two actors in the entire film.
Had there been more character and relationship development among the other characters, the comedy would have been more humorous. Brooke’s foil and “sworn enemy,” Mamie-Claire (Heather Lind), who “stole” Brooke’s ex-boyfriend, truly captivated the audience with her quasi-catty
“MISTRESS AMERICA” offers a humorous perspective on coming-of-age issues. Greta Gerwig plays Brooke (left), the mysterious step-sister-to-be of main character Tracy, played by Lola Kirke (right).
Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Productions
By Madison Barsi
humor and excellent portrayal of jealousy. Similar to Mamie-Claire, Nicolette sheds light on the humor in jealousy by exaggerating her jealous behavior and making it a defining character trait.
Although the themes in the movie are overdone, “Mistress America” captures the reality of coming of age. Unlike its cinematic counterparts, it manages to accurately portray the awkward truth of the
transition to adulthood. The art in this movie is the use of
subtlety in portraying their main ideas about coming of age––that it’s awkward, emotional, and that one can “come of age” at any point in their life. With excellent timing, engaging acting, and vibrant dialogue, Tracy and Brooke humorously demonstrate the reality of becoming an adult, and that it can happen at any age.
While undeniably cliché, the film’s artful use of timing in humor and engaging dialogue make the viewer pause and appreciate the film’s few unique aspects.
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 21 • Review
Right Here Right Now Jordin Sparks
The pop singer has come a long way since her “American Idol” win, and now introduces an edgier side with the release of this more mature, risky album. Though the album distinguishes itself from her past work, it lacks originality. A blend between hip-hop and pop, most songs are upbeat with the exception of a few ballads such as “They Don’t Give” and “11:11.” The album features several other artists including 2 Chainz and B.o.B , who add interest to the otherwise repetitive lineup of songs. Despite the lackluster lyrics, Sparks manages to hold the album together with her unmistakable, strong voice.
Recommended: “Double Tap”
This is clearly the album’s standout song. Possibly the only modern part of the album, the song makes many references to social media with lyrics including “Oh, on my Instagram you be lookin’/ Secret looks on your phone, I know.” The low beat and her soprano voice contrast yet combine to create a catchy song.
BadlandsHalsey
Halsey, a young pop artist, began on Youtube, transitioned to SoundCloud and has now created an empowering first full-length album, packing honesty and emotion into her lyrics. This transparency allows the listener to connect with her and feel the ups and downs of the album. Rough around the edges, she has a unique yet captivating voice. Her electronic sound is very similar to that of Lorde, and the album contains several uplifting anthems such as “New Americana” and “Roman Holiday.” The songs each contain strong catchy choruses that play on repeat in your head. This album has potential to be a major hit.
Recommended: “Drive”
One of the slower songs on the album, “Drive” tells a story by layering sound effects and conversation beneath the vocals. It feels as if the song is being played on the radio. It begins with the sound of the ignition, and ends with the rhythmic ticking of windshield wipers, leaving the listener with a certain emptiness.
Kill The LightsLuke Bryan
In his fifth album, the experienced country star stays in his comfort zone singing about typical country party culture. “Kick the Dust Up” is a hit, with memorable upbeat lyrics, while “Kill the Lights” has an unexpected funk feel. Bryan explores other styles as well with some slower pieces such as “To the Moon and Back” that go past the partying and into his relationship. Though Bryan shows maturity with this new album, he doesn’t introduce anything unique from his previous albums. Maybe this is a good thing, because his classic country style is what is loyal fans love, and it continues to sell out stadiums.
Recommended: “Home Alone Tonight”
This duet with Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild is his only song featuring another singer. Their voices balance each other well and the upbeat melody shows off the duo’s impressive vocal ranges.
Bark Beats
Brand New Ben Rector
His first album in two years, the name suits it perfectly. The “brand new” album has a fresh a perspective with slow ballads and interesting melodies. The singer and song-writer has an original style that mixes alternative pop with a country influence from his Nashville . Rector harmonizes with a string orchestra, creating a ghostly feel. Most of the album is a minor tone, but overall sends a positive message. All the songs on the album cohesively tell the story of a new beginning.
Recommended: “Make Something Beautiful”
A simple piano melody starts the song and compliments Rector’s gentle voice perfectly. As the song progresses, layers of instruments join in, creating a powerful soulful harmony. The heart-felt song is perfect to listen to on a rainy day (if it ever rains again in California).
By Annie Fogarty
Finger lickin’ french fries from Marin’s fast food eateries
French fries are a tasty after school snack for students around Marin. The Bark compared the french fries at four Marin locations: Super Duper Burger in Mill Valley, In-N-Out Burger in Strawberry Village, McDonald’s in Strawberry Village, and M&G’s in Larkspur. The fries were rated on taste, accessibility, texture, and price. The standout fries were delivered by M&G’s due to their simple balance of crunch and salt.
By Mary Winnick
Super Duper Burger
Although Super Duper’s Mill Valley location is fairly far from Redwood, it offers thicker, yet crunchier, and potato-filled fries. The wooden tables and outdoor seating make the atmosphere comforting and great for attending with friends and family. While these fries could use some more salt, the crunch on the outside and creamy potato in the middle make up for the loss. These fries are slightly more expensive at $2.75 for a less-than-filling tub, and are not enough bang for your buck.
McDonald’s
These french fries have a fair amount of salt and oil and are always a go-to when you’re craving a late night snack. With three sizes available and prices ranging from $1.29 to $1.79, McDonald’s fries are a decent choice. These fries are satisfyingly crunchy on the outside, but they lack the softer potato in the middle, due to their thin consistency. Although the venue is uneventful with plastic booths and florescent lights, this restaurant can accommodate you until 11:00 p.m, and has the option of a drive-thru if you go the one in Mill Valley on Redwood Highway.
M&G’s
M&G’s offers fries with the perfect texture and balance of salt and crunch. These are also the only fries that are crinkle cut. Although these fries have the highest price of $3.40 for a medium size, they are highly recommended and definitely worth the price. With one location in Larkspur on Magnolia and another in Fairfax on Sir Francis Drake the locations are accessible and a perfect place to go to for lunch, an after school snack, or dinner.
In-N-Out Burger
In-N-Out is known for being the gold-standard of fast food in California, but these fries do not live up to expectations. The mediocre fries lack flavor and salt, and are extremely oily. Not only are they are soft on the outside, they also don’t have a satisfying “crunch” when you bite down. The restaurant itself has a social atmosphere, as it is likely you’ll run into someone you know. Coupled with comforting red chairs and white tables, this social interaction adds to the casual feel. With no choice of size, these fries cost $1.79.
THOUGH POPULAR, the fries at In-N-Out Burger located in Mill Valley ranked the worst, due to their mediocre flavor and excessive oiliness.
Photo by Mary Winnick
bark Page 22 • Lifestyles September 10, 2015
On July 3, juniors Andrea Silvera and Shiva Kaveh published an illustrated picture book titled “African Life”, a colorful story about a boy named Sombron who lives in Madagascar.
In “African Life,” Sombron is a privileged boy who goes to school and spends time with his friends and family. One day, a sudden earthquake destroys his once carefree lifestyle and sets him on a journey of self discovery where he learns the meaning of taking what he needs, not just what he wants, all while meeting a helpful friend along the way.
Although this illustrated 21 page book took the pair about a year to complete, the planning behind it began years before, while they were in seventh grade.
The two first met in sixth grade at Del Mar Middle School and quickly became good friends. Only a year later, the duo took the initial steps in the long process of creating their own published book.
Kaveh was the one to come up with the idea of creating a children’s book. Knowing Silvera’s passion for art, Kaveh decided to ask her to be the illustrator for “African Life.”
“Originally [the book was] just for fun. Also, I had written a picture book for my younger cousins, that I gave to them, which made me decide to start writing this one,” Kaveh said.
Kaveh drew inspiration from her love of the island of Madagascar, and looked to resources like her public library and her parents for help.
“As far as writing, I wrote it and then I talked to my mom and the public library near me, the Belvedere Tiburon Library. I got their feedback on how to make a picture book, and how to make it kid friendly,” Kaveh said.
Silvera worked with the text that Kaveh
Junior duo collaborates to publish children’s bookBy Sabrina Dong
Jay DeMaestri is a journeyman.While the students of Redwood may
not see a story behind the dreadlocks and sunglasses of their newest campus supervisor, DeMaestri’s story is far from simple.
“Sports have always been a huge part of my life,” DeMaestri said.
His journey began with his years on Tamalpais High School’s varsity basketball team, which eventually inspired the path he would later follow.
His journey started at Tam and later continued to Cal State Monterey and the University of Hawaii, Hilo. DeMaestri would take his basketball skills all the way to the professional level, eventually
Former pro athlete joins Redwood as campus supervisorBy Jason Fieber playing in Germany.
So how did he end up at Redwood? For DeMaestri, his journeys brought him back to the place where it all began.
DeMaestri’s legacy in Marin County began before he was even born.
“My grandfather also went to Tam back in the day,” DeMaestri said. “He played baseball and actually went on to play in the majors.”
That was why before even setting foot on his high school campus, where a jersey with his name on it hung above the baseball field, DeMaestri had lofty expectations for himself, both on and off the field.
“I was never a straight-A student,” DeMaestri said. “I made myself do well in school because I realized that if my grades slipped I couldn’t play basketball.”
While his jersey would not hang in the rafters like his grandfather’s did, DeMaestri carried his basketball career beyond the confines of high school.
After graduating Tam, he moved on to Cal State Monterey Bay, where he played basketball on a scholarship for two years before transferring to the University of Hawaii, Hilo, to play basketball and earn his major in communications.
After college, he set off to play professionally in Europe. DeMaestri played in Cottbus, Germany for the Cottbus White Devils as well as in Paderborn for the Paderborn Baskets.
“Cottbus was in East Germany. I didn’t really enjoy myself there. Once I got traded to West Germany, was much more comfortable,” DeMaestri said.
DeMaestri said that Paderborn was much more westernized, making it an easier place to live.
After his basketball career in Germany ended, DeMaestri headed back home to Marin.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with myself,” DeMaestri said. “I never
thought that I would ever work with kids.”Though unsure of what he wanted to
pursuit back in Marin, his love for basketball drew him into working as a coach at the North Bay Basketball Association, where he has worked for five years.
“For me, [working with kids] was pretty addicting. It keeps you guessing,” DeMaestri said. “It’s not the same thing over and over like if you were working in an office. It keeps me on my toes.”
Coaching soon became his career. Previously, he coached a freshman basketball team in San Rafael, but now coaches the Junior Varsity team at Tam.
DeMaestri’s main reason for coming to Redwood was the “team aspect” of the job. Having been a part of a team his whole life, working as campus supervisor felt like second nature.
produced and created sketches for each page, using colored pencils and markers for color. Once she was done, she would scan the image and edit the image on photoshop to make it ready for print.
Silvera also looked for resources to help make the book more appealing to children.
“To help me with the illustrations, I checked out some cartoon books because I really wanted it to be kid friendly. That’s why I made the illustrations much more cartoony,” Silvera said.
The book was finally published on a self-publishing website called Lulu.com. With a price set at $24.99, their book has sold a total of four copies so far.
Both Kaveh and Silvera see themselves using their creative skills again in the future. Although Kaveh likes to write, she sees it as a future hobby
rather than an occupation, and Silvera wishes to use her creativity to market for STEM fields (occupations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
“STEM fields are actually demanding artists to market their products. I plan on either being a graphic designer for those companies or something else,” Silvera said.
Becoming published was a memorable moment for both girls, who are happy with the book’s reception.
“I’m able to finally share my work with people. I’m receiving positive feedback from people and some profit as well. It shows that the hard work really paid off,” Silvera said.
“I like trying to get through to certain kids and just help them out,” DeMaestri said.
Because of DeMaestri’s prior experience at Tam, he felt that he knew what to expect and felt he knew what many kids are going through.
For someone who has been across the world, DeMaestri says his motivation has always been competition.
“People need competition, whether it be in your job, your sport, or amongst your friends,” DeMaestri said. “Competition is what drives people to be great.”
PUBLISHED JUNIOR DUO survey their book, while seated in the quad. After years of hard work their children’s picture book , “African Life,” is now available for purchase on Lulu.com.
Photo by Sabrina Dong
DEMAESTRI keeps an eye on the school by patrolling the parking lot, one of his many duties.
Photo by Jason Fieber
DEMAESTRI BATTLES his opponents from Terra Linda High School in his senior year at Tamalpais High School in the winter of 2003. Upon graduation DeMaestri would go onto play professionally in Europe.
Photo by Kat Wade (Courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle)
Random Facts
hours per night are spent on homework by the average American high school student.
3.1
girls made Redwood’s first field hockey team after grueling tryouts.
25
freshmen were enrolled as of Aug. 19, the first day of school.
34 million kilowats of solar power will be produced by the new solar panels in the next 25 years.
493
students, chaperoned by Bernadette Rattet and Levi Hooks, traveled to France in June.
15
barkwww.redwoodbark.org Page 23 • Lifestyles
Face -to- Face: Are positive shoutout Instagram accounts beneficial?
Face-to-Face is a feature that allows two members of the Redwood community to grill each other, argue, or simply converse about a relevant issue or event. We provide the topic, and they do the rest. This month’s participants are juniors Ally Orrick and John Van Liere. The two students discuss whether celebratory instagram accounts are beneficial or detrimental to students. Why do you think students would want a post about them on a Redwood praise account?
Ally Olrick: They would want a post about them because it shows that they are recognized, that they are noticed, and appreciated. I think that’s really important for community building, to have kind of a positive idea put on each person.
John Van Liere: Well I think that everyone likes to be recognized for their personality, but at the same time it just feeds people’s egos. If someone really isn’t that nice but happen to get featured on one of the accounts, it just fuels them to continue acting the way they act even if they are not necessarily acting well.
Do you think it would be better to give praise to every student in the school or just the ones that have remarkable aspects?
JVL: Honestly if it is truly just based
on random acts of kindness, I don’t think anyone should be recognized. As soon as we start recognizing them, appreciating them, and calling them out they start becoming less random. It starts just becoming the ‘I do this to feed my ego and boost my reputation,’ rather than a random act of kindness that I believe would make someone’s day better.
AO: I think it’s important to give praise to every student in the school because there are a lot of people with remarkable aspects who aren’t well known. I think that if we made the goal of these accounts to get more people, then those people could also feel recognized.
How do you think the Redwood accounts find the information that is posted about students who receive praise, do you think that it is all true?
AO: I don’t think Marvelously Redwood is one person’s, so I think that a lot of them [accounts] have come in contact with people who are talking from personal experience. I don’t think that all of it is true just because there are so many students on there that some of it is kind of like a generalization, but I think most of it comes from people’s personal experience with the people, who are praised.
JVL: I believe that a lot of the information is just generically created on the spot. Maybe the creator or creators of the account witnessed a nice act that a person committed earlier that day, so they choose to highlight them, but if you look at the actual text in each of the posts it’s pretty repetitive. Most of them I’d say, around 70 or so percent of them use the words: brighten everyones day, and that’s just generic. That’s not really information about
a person, that’s just kind of something that’s said about nearly everyone they post about.
Do you think it would be better to have one Redwood praise instagram account, where the posts will come less often and be considered more memorable, or have more accounts, where the posts can praise a larger portion of the school
faster?
JVL: I think each one has their ups and downs, so I would have to
go with maybe just no accounts. It would be better if everyone, instead
of being nice to have yourself featured on an instagram account, should just be nice to make other
people happy and to go out of your way to make someone happy and not expect anything out of it. Just hold the door open for someone, make someone laugh and
don’t expect to be praised for it. Because in the real world you’re not always going to be praised for the things that you do and sometimes you’re going to put in a lot of work that no one will recognize.
AO: I think the accounts shouldn’t drive an incentive like that to be nice. I think it’s really important to recognize that some people don’t get recognized for that [acts of kindness] at all. The accounts are just really beneficial, and when you have more accounts, more people are recognized. It just makes someones day, you know. It makes people think about things that they do and if something they read doesn’t ring true for them, then they might not change anything, but at least they are thinking about it.
FACE
FACETO
FACE
FACEAlly Orrick
- vs -John Van Liere
Musician awarded with top scholarship despite admissions mistake
Monday, Aug. 17, was a memorable day for senior Michael Schwartz. In the late afternoon, the saxophonist received an email from Berklee College of Music congratulating him on becoming the 11th musician from a pool of 500 to earn a full-time scholarship starting in the fall of 2016––an award that was only supposed to be granted to 10.
Schwartz attended the Berklee Five-Week Summer Performance Program in Boston, Mass. from mid-July until mid-August where, as a rising senior, he was given the opportunity to audition for a scholarship to attend the college as a student.
Of the approximate 500 musicians who auditioned for a scholarship, 100 were given awards for varying amounts. The highest scholarship––full-tuition for four years––would be received by 10 people.
“I thought my audition went pretty well,” Schwartz said, reflecting on the process.
When the list of winners was announced at the Berklee summer program, Schwartz was not among the 100 scholarship winners. The reveal surprised Schwartz, who had felt confident about his audition.
“It turned out that the admissions office had lost my audition record and they thought that I hadn’t even shown up for the audition,” Schwartz said. “I had to contact the admissions office and ask them to relocate my record.” The admissions office eventually found his audition record and reevaluated him for
scholarship consideration, Schwartz said. “It’s a really strange situation. The Berklee admissions
office reported that this sort of thing has never happened before where they have actually lost someone’s record in the process of judging and evaluating scholarship auditions,” Schwartz said.
A few days after arriving home from the program, Schwartz received an email from the Berklee admissions office.
“It said ‘Congratulations you are the 11th person to have been chosen for a full-time scholarship this year at Berklee College of Music,’” Schwartz said.
SCHWARTZ REHEARSES saxophone during Jazz Band practice on Sept. 2.
Photo by Isabelle Marmur
All of the scholarship announcements had been made at the time, and the full-time award caught Schwartz off-guard.
“I was a bit surprised that I didn’t get anything, but I was absolutely stupefied to hear that I had gotten a full scholarship,” Schwartz said.
There were more obstacles between Schwartz and the scholarship than just a lost audition record. Getting in the audition room was an ambitious journey in its own right.
Before Schwartz could attend the program he had to audition for an elite jazz workshop of 12 musicians––of which four spots were saxophones––within the five-week program. By earning a spot in the elite workshop, Schwartz received a scholarship that covered the cost of the five-week program.
“[Getting into the program] was really an honor because of [the number of] people who auditioned,” Schwartz said.
The summer program drew about 1,000 musicians from more than 70 different countries. Schwartz was able to experience bonding by communicating through an array of musical notes that defied language barriers and put aside the fact that many of the attendees did not share interests beyond music.
“Once you start playing the music you’re immediately able to relate to each other through playing with each other, through knowing the same songs, through having similar amounts of skill,” Schwartz said.
Not only did the students who hailed in large numbers from countries like Japan, Israel, and China have a positive impact on Schwartz, but the program as a whole did, too.
“The atmosphere there was great, the classes were great, the teachers were very knowledgeable and supportive,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz is still undecided on where he would like to attend college despite his enjoyment of the summer program.
“At this point, I am not exactly sure if I want to attend or not,” Schwartz said. “I am still looking at other music universities, at other music colleges, and other universities in general for a more academic route.”
Schwartz is currently considering USC and University of Miami, which both offer music and academic programs that interest Schwartz.
“I am both very interested and passionate in music as well as a more scientific, academic side,” Schwartz said.
While Schwartz continues his search for a college with the best fit, his outlook so far is positive.
“No matter what happens, I am extremely honored to have been awarded with such a high scholarship,” Schwartz said.
By Isabelle Marmur
By Andrew Hout
Juniors compete in European national races By Sarah Kimball
For juniors Viveka Brockman and Ben Cook, this summer was unlike anything they’d ever experienced. Both Brockman and Cook traveled to Europe for international cycling competition invitationals due to their personal successes this past year.
Cook raced in Holland, France, and Belgium, participating in four races total. The most prestigious race was the West Flanders Tour, hosted by Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the international cycling governing body.
Brockman traveled to Sweden, where she participated in the Swedish Nationals competition.
Both cyclists won awards for their individual races. The support Cook gave to his teammates brought success for the team.
“It was great because in the first race, I worked for my teammate Sean, and in
the last lap [I] set him up for the win by doing a big attack and he won solo,” Cook said.
In The West Flanders race, Cook’s team earned second and third place in two of the three stages. They also ended up winning the overall team classification award.
Brockman was not competing for a team, meaning the success she earned was from her own hard work and determination. In total, she won four races at the competition, placed fifth at Nationals, and placed eighth in the professional league.
Both Brockman and Cook’s wins came from their short biking careers at home. Cook began biking in eighth grade after his dad, who biked in college, introduced him to the sport. Brockman, on the other hand, began biking as a freshman on the Redwood mountain biking team. Before joining, she had never biked competitively.
While Brockman was unexpectedly nominated for the selective, five member, competitive team by her Swedish teammates and coaches, Cook had been striving to be selected for a long time.
“I have been trying to get picked for that team for a few years now. This year I had kind of an on and off season, but I kept in touch with the nationals team director,” Cook said. “I had a couple good results at nationals championships and so I was picked.”
However, their success while racing in Europe did not come easily.
Cook faced challenges adapting to the unfamiliar cycling methods Europeans use and the different types of terrain they endure.
“The riding for road is so much harder and the racing is a lot more challenging because there are a lot more racers and they race differently. They take the corners really slowly and then sprint out of them and there are a lot of attacks,” Cook said.
Cook added that they won by using different strategies than usual.
“The race is normally won differently, typically from a break away. [In Europe],
there’s a lot of teamwork that goes on to get each team’s rider in the break and to win. The roads are more narrow and it is always cramped racing,” Cook said.
Brockman and Cook also faced issues with unpredictable weather. Rain was common during their races,
which affected the racing paths by making them more slippery.
“We did a few races that were on old farm roads and it’s pouring rain, and there’s mud all over the roads and so it is incredibly hard racing but it was a good learning e x p e r i e n c e , ” Cook said.
By the end of both of their trips, Brockman
and Cook had learned new techniques and methods.
“There are a lot of things you have to learn and you have to spend time away from home and train. But, it is worth it. I learned a lot of different things about the races and about who I am as a person and what it is like to live around the world in different places other than California,” Cook said.
Brockman also benefitted from the exposure and experiences in Europe.
“Racing around the world is a big job, there’s a lot you have do to learn. It is very different than racing in California but [traveling around the world] is what you have to do to be fast,” Brockman said.
Brockman and Cook said they inspire each other to be the best bikers.
“We met each other through cycling and have been friends since [then]. We ride together and train together and I don’t think my success would be the same without her,” Cook said.
Neither Brockman nor Cook have specific plans for the future. However, both athletes plan to continue training and think they will race again in 2016.
We ride together and train together and I don’t think my success would be the same without her.Viveka Brockman,junior
[email protected] courtesy of Viveka Brockman