BHS Jacket 2022/23 Issue 14

‘Financially impossible’: Parental leave limitations strain BUSD teachers

BY AELIA GYGER staff writer

“I would have loved to stay home with my newborn child longer than I did, but it was financially impossible,” said Yoshi Salaverry, an English teacher at Berkeley High School. This situation is not uncommon in Berkeley Unified School District, where teachers’ salaries are further reduced when they take leave for the birth or adoption of their child.

“You’re only paid 25 percent of your salary while you’re on leave,” Salaverry said. “People may have this misconception that during parental leave, you’re receiving all the pay that you would normally get. Within the Berkeley Unified School District, that is not the case.”

Teachers at BUSD are given the choice of taking child rearing leave or parental leave, two different options which affect how long teachers can leave and how much they get paid.

Teachers who take child rearing days are given PAGE 4

FEATURES

ChatGPT influences shift among teachers

BY SAGE FELDMAN staff writer

The current iteration of AI chatbot Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer (ChatGPT), GPT-4, has quickly developed into something difficult to ignore in everyday life. AI technologies like GPT-4 have made pernicious inroads into areas as varied as art, coding, and possibly education.

When Academic Choice (AC) English teacher Yoshi Salaverry asked the AI to write him an essay on the theme of unrequited love in “The Great Gatsby,” which he has read and discussed many times, he was impressed with the resulting analysis. “It was relatively effective,” said Salaverry, who believes that GPT-4 is very good at answering broader prompts like his. “I’ve had conversations about this with some of my colleagues,

and what some of them have pointed out is that if you have … specific (or) narrow … requirements … it’s very hard for Chat-GPT to navigate its way through all of those very specific requisites,” he said. In addition to moving to more in-class, single-day assessments, Salaverry will consider reframing his essay questions to be far more specific.

Brooke McKinney, also an AC English teacher, views the emergence of the AI as a wakeup call for teachers to take a closer look at the prompts they offer to students. “ChatGPT is really calling out the formulaic nature of a lot of essay writing,” she said. “It gives us the opportunity to rethink … how students can more creatively respond to something.”

In her opinion, these essays were already close to being formulaic and pseudocomputarized. GPT-4 takes that a step further. PAGE 11

FEATURES

ANNELISE SCHOUTEN

Elective advertising options limit teachers

BY LAUREN HUANG staff writer

As students made their course selections for the 2023-24 school year this month, word-of-mouth and the course catalog were available for students to gain information on classes. However, certain lessrecognized classes might have been underrepresented by these existing systems. When

it comes to a class’s survival, student sign-ups for a course can make or break its debut the next year, and during following years.

This year, Berkeley High School teachers have been given a different option for endorsing their classes, the goal being to level out the playing field for those with less flexibility to advertise. Each teacher has the opportunity to post a one-slide description of their offered courses onto

a communal slideshow that gets emailed out for students to view. The issue stands with how less mainstream courses could go unnoticed without the option of proactive classto-class advertising.

“It can be difficult to get solid/comprehensive information out to BHS students through our existing channels,” wrote BHS Mechatronics teacher, Ellie Buehler, in an email.

It is Buehler’s first year

teaching Mechatronics Engineering, a science elective class where students learn design and engineering through hands-on projects. The class meets once a week for a three hour lab at Berkeley Adult School. As a nontraditional high school class, Mechatronics is offered outside of the regular school day so it doesn’t interfere with required class schedules.

Kate Rosen, an Academic Choice (AC) PAGE 9

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GURSIMAR KAUR

2023 Berkeley High School election results

BY ELOISE THOMAS staff writer

While talking with my coworker recently, I found out that her mom’s college debt had been forgiven. Her mom went to grad school and many years later, in 2023, she finally received a letter of her student debt forgiveness. This made me recall recent news stories about student debt. While news stories regarding student debt are common, its impacts on individuals are overlooked.

Student-debt is a harsh reality for many people in the U.S., and breaking down those news stories is essential to understanding its impacts.

In September of 2022, the Biden administration announced a studentdebt forgiveness plan. The proposed plan is essentially to forgive up to $20,000 of student debt for low-income individuals who qualify. However, this headline event became a Supreme Court case as Biden’s plan was challenged and sued. One of the arguments against Biden’s plan presented worries about whether a president has the authority to enact the proposed plan. The lawsuit presenting these worries was filed by the U.S. states of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and South Carolina following the announcements. We expect to hear from the Supreme Court on that case by June or July.

Student-debt forgiveness is an incredibly relevant issue for us as students. Debt has a huge impact on marginalized communities because those are often the people who take out loans, get charged higher interest rates, and/or don’t earn high enough wages to pay back their debt as soon as they would like to. This disadvantage perpetuates the poverty cycle for thousands across the nation who hope for the bill to be passed. Why might people struggle to pay back these loans despite having college degrees and jobs? 48 percent of Americans, as of February 2023, live paycheck to paycheck. People are barely paying for necessities, leaving them with little to put in savings.

The pandemic also imposed a financial strain on many — savings were used up during times of need and current inflation makes it increasingly difficult to save. This is just the tip of the iceberg when breaking down the financial stress on individuals. Overall, student debt forgiveness provides hope for many Americans, but politics delay action on numerous such issues of importance.

To read more, visit berkeleyhighjacket. com.

On March 31, the Berkeley High School 2023 election results were announced in an email shortly after the end of school. The election that had taken place on March 28 was participated in by 70 percent of the student body. All grades fell short of the 90 percent participation goal, however the junior class came closest with 76.6 percent of students voting.

Drew Henderson won ASB President, and Erin Freeman was elected ASB Vice President. According to Henderson, in the future they plan to focus on restructuring leadership to make it more effective. They plan to do this by focusing class teams on specific goals and working to build more accountability for representatives. Henderson has also been in communication with the administration and has been working on improving the services offered to students. This includes talking with Jasmina Viteskic, Berkeley High’s Title IX coordinator, about expanding consent education.

Eliza McGlashan was elected as Senior Class President with 51 percent of the vote. According to McGlashan a large focus of her campaign was supporting students in what they want to do after high school by providing them with resources. When speaking on plans for the future, McGlashan also brought up prioritizing and promoting existing resources for students.

“A big part of my platform is making everything that we have at Berkeley High, readily available to students and making sure that everybody knows about it,” McGlashan said.

Zariyah King and Zamarah “Winta” Clark were elected Junior Class President and Vice President with King receiving 52.5 percent of the vote. Their main focus was centered around the student

experience and providing resources to aid them. They also discussed events to help the school build their sense of community and other plans to help students feel connected and heard.

“I want to make sure that the student body has more say in different events that go on at Berkeley High, and all the small schools have a chance to interact with each other.” King said, “And I want to make sure that there’s more diversity in leadership … I will make it possible for me and other people on leadership to accurately represent voices

(We) want to make sure that people have what they need. And they feel like they have help.”

Sofia Bloom and Sophia Nishioka were elected Sophomore Class President and Vice President. During their campaign they focused on communication with the students they would be representing. Nishioka described their plan for gaining the perspective of the student body.

that are in the student body.”

During junior year, many students start preparing for college by taking the SAT and ACT.

Clark discussed plans for resources for the junior class to aid them in an especially difficult portion of their education. According to Clark, among these plans were “a mental health day, where we can bring animals … A lot of juniors are going to be taking the SAT and the ACT… and start taking more AP classes.

“Sophia and I are going to create a club to hear about issues that impact a larger amount of the community at BHS. We know that we’re only two people, so it’s really important for us to hear different ideas,” said Bloom. “We’re also going to hold host fundraisers ... and supply drives ... they’re both to kind of help the bathrooms because currently they’re a mess and we’ve heard from our fellow peers that it’s a really important issue to them.”

In addition, there was also emphasis on acting as a method of communication between the students and the administration. Bloom discussed their plan for communication next year and specifically talked about wanting to keep the students informed.

“What we want to do (more of is) monitoring the BHS website. And I think that’s something that our campaign did a good job of explaining. (It’s) an issue that I think is really prevalent, because people don’t really know what’s going on… even just the election, is a good representation of how people are a little disconnected. So we’d want to kind of bridge that gap. Like we want to be a conduit, basically, for kids, and then leadership, and then admin.”

The election announcement also included a statement saying that the election for Chief of Publicity will be repeated with more information to come.

The ASB Leadership elects focused their goals on student welfare and making resources more readily available to all students. Many discussed ways to better learn the needs of their peers and their plans to effectively create change based on the feedback they received. A large focus of the election convention was communication between students, leadership and the administration. This point continues to come up in the plans of the elected leaders as they find ways to improve the student experience at BHS.

Winners Drew Henderson, Katelyn Liao, and Mei Saphir are members of the Jacket staff but were not involved in the reporting of the story.

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A lunchtime meeting of the candidates happened outside of the BHS cafeteria on March 7.

“I will make it possible for me and other people on leadership to accurately represent voices that are in the student body.”

Zariyah King, Junior Class President-elect

African American Success Framework begins development

BY AARON STEVENS staff writer

The African American Success Framework (AASF) is a project adopted by the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in 2022. The framework is described on the BUSD website as “a written document that expresses the district’s and community’s view of the

strengths, opportunities, and challenges present for African American students,” and aims to create a plan to dismantle barriers towards success for Black BUSD students.

On February 14, Berkeley High School’s Principal Juan

Raygoza, reached out to the student body via email with an application form, encouraging students to consider applying to be student representatives for next year’s African American Success Advisory Committee (AASAC). The committee advocates and advises the Superintendent, Board of Directors, and other staff while they create the framework. By now, two

BHS students have been selected for the committee, Yemarej Alexander and Haleemah Mujahid.

“The Superintendent’s AASAC was identified as a key element in making sure the AASF was implemented and effective,” said Matthew Espinosa, one of the facilitators for the committee. “The voices of our community, especially our Black/African American community, were critical in the development of the AASF initiative, and we knew there would be a need for ongoing input from our students, families, and other community partners as we implemented the actions in the framework.”

do our best work on behalf of students,” said BUSD African American Success Manager Kamar O’Guinn, who created the program.

O’Guinn also shared that from the start, the framework has addressed the lack of resources for many students by working with programs such as College Bound, Stepup Academy, or Young Gifted and Black, as those three programs help provide direct services to students.

Members of the committee will consist of

and face,” said Haleemah Mujahid, a current junior who will serve as one of the student representatives for the committee next year. “I would like to see improved outcomes for African American students and families in my community.”

Yemarej Alexander, a junior who will soon serve as a student representative as well, stressed the importance of having Black student voices represented in these types of conversations.

“I see and experience firsthand the effects of students like myself not having enough resources, so to be able to give back to my community in such a way always feels good to me.”

According to Espinosa, the primary goals of the framework are to improve academic performance, provide high-quality learning, create a safe and inclusive climate and culture, and engage with families and communities.

Yemarej Alexander, Incoming Student AASF Representative

students, family members, and community members whose organizations work for African-American success.

OLIVIA HIBSER

“The framework itself is saying, how do we begin to change institutional and organizational culture so that it aligns to a framework, so that we can

“I joined the AASAC because I wanted to try something new and discuss the many problems that many African American students in our communities go through

“In a large school such as Berkeley High with a large, often disproportionate, percentage of non-black students, Black voices are often talked over or not even a part of the conversation, which can also leave the Black students feeling like outsiders in a community we should be a part of,” Alexander said.

Alexander added: “As an African American student with siblings, I see and experience firsthand the effects of students like myself not having enough resources, so to be able to give back to my community in such a way always feels good to me.”

BHS reflects on the implications of President Trump’s indictment

BY JOSIE MORASKY staff writer

On Tuesday, March 30 after former president Donald Trump was arrested in New York, he became the first former president ever indicted with federal crimes. The indictment including 34 felony counts of business record falsifications centers around a $130,000 payment made from Michael Cohen, Trump’s now former, personal attorney, to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The payment was exchanged days before the 2016 election in late October. The “hush money” was intended to do as such, and cover up an alleged affair between Daniels and Trump from years prior.

The Manhattan’s District Attorney began their fiveyear-long investigation into Trump during his presidency in the White House, revealing the contents of the indictment on Tuesday to the public.

Though arrested, Trump pleads not guilty to the 34 counts of business record

falsification brought forward by the prosecutors. The trial is not predicted to start until early next year.

Emily Pajarillo Kifuthu, a sophomore, shared her initial reaction of joy and surprise after hearing the news of Trump’s indictment. She explains the historical impact this event might ignite.

“I think it’s crazy that a former president has been indicted on crimes,”

Pajarillo Kifuthu said. “I don’t think as a country we fully grasp how crazy that is because like, sure, we’ve had presidents been impeached while they’re in office… But this is a completely different thing. And I think that it says a lot about how what we value in our presidents is kind of changing and maybe kind of going down.”

Concerned for the possible pushback following Trump’s indictment but

voicing a similar joy,

Sam Matsumoto, a film photography teacher, explains their rationale as to how Trump’s indictment might further intensify current tensions in our political climate.

“Sadly, I see it as further polarizing a really already polarized political climate where sort of the Trump brand of politics, it can kind of fire them up and cause further divisiveness,” Matsumoto said. “So I don’t see it as good news in that way at all. And ideally we would have common goals of making our country better and safer and things like that, as opposed to, I see it a lot as theater, as entertainment, which I think a lot of his candidacy and holding office kind of turned it into entertainment spectacle as opposed to like, wow, these decisions and behaviors affect a lot of real life people in their real lives.”

Matsumoto continued: “It’s sad to me that it had to even get to this point, that we as a country allowed that kind of personality

to get so far… I think it’s like an embarrassing, sort of shameful incident in our history and it doesn’t make me proud to be an American.”

Joseph Smith, a World History and AP economics teacher in AC expressed similar concerns. Smith explained how, in some ways, Trump may twist his indictment to in such a way to obtain a larger campaign base.

“He is going to use this to his own benefit because his big argument ever since 2016 is that you, whoever that is, have been wronged by immigrants, you have been wronged by the liberals, you’ve been wronged by the government, and I will fix

your issues,” Smith said. “But now that he’s being indicted, he can now say, I am being wronged, I am the victim now. And so he’s going to use this to drum up more support for his presidential campaign.”

Prior to Trump’s indictment, his election campaign had raised only $14.4 million over the span of three months at the beginning of 2023. After March 30, over 300,000 individual donations were made, accounting for over $15 million towards funding his presidential campaign. More specifically, 24 hours after the indictment was unsealed, at least four million dollars worth of donations were made.

Looking for upsides, Smith reflected on the possible future effects that Trump’s indictment may have on whoever steps into the White House after the trial.

“He’s had such a such a historical impact on his behavior as a president. And, I’m sincerely hoping that these court cases could act as a dampener for the precedent that he set in office,” Smith said. “I’m sincerely hoping that these cases could prevent future authoritarian minded presidents from behaving Trump-like. Because they could know that even after he leaves office he can’t run away from his crimes forever.”

“How do we begin to change institutional and organizational culture so that it aligns to a framework, so that we can do our best work on behalf of students?”

Kamar O’Guinn, BUSD African American Success Manager

“I think a lot of his candidacy and holding office kind of turned it into entertainment spectacle as opposed to like, wow, these decisions and behaviors affect a lot of real life people.”

Sam Matsumoto, BHS Film Photography Teacher

Lack of financial support for maternity leave burdens teachers

89 days off, with 25 percent of their usual salary. This leave begins the day the child is born or adopted, and any days taken before must be counted as sick leave.

During sick leave, the staff member is paid 100 percent of their normal salary. Full time teachers are given 11 sick days per year, and they can accumulate and save up throughout their years of teaching within BUSD. Teachers can use as much or as little of their sick leave as they want.

Alternatively, teachers can go on parental leave, an idea that was put into effect within the BUSD contract in 2022. Teachers who choose parental leave can only take 60 days off and have to exhaust all of their sick days, no matter how many they currently have.

This is a contrast to teachers who take child rearing leave and choose how many sick days they use up. Teachers taking parental leave then get paid the difference in between their salary and the

substitute’s salary. Teachers can have input in who their substitute can be, but they can’t necessarily choose.

If any emergencies come up for teachers, “(Teachers) can request an extension of unpaid leave or if they are ill after the birth of their child, then they may be able to qualify for Pregnancy

at BUSD had a similar experience when she had her child as a teacher. She had her first child four years into teaching, so she had a fair amount of sick days saved up. But when she had her second child the following year, she had fewer sick days to use. She was therefore paid less, as she had taken child rearing leave and was only paid 25 percent of her salary, when she could have been paid her full salary the amount of sick days she had.

Disability or something,” said Lona Kelly, one of three human technicians at BUSD.

Most teachers find it difficult to comfortably support themselves and their newly growing families with only 25 percent of their salaries. This means that most teachers don’t take their 89 or 60 days off.

“(We’re being told that we’re) welcome to take as much time off as we want. (They’re) just not paying us … But it’s such a small fraction of your normal salary that it’s not really sustainable,” said Salaverry. Glendaly Gascot-Rios, the director of human resources

“So I didn’t make any money. Twenty five percent of my salary, which was nothing. That’s, like, in diapers. So I had to depend on my husband,” GascotRios said.

“But this is a bigger problem with the state. They should cover women’s maternity leave for full pay. This is a state problem, that districts (and) public schools districts don’t have the money to cover… The federal government too should be involved.”

The current state of child rearing leave within BUSD may be negotiated if the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) comes to

If the SDI program was to put teachers on their list, teachers would have a somewhat better income during their child rearing leave. The only obstacle: the price. If the teachers were to join the SDI, each teacher would have to pay 0.9 percent of their income yearly towards SDI.

children.

that conclusion. Currently, BFT is debating whether to join the State Disability Insurance (SDI) program.

John Becker, an English teacher in the Arts and Humanities Academy (AHA), has been teaching here since 2007 and has two

“When my son was born … in August 2016, I had a lot of sick leave built up,” Becker said. “I was able to use my sick leave for child rearing leave which means that I got full pay.” Becker was able to be with his son for the first half of the school year until winter break. His daughter was born a little over a year later, leaving him fewer sick days and was only able to take a month and a half off, rather than four to five months. The first six months are, “the most important time in a baby’s life,” Becker said. “Just loving them up.”

BHS transfer students on the unique qualities of Berkeley High

But her closest high school was McClymonds High School, which, according to Livermore, had many fights, an issue with lead poisoning, and was “just not a good school.” Livermore said she and her brother tried to get into Oakland Technical High School, but were placed somewhere in the 200s on the waiting list. “So, my parents made the decision to look at other districts, which were really only Piedmont and Berkeley.”

to the kids that went to their other house in Oregon every other weekend. Being Black was a completely different topic,” said Williamson. “Being one of the three Black girls in my grade always made me feel like an outsider. My mom experienced this with the parents as well.”

Banks said she never had good relationships

BY

Every year, students from private middle schools and neighboring school districts face a decision to either continue their education in their current school district or private school, or transfer to a different district that would better fit their needs. Many students transfer in hopes of finding a larger and more diverse school.

“The thing that was

most attractive to me about (Berkeley High School) was the diversity and the size of the school,” said Lenka Simon, a sophomore. “My previous school, Black Pine Circle, was not as diverse

or large in any way. And so I was looking to break out of that and try something new.”

Sophomore Tyler Banks similarly said the “diversity, new people, and freedom of choices,” were what made her want to go to BHS. Banks said in her nine years at School of the Madeleine, a private Catholic school, she never had a very diverse class. This made the increased diversity at BHS the most appealing factor when transferring. Until high school, sophomore Charlotte Livermore attended Oakland Unified School District schools.

“I think that it’s a great school for the right person and I have so many great experiences from it, but at the time, a lot was new in my life. It was my first year of high school and I was doing it in a city that was all new to me,” said Lea Williamson, a sophomore who used to attend Drew School, a private school in San Francisco. “I didn’t know anyone and didn’t feel supported enough, and I feel like this time in most teens’ lives is where they need the most support.”

Williamson said that not being wealthy or from San Francisco made her feel isolated. “I couldn’t relate

with her classmates at her previous school. “To be honest, I never really liked the people I went to school with. Most of my classmates only had something racist or homophobic to say. I had a terrible experience where one of my ‘friends’ called my skin dirty,” said Banks. “Additionally, I noticed how little we learned about current issues or even past issues like slavery. We had a very quick unit then moved right back onto religion.”

When students transfer to BHS, their experiences

are very different from when they went to private or schools in other districts. For Livermore, BHS has been more community focused than the schools she previously attended. The Universal Ninth Grade hive system, as well as the small school learning communities allowed her to feel like she was “able to have a smaller school while in BHS.”

Williamson explained that there are no expectations for her at BHS. “Berkeley is huge. There isn’t just one type of person. This leaves so much more space for me to explore myself and room to make mistakes,” they said. “At Drew there is this set standard that you have to be good at school and rich,” while BHS is much more diverse, with “kids with so many different experiences and backgrounds.”

“If I went straight from one private school to another, I felt like I would just have one way of thinking or one view of the world,” Simon said. “I wanted to really experience different environments.”

NOLAN WHITEHILL

MAYA DANG staff writer

JAHAN INGRAHAM

“But (parental leave pay) is such a small fraction of your normal salary that it’s not really sustainable.”

Yoshi Salaverry BHS English Teacher

“The thing that was most attractive about (BHS) was the diversity and the size of the school.”

Lenka Simon BHS sophomore

The diversity of BHS stands out as one of its defining features for transfer students.

“So I didn’t make any money. Twenty five percent of my salary . . . I had to depend on my husband.”

Glendaly Gascot-Rios BUSD Human Resources Director

“Being one of the three Black girls in my grade always made me feel like an outsider.”

Lea Williamson BHS sophomore

John Becker, BHS AHA English teacher, used sick leave when his children were born.

Popularity must not decide ASB elections

BY SOPHIE DRESKIN staff writer

Right before spring break, Berkeley High School held the annual schoolwide Associated Student Body (ASB) elections. In this election, students had the sole power to decide who should be elected. This is a lot of responsibility to put in the hands of teenagers, especially teenagers who are so easily influenced by their friends and peers. Far too often, ASB candidates are chosen because of their popularity which ends up negatively affecting the entire school.

One of the main reasons this happens is because teens are so easily influenced by others their age. Oftentimes, if a student doesn’t know who to vote for, they’ll simply ask their friends who they’re voting for. Another possible way to choose who to vote for is to check out different campaign social media accounts. Some may think that if one candidate has more followers than the others, they're more well suited for the job. However, a large reason that the followings on these accounts grow is through the reposting of it

by the candidates personal account, and/or their friends accounts. In turn, these follower counts are much more likely to be a reflection of the amount of followers that the candidate already has or their friends have.

Students need to stay focused on the policies and actions that candidates want to take, rather than silly methods of campaigning. During the elections, every hallway at BHS was covered in campaign fliers and posters. While some posters were more informative and serious, many decided to take the funny route instead. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it draws attention away from the real point of the campaign.

While a lot of this is students’ responsibility to educate themselves on the best candidate, they aren’t solely responsible. Students had a few different resources to learn about candidates, but not everyone had access to all of the information. For example, though there were bits and pieces of each speech in the video bulletins, many students didn’t get the opportunity to watch them. This is mainly because not all teachers uphold their responsibility to show their

students the bulletin every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

While some may say that students should just be able to vote for who they like the best or who their friends are voting for, this is untrue. Students have a responsibility to make BHS a better place. That means that they shouldn't elect the funniest or “coolest” person if that person isn't the best fit for the position.

Students at BHS deserve

to have the best equipped ASB leaders possible. They need to be thoroughly educated on the policies of every candidate in order to make accurate, informed decisions. They also need to realize that popularity shouldn’t be a factor in who they choose to help make important decisions and changes for the school. To make BHS the best it can be, students need to make objective decisions when selecting ASB leadership.

WHAT AM I?

YANCY MICEL ALEGRE-PACHECO

CLAUDIA BLOOM

Teen relationships build social pressures

BY ARIANA YEROVAM staff writer

It seems that for most people when they eventually forget every bit of information from a highschool math class, they still remember with perfect clarity their first high school relationship. High school relationships can be fun, exciting, and meaningful, but they also have the capability to create deep feelings of insecurity and sadness.

Amber Safir is a Berkeley High School sophomore. She, reflecting on her own high school dating experience and high school relationships in general

shared what she believed are three major elements in such relationships. The first point being, “we are kids,” and due to this people have less experience than a lot of adults. This evidently can be detrimental to some aspects of effective communication and provide stress on the relationship. Second, “high schoolers tend to be notoriously busy.” This is true, while managing school, extracurriculars, family, and social lives it can be tremendously difficult to balance and still prioritize all these things. Lastly, Safir pointed out the negative effects that occur when a couple breaks up. Reinforcing this idea, an issue of the Behavioral

Sciences Journal describes how, “Post-relationship concerns (including breakups) were also more likely than pre- or duringrelationship concerns to be associated with concurrent mental health issues (36.8%), self-harm (22.6%) and suicide (9.9%).”

Teenagers may also feel pressure to be dating or engaging in sexual relations.

“I think having the societal narrative, that it’s really impactful to have sexual relations actually ends up making it more possible for there to be all the pressure that we see, especially in like hookup culture nowadays, where people feel like they have to or should be having sex,” Safir brought up.

These implications are extremely relevant given that, as a research paper by the Pew Research Center describes, “Nearly one-inseven teen daters (15%) say a current or former partner has pressured them, via the internet or text messaging, to engage in sexual activity they did not want to have.”

This pressure being present in teenage relationships

impact teenagers immensely throughout this period as well as throughout the rest of their lives.

Another factor that can play a role in affecting ones self worth is a person forming an unhealthy reliance on their partner for validation. Validation and confidence are things that some teenagers can have a difficult time with on their own, regardless of their being in a relationship.

Safir also explained what this idea of reliance could look like, “If I'm making them happy, that must be good in some way.”

Ultimately dating in highschool can be a beautiful and thrilling experience, but the potential negative emotions it can summon must also be recognized. Breakups, pressure to do sexual acts, and destruction of confidence can all be negative parts of a romantic relationships. Both the positive and negative aspects of romantic relationships must be validated so teenagers can be fully supported. There's no rush to jump in.

I am a woman. And although Women's History Month is over, there are still a few things that I would like to bring to the light. Being a woman, it’s difficult to realize that your experiences with backhanded compliments, creepy men, and unfair rules aren’t usually unique. Being a woman is both a gift and a curse.

Something I have never understood is the toxic treatment of women towards each other. Some girls could have a lasting vendetta on a girl who bumped into them in the hallway in 8th grade. Being a listener, I’ve heard countless rumors circulated through the grapevine — including plenty of things about other people that I don’t want to know. These harmful comments have the power to deeply hurt people, and I start thinking to myself “I hope no one is talking about me this way.” Furthermore, there’s often no negative intent behind gossip — people just like to talk about others because of a lack of interest in their own lives. Gossip culture needs to vanish. Growing up is realizing that rumors are for girls, not women.

Women are often victims of harmful catcalling and demeaning nicknames. No matter the intention, these can feel incredibly degrading — even something simple, like calling a woman “baby.” The looming word that is “baby” always hits me out of left field, unexpected and strange.

Another way girls are often dehumanized is through unfairly strict dress codes, such as the one at my elementary school. No spaghetti straps, no skirts that go above the knee, no open toed shoes. Personally, I never thought of shoulders to be distracting, but knees really get me going, and don’t get me started on toes. Just the whole concept of a dress code prohibiting people, young girls especially (as they rarely targeted boys), is wild to me. At elementary school age, most boys weren't worried about how a girl has shoulders, they were more worried about “cooties” and recess, yet the school administrators thought it would be a worthy use of energy to create and enforce these rules.

The struggles that we face as a community shouldn’t be struggles in the first place. No one should be in control of our bodies, not the top dogs at the government, not the photoshopped women on social media telling you that they only consumed Bang energy drinks for a month to get their conventionally attractive, photoshopped body. It's hard to grasp how much of ourselves other people are in control of — Roe V. Wade being one of the big ones, telling people they cannot terminate an unwanted pregnancy, as if the pregnancy was their business in the beginning. Leave it up to the cookie-cutter people in power, changing up the rules for things that wouldn’t have affected them in the first place.

Students require more power to contribute to school district decisions and changes

BY OHAD AVIRANFINKELSTEIN staff writer

Berkeley High School is filled with students who are eager to create a better atmosphere. But can they change the community when they don’t have many direct pathways to get their say about major decisions?

BHS has several different leadership programs, but the most influential and largest one is Associated Student Body (ASB) leadership. ASB leadership is composed of students from all small schools and grades, all working together

to create a better school for all students. Despite there being around 75 students on ASB leadership, there is only one student who can vote in school board meetings: the Berkeley Unified School Board Representative. The School Board Representative is the only true bridge between BHS students and the school board, meaning that BHS students can only contribute one out of many total votes for any given resolution. BHS students should be able to contribute more towards school board decisions.

In the past few years, the idea of exchanging the current class schedule at

BERKELEY HIGH

BHS for a block schedule has been talked about. There are several types of block schedules, but the most popular types utilize three two hour long periods a day and have schedules swapping either every day or every semester. The block schedule that utilizes different schedules every semester would negatively affect students’ learning. Languages and AP classes would only be taught for half a year, and students taking AP classes would possibly take an AP class in the first semester, which would leave many students extra stressed and underprepared for their exams.

Additionally, sitting in class for two hours can be very hard for many students, especially since they are learning the same topic for two hours straight. Students with ADHD specifically struggle to sit still, and this could lead them to fall behind in their studies. It's clear that students don’t want a block schedule, as they have already voted against a block schedule multiple times, but the idea continues to be presented to students.

In addition to this, many problems around BHS that have been around for a long time that are very much affecting students haven't

been solved. An example of this is the conditions of the bathrooms on campus.

The BHS bathrooms are constantly destroyed and are sometimes left in a completely unusable condition. This has been a problem at Berkeley for several years now, and little to no progress has been undertaken to fix them.

This problem affects all BHS students, and if students had more power when it comes to executive decisions, this problem would receive more attention than it currently does, and will possibly even get solved. If students had more power for changes happening in our school, we would vastly improve the quality of our school.

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Online activism must incite engagement, not just reposts

BY JULIA BRIMMER staff writer

On March 13, 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration approved the Willow Project, an oil drilling initiative on Alaska’s North Slope that left people all over the globe angry, confused, and concerned.

In a fight to spread their opinions on the controversial political move, people took to social media, posting about the dangers of the Willow Project online. However, solely partaking in social media activism convinces aspiring change makers that a daily Instagram story repost fulfills whatever goals they may have.

On sites like Instagram, letting your followers know that you believe in something takes just one click: the share to story button. Particularly when a friend or multiple friends start constantly reposting the same post, people might feel inclined to join in.

However, this makes it easy for the majority of Instagram users to get sucked into a mix of wanting to fit in and wanting to show that they care about social and environmental issues without doing real research on the topic or fighting further than that initial click.

Another platform demonstrating this phenomenon is TikTok, on which a viral #StopWillow campaign prompted over 3.7 million users to sign a Change.org petition against the project. Again, signing Change.org petitions takes one click, and although an uptick in supporting numbers does wonders for a

campaign, Change.org is so popular because they’re easy, even if more demanding forms of activism like donating and volunteer work make greater impacts.

The slang term “slacktivism,” or “activity that uses the internet to support political or social causes in a way that does not need much effort,” perfectly ecompasses this practice, and the negative connotation behind the word “slack” shows that taking the easy road can harm the movements one’s supposedly trying to help.

The majority of social media users are young people like teens, meaning that BHS students have surely witnessed or partaken in social media activism. So, it is important that they understand how to correctly use their impact to make the change that they want to see. That can be accomplished through more than online reposts.

So, how can aspiring activists use social media to uplift their campaigns rather than replace them?

Social media makes it

easier than ever for people to share their opinions, so when someone reposts an article or graphic, leaving their own comment on why it’s impactful has the power to get their followers to care about the original information. Building on the informative aspect of social media, if an activist’s goal is to educate their followers, specifically asking them to “read” the information at hand provides a concrete task, rather than leaving the viewers unsure of what to do about the article placed in front of them.

Finally, no one wants to be guilt-tripped into caring about a social issue.

Activists know the reasons behind supporting their causes, and the best way to get others involved and amped up is by explaining those reasons and showing others how they can help.

Spreading information about the Earth’s issues is always beneficial, but when that information stays on the base-level and provides minimal guidance or incentive to act, it isn’t real activism.

ISA SHIMOMURA

Rising gentrification impact on BHS students cannot be ignored

BY KALI PROUD staff writer

Housing prices in Berkeley have seen a more than 229 percent increase since 2010, with a median price of $1.625 million in 2021. The average rent in Berkeley is $3,358 per month, with an average apartment size of 696 square feet; surrounding cities such as Oakland, Albany, and Emeryville have larger apartments for roughly $600 less per month. Gentrification has made it cheaper for families to live near Berkeley rather than in Berkeley. Several students still attend Berkeley High School even after moving. Berkeley High School is ranked 266 in California High Schools, while Oakland’s high schools don’t get any higher than 306. Although BHS may have lots to offer, it’s still difficult for the district to prioritize inter-district transfers over Berkeley residents. The district, especially BHS, must find alternate solutions to aid students impacted by gentrification.

Berkeley’s issues with gentrification and affordable housing are nothing new. Berkeley was the very first city in the U.S. to establish single-family zoning laws, preventing apartments or multiplexes from being built. With less housing in any given area, prices began to rise, displacing low-income residents. Single-family zoning ended in February 2021, allowing for more housing in coming years. However, it’s worth noting that there’s no guarantee that this housing will be affordable. If the prices are too high, then the increase in housing will do nothing to help low-income families and former residents trying to move back in.

This issue is not something that BHS or the Berkeley Unified School District has a lot of control over. One thing that BHS can do to support students that have been forced to move out of Berkeley is to simplify the process of obtaining inter-district permits. Unfortunately, there is also only so much the school can do about this, as permits are limited. If the

school accepted every interdistrict transfer it received, in addition to the enrollment from Berkeley residents, it’s likely that class sizes would be far too large for teachers to handle. This would only create more issues for both students and teachers. However, the school does have the ability to prioritize former students of the district when examining transfer applications and to consider the possible impacts gentrification might be having.

Besides making enrollment easier, BHS should also be supporting students currently enrolled through mental health support. Coping with the stress and disruptive change of gentrification and living in such a high-cost area increases individuals’ risk for mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety. Mental health has been an ongoing issue at BHS, and it was frequently brought up by candidates in the recent BHS elections. Prioritizing student mental health and support systems for possible transfer students is an effective way for

BHS to support students dealing with the effects of gentrification.

While gentrification might seem like an issue that BHS has little to no control over, that doesn’t mean that it’s doing all it can. Although the school can’t really fight the problem at its source, the entire student body would benefit from an increase in mental

health support. Making more resources available to students is the best way that BHS can help students impacted by gentrification for the time being. Gentrification likely won’t force BHS to shut down any time soon, as BHS is the only public high school in Berkeley, but gentrification undoubtedly affects the student community.

If BHS cares about every student and their different circumstances, then more improvements need to be made to the mental health care, so that students from all backgrounds can receive support. Diversity is at the heart of BHS and its culture. To ignore the problem of gentrification in Berkeley is to disregard this critical aspect of BHS.

Interpersonal segregation limits student exposure to diversity

at the outset of their social connection.”

BY SHANZA SYED staff writer

The term “interpersonal segregation” refers to the idea of individuals socializing with people to whom they have similar backgrounds. This can be on the basis of race, gender, age, disability, etc. At Berkeley High School, interpersonal segregation is something that inhibits students from being able to learn from the diversity of their peers.

One form of interpersonal segregation at BHS is through Small Learning Communities (SLCs). Berkeley International High School (BIHS), for instance, has long acknowledged that it needs to work on increasing diversity. According to The Daily Californian, only 11 percent of BIHS students identify as Black, while this number is 15 percent for Academic Choice (AC), 26 percent for

Communications Arts and Sciences (CAS), 31 percent for Arts and Humanities Academy, and 38 percent for Academy of Medicine and Public Service (AMPS).

“I think, honestly, the largest determiner of the segregation, more so even than race, is socioeconomics, though race is definitely also a big part,” Savannah Johnson, a junior in BIHS, said. “For example, a lot of wealthier, white, private-school kids end up in BIHS.”

This lack of diversity is something that extends to many AP classes in AC.

Laniya Kirkwood, a junior in AC, said, “I think classes should be way more mixed because in my (AP) history class that I have next period there are only two Black people in the class, which is not a very comforting environment.”

This points to another form of interpersonal segregation at BHS. For

people belonging to historically marginalized groups, there can be safety and security found in being surrounded by people with similar backgrounds. This is because they don’t have to worry about being judged for their identity, or misunderstood.

“I have to be more mindful when talking to some people because sometimes I just have a feeling that I might be seen in a different way when talking about my background and my up(bringing) and in my past people have said rude things,” Haleemah Mujahid, a junior in CAS, said.

This, paired with the fact that humans naturally gravitate toward people that are similar to them, makes interpersonal segregation difficult to tackle. According to a study conducted by Dr. Angela Bahans and Dr. Chris Crandall of the University of Kansas, “future friends or partners are already similar

Such types of segregation mean that students are constantly surrounded by those who share similar backgrounds, experiences, and by extension, viewpoints. They are inevitably going to end up making friends with those people, creating a cycle of interpersonal segregation. Not only can this make students oblivious to other peoples’ realities, but it can give them a narrow minded view of the world.

“I don’t think it’s a conscious thing, so you can’t really do anything about that unless (BHS Administration) could make the classes more diverse,” Kirkwood said.

One of the important steps BHS has already taken toward helping students learn from the diversity of their peers is the implementation of Universal Ninth grade, which allows students to interact with a variety of people before interpersonal segregation occurs via SLCs. Perhaps this approach can be taken regarding other classes. Maybe all students should be made to take certain higher level classes, while subjects like math have only one “level” for all students.

“I don’t know how to help desegregate the school,” Johnson said. “It’s funny because I feel like I’m in that documentary about Berkeley High from the 90s,

School Colors, which says a lot about how little we’ve improved in 30 years.”

The documentary she referenced talks about the lasting impacts of segregation on students at BHS 40 years after Brown v. Board, both socially and academically. When it initially came out, the Seattle Times wrote that “Berkeley (High School) had total integration by 1968. Yet the overwhelming feeling from this dynamic report is that the integration has resulted in a new kind of segregation, the segregation of multiculturalism.”

This same division can be felt at BHS today, and acknowledging it is the first step towards building a unified school community.

ELIOT PERDUE

JAY TRAUNER

INVESTIGATIVE

investigative editor: Erin Bartholomew

‘Mental health is an isolating subject’:

BHS student survey on mental health diagnoses, struggles, resources

BY PEARL GAUTHIER staff writer

“Mental health is an isolating subject,” Berkeley High School junior Kai Lim-Moreno said. “It's never an easy subject to talk about. There's such a stigma about (mental health),” she explained. Lim-Moreno stated that this stigma and aversion to speaking about mental health can make issues like depression a lot worse.

Despite the isolation that mental health causes, many students struggle with their mental health, either diagnosed or undiagnosed. According to the survey, anxiety and depression are the two most common disorders students have or believe they might have.

never felt uncomfortable when people have come to me with their problems, but it's always been hard for me to reach out with my own (problems),” she said. “I want to be there for other people, but sometimes it's hard to let other people be there for me,” she said.

why you can't do school. It's your fault. You have ADHD. You can't do these things.’ I was really hard on myself in the beginning," she said.

complete.”

BHS junior who wished to remain

For some, a diagnosis can provide a sense of clarity. Auden Svoboda, a senior, said about his anxiety and depression diagnoses: “I definitely knew that I was struggling with mental health, but it was still validating to hear that from a professional,” he said. “Anxiety and depression have been a part of my life for such a long time that it’s sometimes hard for me to differentiate between those disorders and my personality.” He added.

While she has not been diagnosed, one junior who wished to remain anonymous wonders if she may have anxiety. “I feel constantly overwhelmed and I have a hard time sleeping all the time,” she said. “I'm over thinking everything I do and on the nerve of mental breakdown, pretty much every other day… It's just this overwhelming feeling of dread, and it doesn't feel like it's going away, which is scary.” She wonders if, “this is me just being a teenager or is this something that I should seek help for?”

She explained that while she does want to get help, its hard to open up that discussion. “In my friend group, I'm the person who's supposed to be the ‘normal’ one and the ‘sane’ one. I have

Senior Milo Abiad explained that his diagnoses with anxiety and depression simply confirmed what he already knew, but the medication that came with those diagnoses was beneficial. While his ADHD diagnosis was unexpected, it did help him understand why he struggled with paying attention, fidgeting, and energy levels.

Lim-Moreno was also diagnosed with ADHD, but felt that her diagnosis was difficult to come to terms with. “When I first got diagnosed with ADHD, I definitely saw things differently,” Lim-Moreno said. “I kind of blamed myself and was like, ‘Oh, this is

Lim-Moreno struggled with her diagnosis so much that she would avoid taking her medication. She explained that seeing the improvement in her mental health that the medication caused made her diagnoses undeniable, which made her self conscious. “Over the years as I work on accepting myself more, I’ve become more comfortable,” she said, explaining that she takes her medication now because it allows her to feel like herself and accomplish more. “It took a while, but I came to terms with the fact that this is who I am. There's nothing I can change about it. If people don't like me for who I am, it's not my fault.”

Abiad explained that he sometimes isolates himself due to his mental health. “Let's say I'm in class. I'm fidgeting, getting up, doing something,” he said. “I feel embarrassed, I guess, as if people are judging me for moving during class when they're not moving.”

To help provide support for struggling students, Berkeley High School employs an array of mental health resources, including the Health Center and its free on-site therapy and counseling for students.

“(Is) this is me just being a teenager or is this something that I should seek help for?”

BHS junior who wished to remain anonymous

“Berkeley is genuinely a great place for people who are struggling with mental health … because of the infrastructure that we have setup everywhere,” Abiad said. “The Health Center alone is a great place. Having free therapy accessible for anyone at school at any time is a very good idea.”

Mental health issues can greatly impact students’ relationships with school. “I've always had a love-hate relationship with school,” Lim-Moreno said. She stated that when she’s off her medication, “I have a really hard time sitting still for a whole period. I'm usually out of my desk standing next to it … I can do (my class work) to some extent, but mostly I ask my teacher if I can take it home and turn it in the next day because I just can't concentrate for the period of time that it takes to

He added. In the end, one of the best resources for students struggling with their mental health can be their peers.“I feel like I know a lot of other people that also struggle with mental health and I'm pretty open about it,” Svoboda said. “I don't really see it as a shameful thing.”

Abiad explained that he doesn’t feel different from other students at BHS because he has met many peers who have had similar experiences with ADHD, depression, and mental health issues in general. Many of his friends struggle with their mental health as well, and they’re able to rely on each other for support. “A lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about their mental health, but I think talking to other people is one of the best things you can do about it,” Abiad said.

“Anxiety and depression have been a part of my life for such a long time that it’s sometimes hard for me to differentiate between those disorders and my personality.”

Auden Svoboda, BHS senior

“I want to be there for other people, but sometimes it's hard to let other people be there for me.”

anonymous

GRAPHS BY ELIOT HERTENSTEIN

The Jacket surveyed a sample of 176 students to explore experiences of mental health struggles and diagnoses across the BHS student body.

Teachers promote elective classes amid advertising restrictions

English teacher at BHS, used to teach Senior Short Story for six years. Today, the class is taught by another teacher.

According to Rosen, the class has historically always had an abundance of sign-ups, and she ended up volunteering to teach a section to accommodate the overwhelming amount of students.

“I hit the ground running, man,” said BHS teacher Sakima Williams.

“In August, I just busted button and got out there and set up DJ turntables and got sign-up lists and talked to counselors and found

“I would like students to know (their options) so they can choose which classes fit them best.”

that current Mechatronics students will spread the word about the class to other students for future class sign-ups. According to Buehler, Career Technical Education and other elective classes were able to set up a table during lunch in February.

lot more sense because we know what the class is about,” Rosen said. “The students who go are typically like, ‘This is a really fun class,’ but they don't really know the ins and outs of what is going to be expected of them. They don't really get to give the students a sense of what the class actually is.”

teachers from “promoting on the yard,” an alternative that takes strenuous effort for instructors. Williams recruited the help of counselors to direct students to his class. He also visited middle schools with the Visual and Performing Arts program to get sign-ups for next year.

Ellie Buehler BHS Mechatronics teacher

Rosen said that teachers should be given free rein to advertise however they want to. While some teachers might not have the resources to make announcements, she said that they could beseech the help of students to convince administrators to provide the teachers a temporary sub to let them present to students during the school day.

“We have that ability here,” Rosen said. “Like if we have to go to an IEP meeting, we tell our admin and then they send in someone to watch our class for 15 minutes.”

Meanwhile, teachers for unconventional classes have resorted to other means of getting the word out about their courses.

out who liked music on campus.”

Williams currently teaches two classes: Hip Hop Gold and Audio Recording/ Digital Production. However, next year, he will only be teaching the latter due to low attendance in Hip Hop Gold. At the beginning of the year, signups comprised around 12 students and declined as students left for Berkeley Technology Academy. Like Mechatronics Engineering, the pilot rollout class for Audio Recording and Digital Production is offered during seventh period.

So far, Williams reported that word-of-mouth has been largely successful in terms of recruitment to the class.

Buehler expressed hope

“I participated in that and some of my students brought their semester one projects to the table,” Buehler wrote. “Ideally we would have many more opportunities to present at Elective Fairs where prospective students are encouraged to attend. Targeted classroom visits where one might share information about this and other electives might also be helpful,” Buehler said.

Even with the proposal for student class promotions, Rosen asserted that students, as much as they might enjoy a class, would have a harder time pitching it. When she taught Short Stories, she would send some of her students to junior classes to talk about the course. That method, while more efficient in her time, was less preferred.

“I think that teacher announcements … make a

Rosen proposed a period in the year where teachers could recruit substitutes to their classes so they could rotate through other classes to advertise.

Today’s class advertising guidelines do not prevent

Presently, classes that are less mainstream have pressure to have added benefits. Some of these added benefits may include being offered outside of school, with asynchronous work to take in to account

confounding factors in student’s extracurricular commitments.

Ultimately, it might be considered that student interest takes precedence over what methods are considered acceptable in class endorsement.

“Not very many students have heard that BHS offers a mechatronics class, and I would like for everyone to know that this class is an option,” said Buehler. “Generally, I would like students to know (their options) so they can choose which classes fit them best.”

WORD ON THE STREET

Have you ever had a crush on a friend?

Maya Hill, a senior, said, “I had a crush on my best friend.” She told her and ended up being rejected. In response to the rejection, however, Hill said, “I think that it helped me move on, because if I hadn’t told her I would’ve kept thinking about it without doing anything.”

Adrienne Melodia has had a crush on a friend a couple of times. Her most significant experience was in sixth grade, when she had a crush on a girl who was straight while Melodia identified as gay. “I never really told her about it. I just tried to become closer friends with her.”

great experience. Honestly, that’s something I would recommend all around.”

Mia Skoble had a crush on their best friend in eighth, ninth, and part of tenth grade. “I was really sad, and I thought that it was bad to like your best friend like that. And then finally, in ninth grade, I told them over text.” Skoble asked if the friend liked them back, and the answer was no. “We just kept being friends, and we still are.”

Cassian Evans, a freshman, said “I did actually have a crush on someone I was pretty close friends with.” They also told their friend, and ended up staying friends with them.

When asked what came of their crush on a friend, Molly Franklin replied, “We’re dating now. We were best friends for a while, and then they said they liked me, and now we’re together.”

Sevan Minassian-Godner “waited until the last minute of the year and I texted (my friend).” Responding to how he felt about being rejected, he said, “It was just a beautiful,

INTERVIEWS BY CHARLIE TAMAGNO staff writer

PHOTOS BY NOLAN WHITEHILL staff photographer

features editors: Lauren Huang & Amelia WIley Moreira

BHS students feel the impact of declining UC acceptance rates

BY AMELIA REED staff writer

The 2022 acceptance rate for University of California, Los Angeles was 8.6 percent. In 2021 it was 10.8 percent, and in 2020 was 14.4 percent. This downward trend is similar for most UC acceptance rates throughout the last couple of years. 11.4 percent, 14.5 percent, and 17.5 percent were the acceptance rates at UC Berkeley in 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively. This decline in acceptance rates for most UC’s isn't happening for no reason.

Unlike UC Berkeley and UCLA, the acceptance rate at UC Riverside between 2021 and 2022 increased from 66 percent to 68.5 percent. Less students are applying to smaller, newer schools like UC Riverside, and started

applying to bigger UC's. This makes the acceptance rates at the bigger schools decrease, and the acceptance rates at smaller schools increase. In general, more students are applying to UC's creating lower acceptance rates and a larger struggle for students to get into the school they want.

“You’re writing in a way that you’ve never been before,

which is also probably the hardest part,” said Academic Choice senior Alana Lee when talking about her experience applying to UC's last fall. Lee didn’t find the application process the hardest part about applying to UC's, but rather

the decisions. When applying to a UC, students are required to choose four of the eight topics provided and write an essay for each topic, each essay being a minimum of 350 words. These essays have to be some of the best writing from the student in order to attract the attention of the admission committee of the UC they applied to, who reads through thousands of applications sent in. Each student's writing has to be a needle in the haystack of applications to even be considered by the school. Applicants choose which of the 10 UC's they want to apply to and the same four essays are attached to the application for each UC. By the end of March, most UC decisions are out for students to see.

Although the application process for applying to UC's is daunting, many students still apply to UC's, but Lee

expected this process. Lee, who applied to UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara, said, “I think the application process was about as hard as I expected it, just because I’ve heard from previous seniors about their experiences, but definitely the process itself,” she said.

Lee found that more students who applied to UC's this year got rejected from their top schools. She explained, “A lot of people who were extremely well qualified for the schools got rejected when they deserved to be accepted, but there’s just not enough space.”

From her friends and peers, Lee has noticed that more students than she expected got waitlisted from the UC's they applied to. Although she knew some students that got into their dream UC, there were an overwhelming number of students who got rejected from their top UC's. Especially for schools with low acceptance

rates like UC Berkeley and UCLA, Lee knows very few students who got accepted to these schools.

However, Lee felt like there were a lot of students around her that felt pretty good about their UC decisions, but there were way more schools waitlisted students that she was surprised by. The options of students this year applying to many UC's has become smaller and smaller the more waitlists and rejections they

get. This stresses out students even more about colleges, especially those who only or mostly applied to UC's expecting to get into more UC's they applied to. Throughout the last couple of years it's clear that UC acceptance rates have decreased significantly. Students will still continue to apply to these schools this fall, and it is easy to predict that more students will continue to apply every year.

Winners of this year's 2023 ASB election outline their goals

BY YSABEL CHU staff writer

A main priority for Eliza McGlashan, the Senior Class President Elect, is to make it easier for students to take the path they want. “For students who want to go to college, we’ll lessen the stress on that,” said McGlashan. “For students who don't want to go to college, more resume building and job finding workshops. If a student likes sports, highlight the games. If they like the arts, highlight student artwork or show art competitions.” Through her leadership experience in Youth and Government she has strengthened her public speaking and communication skills, which she plans on utilizing as senior class president to accomplish her goals.

*Winners Drew Henderson and Katelyn Liao are members of the Jacket staff but were not involved in the reporting of the story.

Associated Student Body Vice President Elect Erin Freeman will work with the administration to ensure voices of the students are heard. Freeman, when speaking about why she ran for ASB Vice President, said “When I was Junior Class Vice President we wanted to accomplish more mental health and Title IX support. That is more of an ASB job, because you have to work more with the administration. So my running mate, Drew, and I decided to run for ASB President and Vice President to make sure those changes happened.”

Giving has always been a large part of the elected Chief of Service Kainoa Tomikawa’s family life. “I grew up doing things like on Thanksgiving volunteering at homeless shelters,” said Tomikawa. “And in sixth grade, my whole family went to Tijuana to go build houses for the homeless there.” As Chief of Service, Tomikawa plans to restart the holiday meal and host blanket drives towards the winter. In order to accomplish these goals, Tomikawa intends to work with other community minded organizations and students.

As Sophomore Class President, Sofia Bloom will run sophomore leadership meetings and ensure that there is communication between the sophomore class and the administration. Bloom will apply her experience in leadership from her participation in it this year. She said, “It's really showed me how ASB works, how it runs, what it's going to look like next year. And I can apply what I've learned this year to next year.” Next year, Bloom plans on improving the club list and making the resources available at BHS more well known.

Junior Class Vice President Elect Zamahra "Winta" Clark will work with King to ensure decisions impact all students positively. On why she decided to run, Clark said, “Well, it started when I wasn't really happy with all of the choices that were being made in the school. And I wanted to have a say in it.” Next year she plans on utilizing Google Forms as well as Instagram to foster strong communication between students and leadership.

Junior Class President Elect Zariyah King plans on making sure more diverse voices are included in leadership next year. “Even though BHS is a diverse school, I felt like all the voices weren't being represented,” said King. She also plans on helping all the juniors prepare for AP, SAT, and ACT tests. “I will make sure everyone is prepared for senior year, and for different things that happened throughout junior year such as AP testing.”

Sophia Nishioka, Sophomore Class Vice President Elect , plans on hosting more fundraisers with the sophomore class president next year. “We are going to have fundraisers and supply drives to hopefully help the bathroom situation, because there's not a lot of locks on bathroom doors and in general it's kind of a mess,” said Nishioka. She also plans on creating a club where students can speak to leadership about problems or suggestions they have.

YASMEEN BAWANY

“A lot of people who were extremely well qualified for the schools got rejected ... but there’s just not enough space.”

Alana Lee, BHS senior

In BHS's College and Career Center, college flags hang.

Taiwan trip provides Mandarin students cultural engagement

BY SABINE ROSEN staff writer

At 1 a.m., a plane took off from San Francisco International Airport. It was a direct flight to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and carried over 50 Mandarin students from Berkeley High School along with parent chaperones and BHS Mandarin teacher Xin Chen. Students in all of the Mandarin classes were eligible for the weeklong trip and over 50 took the opportunity. The flight departed on March 31 and was a little over 13 hours long.

Everyone arrived on Saturday morning ready for a full day of exploration. Upon disembarking, everyone quickly piled onto two buses and headed to Sun Moon Lake (called Rì Yuè Tán in Mandarin), a popular destination located in central Taiwan known for its natural beauty. The bus, equipped with purple seats and karaoke, would be the main source of transportation around the island.

Taiwan takes five and a half hours to drive from top to bottom, and the class

got to explore the entire island. They visited a temple in Taitung City, went to a mochi factory and made mochi themselves with an indigenous tribe, took boat rides, and visited multiple street markets. In Taiwan, street markets are a big part of the culture and they sell many types of Taiwanese and Chinese foods, as well as desserts, jewelry, clothing, and candy. Students enjoyed drinks from the countless boba shops selling beverages for less than two US dollars. In addition to all the food students were allowed to

students from a Taiwanese high school. The Taiwanese high schoolers had been taking English classes at their school, so they

buy at the street market, all of the trip’s main meals were served family style at ten-seat tables. The students were able to taste a large variety of classic Taiwanese dishes while learning their names in Mandarin.

On the sixth day of the trip, students met with

were able to effectively communicate with BHS students and teach them about different gods and goddesses in Taiwanese culture. One god in particular was the god of love, Yue Lao. It's said that he has possession over an invisible red thread which ties two people who are destined to be married together. While they were at the temple, BHS students were allowed to partake in the tradition of circling pieces of cut red string around incense for good luck in love.

Overall, the activities were outstanding, but Sonia Hochchild, a freshman in Mandarin 3, thought that waking up at 3:00am to go watch the sunrise from Ali

Xian Mountain was the ultimate highlight. “It was such a great experience and it was so pretty and such a good way to appreciate the county's beauty,” she said. Watching the sunrise on the mountain is one of the main tourist attractions in Taiwan, and Chen had to book the tickets far in advance to reserve the opportunity.

Taiwan has a tropical

climate and beautiful scenery. Maya Hammel, another freshman in Mandarin 3, said her favorite part was “the theme park and roller coaster we went on on the first day and all the pretty nature we got to see.”

Chen partnered with Global Devotion Association (GDA), which specializes in culture exchanges in East Asia, to coordinate the trip. Julia Chen, who has at GDA for six years said these cultural exchange trips are important because “if

you are limited to a single country, you cannot expand your vision as well and you cannot experience different cultures and ways of life.”

When asked, she said the Mandarin class' trip to Taiwan is one of the best ways for students to deepen their understanding of the language and also to learn how to comprehend it in a more interactive way. Julia Chen really enjoyed leading BHS students around Taiwan and is excited to continue to do more cultural exchanges in the future.

BHS teachers rethink instruction amid rise in ChatGPT use

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

McKinney was asked by the Jacket to read and grade four sample essays, each responding to the same reading and writing prompts. Two of the samples were written by students, one by GPT4 that had been given the same prompt as the

students, and one by GPT4 with a prompt revised for a better response from the engine. The two AI responses were scored one letter grade higher than the student responses by McKinney, who did not know who wrote which essay. However, she was also able to correctly tell apart the computer-

generated and the humanauthored responses.

Where Salaverry sees potential in GPT-4 is not as a full-on ghost writer but as a revisor.

“I don't think anybody is going to level up from being a good writer to a great writer by getting suggestions for revision from an AI Chatbot …

(but) it is potentially helpful,” he said. The bot draws from text all over the internet, — its writing is not going to reflect high art — but it could potentially help someone reach proficiency.

McKinney also is excited about the abilities of GPT-4 to serve as an assistant, especially for those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the resources it can provide. “In an ideal world, Chat-GPT would be used to improve equity both in the classroom and as students are struggling at home,” she said. Students with more privilege have access to tutors and technologies — in McKinney’s eyes, GPT4 could “level the playing field.”

rather than producing the sheer volume of material needed to run a successful class. McKinney uses differentiated instruction in her classroom, where she tailors the

we just don't have time to do all the time. And this gives us the potential to be able to do that,” McKinney said.

These technologies are, some fear, expanding faster than rules and regulations can keep up with.

“In an ideal world, Chat-GPT would be used to improve equity both in the classroom and as students are struggling at home.”

content she teaches to best resonate with her students’ interests. This strategy works best when McKinney has access to a lot of varied material, the creation of which takes a person a long time.

“I know that AI is supposedly doing really great work … (but) I would say I’m pretty alarmed by some of that I’m hearing,” said Salaverry, who is perplexed by what he sees as a lack of control within the entire tech industry.

Discussions about GPT-4 and its analogues tend to focus on possible uses for students, but the automation it provides can help teachers concentrate more on actually teaching

“(GPT-4) is a great starting point for me to generate these examples very quickly,” she said. In McKinney’s ideal world, AI technologies could handle some of the grunt work, as it were, of teaching, allowing her to focus on what matters more, like planning lessons and giving feedback. “There's a lot that teachers do that

“They don’t really know what they’re unleashing into the world,” he said. McKinney concured, thinking that what we see today is just the beginning of an artificial intelligence explosion. “I (believe) that it’s going to be unavoidable … that is concerning, to figure out how you keep your … agency while also not ignoring the tools that are available to you,” she said.

Brooke McKinney, BHS English teacher

“It was such a great experience and it was so pretty and such a good way to appreciate the county's beauty.”

Sonia Hochchild, BHS freshman

“If you are limited to a single country, you cannot expand your vision as well and you cannot experience different cultures and ways of life.”

Julia Chen, Taiwan trip guide

ERASE, EDIT, OR REMAKE?: MOVIES WE’RE MEANT TO LOVE

CHLOE CARUTH

The history and evolution of ‘trashy’ books

BY COLINA HARVEY staff writer

Reading is generally regarded as an intellectual activity. However, highly sensational literature that features formulaic characters and shocking plot twists has had success for decades despite not being considered of the highest quality. The “trashy” novels we are familiar with today have an evolution rooted centuries ago.

dramatic storytelling. They were catered towards the lower class since they were cheap to produce and easy to read. Because the books were not considered to be highbrow, they were looked down on by members of the upper class.

difficult economic times.

The pulp magazine industry collapsed after World War II due to paper shortages, the rise of television, and competition from comics and paperback novels.

“Don’t Worry Darling” came out in 2022 among a flurry of drama. The cast has Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Gemma Chan, Kiki Layne, Ari’el Stachel, Chris Pine, and Olivia Wilde (also the director of the film). This psychological thriller, set in a utopian 1950s community, was meant to explore women’s unfulfillment in the roles of solely wives and mothers. We were promised shiny sets and female self-realization. But honestly, after watching the movie, it was quite underwhelming.

I found the drama surrounding the making of this movie more enticing than the movie itself. That’s one of the reasons I waited so long to actually watch the movie. The main drama surrounds Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles. They were dating during the creation of the movie but have since broken up. There was also rumored tension between the cast on set, especially when initially Shia Lebouf, an admitted abuser, was a part of the project. When the actual plot of your movie is overshadowed by a video where it looks like Harry Styles spits on Chris Pine at an award show, marketing for your movie needs to be upped.

The cinematography was highly anticipated for this movie. But when I watched it I felt underwhelmed. All the interesting shots were put in the trailer, which didn’t leave much to look forward to. In between the dynamic shots from the trailer were mostly boring long wide shots. Although there were places where those creative shots would have fit well, like during one of the dinner scenes, they were shot traditionally, making the scene fall flat. This is the same for many of the aspects of this movie, especially the plot. The entire time I was watching the movie I was waiting for a plot twist that never happened. The entire plot was given away in the trailer and with the promo.

Female pain is something commonly portrayed in the media. There is a fascination with seeing the suffering inflicted on others. I believe the emphasis on women’s suffering comes from women historically suppressing their emotions and their pain. This movie focuses on how things are taken from the women in this movie by men; their autonomy, freedom of thought, and self-expression are all suppressed to make them conform. This kind of content is harmful because it normalizes women’s suffering. Too often women are made to be the victims of everyone else’s pain. They don’t get to have their own pain or feelings instead they become the punching bag for those around them. This movie brought nothing new, it was just another opportunity to witness women being tortured. With thought and care, this could be remade and likely be a very interesting movie with a unique take on female suffering. However, for the moment, it’s best to just leave it behind.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the popularity of dime novels, short works of fiction costing ten cents. These novels are characterized by their fast-paced and

Around the turn of the century, dime novels started to evolve into pulp magazines, also referred to as pulp novels or pulp fiction. Unlike dime novels, pulp magazines were printed on low-cost wood pulp paper. They were especially popular during the Great Depression, not only because they were cheap, but also because they provided escapist entertainment during

The legacy of this literature can be seen today in the books that top bestseller lists. Many of the most popular contemporary authors take a quantity over quality approach to writing.

One of the most noticeable examples of this is the popularity of Colleen Hoover. Her rise to fame was so meteoric that in 2022, her books outsold the bible’s 2022 sales by over two million copies. The romance novelist publishes as many as three full length

novels yearly. Despite her commercial success, her characters and settings lack dimension. Her books have also been criticized for setting a bad example for young readers about what a romantic relationship should look like.

Another massively popular author is James Patterson. Since publishing his first book in 1976, Patterson has released at least 263 novels, many of which are co-written with authors whose names appear much smaller than his on the cover.

One reason why dime and pulp novels saw popularity was due to the need for escapism. It’s possible that “trashy” novels of the 21st century thrive for the same reason. In a world where news seems to be only bad, the general public doesn’t want to read books about real-world problems.

An exclusively modern factor that contributes to the mass production of lowbrow books is the competition they face with countless forms of media. Social media, particularly, has corroded the attention spans of many users due to the amount of content that can be accessed. Authors must create fast-paced stories, or else readers will move on to something else.

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

myself,” Rodriguez Gerstein said. “I’ve tried to explore what I actually like versus what everyone else is doing,” she continued. “Living here is really open and I have the space to do that.”

For Rodriguez Gerstein, creativity through fashion is a process that requires patience. “Sewing is definitely a lot harder than it looks,” she explained. “I feel very fulfilled and proud when I get through a challenge and figure out how to make something I envisioned.”

Fashion club organizers Maya Widholm and Isabel Rodriguez Gerstein see fashion as both a spirited personal story and one with meaning for our community. For both, fashion started out in childhood and grew as an experience of self-expression.

“A lot of people had the childhood dress up, to wear your mom’s high heels,” Widholm said. “That was definitely me.” When Widholm moved from Chicago to Berkeley, her interest in fashion turned into a passion. “The Berkeley culture is the biggest thing that got me to think about (self-expression) when I got dressed,” Widholm said.

“My parents always let me dress

As both have grown up, the potential for good in fashion has become more evident. “We’re both very aware of the environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry,” Widholm emphasized.

“We use that as motivation to want to be sustainable and to find a change.”

“Some of my favorite clothes have been passed down through my family,” Rodriguez Gerstein shared. “When I get something that was made by my grandma and passed down to my mom, that’s special to me because it holds so many stories,” she said.

Their upcoming fashion show will be the culmination of months of work, featuring designs, models and photographers on Thursday, April 27, from 6-8 p.m. at 935 Carleton St. in Berkeley with a 5 dollars admissions fee.

— Aditya Sridharan

Entertainment editors: Ruby Freedman & Marina Howard

GWEN WEBER-STOVER

DIVYA BENDAVID

Chess.com consumes BHS student body, gives new life to game

BY OSCAR WALLENSTEIN staff writer

The 2022-23 school year at Berkeley High School has been unique in the rise of in-class casual gaming. Wordle, Touchgrind Skate, and FIFA Mobile have all passed through, leaving little in their tracks. These games have enjoyed surges in popularity largely

because they generally aren’t too demanding to play, and success can be achieved with limited consumption of the user’s time and attention. The most recent beneficiary of the trend is a game with very little recency about it: chess.

Most often delivered to BHS students through its largest commercial distributor, Chess.com, the game’s rise among youth has

been strange for many adults who know our generation by our lack of enthusiasm for most “intellectual” activities. Parents who have all but given up on having well-read children and teachers who have struggled with students’ outright rejection of less accessible learning methods have noticed the irony of this trend. Their question is, “Why now?” Chess is among the oldest and most influential games in human history, having been around for over 1,400 years. Its intellectual significance is nearly unmatched, and the cultural gravity that has come with that is enough to make a legitimate college degree out of the study of chess and its history. What has changed to pique kids’ interests at BHS in 2023?

seeing an interesting clip of a Twitch chess stream.” Social platforms and their increased use have played a role. In fact, all facets of this explosion in popularity seem to lead back to four root causes: Twitch, Chess. com, TikTok, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Queen’s Gambit” and events such as Twitch’s take on celebrity all star games with internet personality amateur chess tournaments,

“I had played chess before, but was moved to download the Chess.com app after seeing an interesting clip of a Twitch chess stream.”

Julius Rosenbach, BHS freshman

Suvaan Gurung, another freshman, is ahead of the curve, and has been playing for over two years on Chess.com, his account predating the trend. “I’ve been playing

PogChamps, that have bolstered chess’s popularity further, with upwards of 75 million views between them.

Chess.com’s engine tells kids there is always a best move, and with such exposure to it, that concept can be somewhat addicting.

Julius Rosenbach, a freshman in Hive 1, got into chess via the internet. “I had played chess before, but was moved to download the Chess.com app after

for a while, but have only started to see chess content on platforms like YouTube and TikTok during this school year.” Shows like

In 2018, Chess.com acquired Komodo Monte Carlo chess engine, an artificial intelligence by which moves are chosen through win probability instead of the “traditional” move-by-move approach, similar to the probabilistic methods of machine-learning chess projects. In a way, chess is the perfect platform

for artificial intelligence and machine learning. As experiences with Chess. com’s engine tells kids, there is always a best move, and with such exposure to it, that concept can be somewhat addicting. Gurung finds himself often taking consecutive moves back very quickly, in search of what the engine sees as perfect. This mechanism makes chess a fast paced, rewarding activity, with very little thinking involved. CEO Erik Allebest said, “Chess. com is proud to invest in the future of machine learning as it relates to artificial intelligence in chess.” And that’s exactly what it is, an investment. Here, artificial intelligence relaxes the need for close attention and mental strain. The website is also an excellent teaching tool, albeit slightly addictive, but is overall very appealing to teenagers.

Playlist curation allows music listeners to express themselves

BY AMAR WALKER staff writer

For decades, people have been crafting playlists to fit their musical desires. From mixtapes and CDs to the various playlists of today, musical consumption has always been up to the listener to decide. And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, the ability to listen to however many songs you want from however many albums supplies freedom into the musical world.

Listen to the Jacket podcast: Education across the world

How do different countries value education? How does that impact the first-hand student experience? Find out in the most recent episode of The Buzz available on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and Anchor.

Many people use playlists to illustrate certain vibes and moods, whether it’s mellow, sad, or hype. Because of this, it becomes helpful for them to take specific songs off of albums and add them into their own personal curation. Depending on the person, playlists can be intricate

and selective, hours long, or seemingly random.

More often than not, artists will have the consecutive songs in the album flow together so the experience of listening is smooth and enjoyable. It’s always great to listen to an album from top to bottom when it is first released. Once the listener gets familiar with the music, then they can pick out the songs they like best, or even decide that they love the flow and continue to listen to the album as is. While artists may put effort into storytelling and cohesion with the order of their albums, it should be up to the listener to curate and appreciate the songs how they want to.

It’s undeniable that even the most acclaimed artists will make a couple of

songs that don’t agree with the listener. Playlists are a great solution to sitting through these less than ideal tracks. This way, if there are skippable songs, the only person to blame is the playlist curator themselves. Playlists are the perfect record of how one’s music taste adapts over time.

People will grow older and appreciate different artists and styles of music, but playlists will always be available for them to reminisce on. Whether flipping through old cassette tapes stored in a cardboard box in the attic or scrolling through Spotify, playlists are an incredible asset for generating feelings of nostalgia, joy, and satisfaction. And while an entire album can also have that effect, it’s much less personal.

JAHAN INGRAHAM

LUCY RICKART-WEBB

Students spend class time on Chess.com.

‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ relies on references, lacks plot

BY ZACHARY YOO staff writer

The 1993 movie “Super Mario Bros.” is the worst film ever made. It’s indescribably bad, baffling at every turn, banishing everyone’s favorite Italian-American plumbers to a disgusting, live-action, fungus-infected New York City. The 2023

“The Super Mario Bros Movie” is seemingly the polar opposite of its older counterpart. Instead of a grimy, dystopian New York, the modern film portrays a welcoming and bright Mushroom Kingdom. Instead of huge globs of horrible fungus, there are cute cartoon mushrooms voiced by Keegan-Michael Key.

Much of the enjoyment of the movie is reliant on the audience pointing at the screen and saying to the person beside them, “I know that!”

The internet erupted last year when the decidedly normal-sounding Chris Pratt was revealed to be voicing the titular heavilyaccented plumber. And as

expected, his voice acting is mediocre. In some lines, he attempts a hint of an accent, but in others he just uses his normal tone. It’s far from intolerable, but it feels far more like he was cast to put his name on the poster, rather than because he really fit the role. This is true with pretty much every performance in the movie comes off. They’re fine, maybe even good, but they’re not working with a lot, and they probably weren’t the best choice.

The story is barebones, though that’s to be expected.

Mario characters aren’t really characters. Rather, they’re a collection of tropes and visual signifiers. It’s pretty much the same in the movie. Sure, characters talk, but no one has anything

even remotely interesting going on. You wouldn’t know the movie is directed by the creators of “Teen Titans GO!” — the jokes in this movie aren’t nearly as funny or even as frequent. The plot is a means to an end, just an excuse to explore the sprawling Mushroom Kingdom. This is essentially the same as the games. The focus is put on exploration, not on story. But the difference is that when you’re playing a game, it’s dependent on your input. In a movie, you passively watch the flashing colors and nice landscapes. Within the vibrant lands of the Mushroom Kingdom are many references to the Mario video games. References might be as simple as something like a restaurant called “Chasse au Canard”, with a picture of a duck as its logo (a nod to the game “Duck Hunt”, which came packaged with the original “Super

THE CROSSWORD

Mario Bros.”). Or, a turtle with a blue shell yelling, “Blue shell!” as he blows up Donkey Kong’s go kart. The problem for viewers unfamiliar with the Mario franchise is not that moments such as the latter don’t make sense (it’s a world where blocks float in the air — who cares about anything making sense?) it’s that they’re utterly

meaningless. Much of the enjoyment of the movie is reliant on the audience pointing at the screen and saying to the person beside them, “I know that!”

Unlike the 1993 film, the 2023 Mario movie is reverent of the video games it’s adapting. Only, the references made are superficial.

At times, the camera

even mimics the 2D sidescrolling angle of retro Mario titles. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is exactly what you think it is. Aptly enjoyable and inoffensive, made for children first and Mario fans second. While the movie’s greatest appeal is its emulation of source material, it doesn’t quite capture the same magic.

— Nicholas McGlashan

The Girl

From Ipanema

Stan Getz

Agua de Beber - Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim

August Day Song - Bebel

Gilberto

Perdido de Amor (Lost in Love) - Luis Bonfa

Chove Chuva - Jorge Ben Jor

Michelle - Yusef Lateef

Batida DiferenteRoberto Menescal E Seu Conjunto

Brigas Nunca Mais - Elis

Regina, Antonio Carlos Jobim

Raven Fonseca Jensen

COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Baseball takes win against Castro Valley

BY LULI GALINSON staff writer

On Wednesday, April 12, Berkeley High School boys baseball had an away game against Castro Valley High School.

Players had high hopes for this game, and were confident that they could take home the win after beating them last year. One of these players was senior William Chang, who said, “I’m excited for the postgame celebration in the outfield.”

The game started off uneventfully, with both team’s pitchers allowing no runs in the first inning. However, the action picked

up during the top of the second inning when junior Manny Selles hit a double and ended up at second base. This was followed by a wild pitch from Castro Valley, allowing Selles to get to third base. Selles managed to take it all the way home and score for Berkeley off of a sacrifice hit from junior Trey Johnson. Castro Valley failed to score during the second inning, and by the third, the game was at a standstill, with neither team able to make any runs.

At the top of the fourth inning, Berkeley was up to bat. Chang was first up and got to first base, followed by senior Leo Asfar also moving to first. With players on first and second,

senior Nikhil Beasley had a strong hit into the outfield, enabling both players on base to get to home plate. Beasley then scored a run off of a hit by junior Marlow Buettner. Berkeley ended the inning with 3 more points, bringing the score up to 4-0.

Nikhil Beasley is the team’s starting catcher, and has been on varsity for two years. He said, “The highlight of this game was definitely the overall hitting, defense did really well too. A couple errors, but it’s alright.” He thinks this game shows Berkeley’s strength as a team, stating, “We had a lot of great energy and scored runs. We just went in and took care of business.”

With this season being his last, Beasley expressed that he wants it “to end on a good note.” Beasley emphasized, “Seeing the seniors when I was younger, I saw how important it was to them, and I get it now because it’s my last season.”

In the fifth inning, Berkeley wasn’t able to make any runs. Castro Valley used bunting as a strategy and managed to get one run with no outs in their batting half of the fifth. With Castro Valley’s bases loaded with no outs, starting pitcher junior Julian Ito was replaced by senior Nikhil Newman, and Berkeley was able to recover and end the inning without Castro Valley scoring. In this sixth inning, Asfar was able to score again due to a misplay from the opponent’s midfield player. During the seventh inning, Berkeley pitcher and junior Antonio Nordman was put in play, making his first appearance of the season. Despite Castro Valley scoring once in the final inning, Berkeley’s win was already solidified and the game ended 5-2.

Senior and second baseman EJ Cord thinks Berkeley’s team can make it deep into playoffs this year. Cord stated, “Our team is strong, and I think we have enough skill to go pretty far.” Baseball has another league game on April 21, at home against Arroyo High School.

Track team dominates final home meet

BY LEO SILVERBERG staff writer

On April 13, the Berkeley High School track and field team took on Castro Valley and San Leandro, for their final home meet of the season. BHS showcased their speed and skill on the track, placing first in a numerous number of events.

Leading up to a race, athletes have to make sure they are mentally and physically prepared to handle the pressures and challenges that come with it.

Athletes have many different strategies and rituals that help them get mentally locked in right before a race.

“Listening to music (before a race) really helps me focus,” said junior Jadon Redman.

Junior Malachi Katz’s mental strategy is a little different. “I just try to focus on being in the moment, and telling myself that I can do it and to not worry about what’s going to happen in the future,” he said.

Track coach Bradley Johnson shared some tips on how to get into the right

mindset before a race. “The way you work on mindset is by simulating the space that you’re going to be in competition. You have to be in that space. You have to practice in that space. You have to compete in that space,” said Johnson. He emphasized the importance of maintaining that mindset during practice. “If you’re focused during practice, you start the same way in practice as you do during a race … It’ll translate,” said Johnson.

Redman reiterated Johnson’s statement, “Practice makes perfect,” he said.

Johnson made it clear that mental and physical preparation are equally important when preparing for a race. “The best athlete with a bad mentality (during a race), will run poorly. But if you don’t train, you won’t have the physical capacity to run. It’s not one or the other,” Johnson said.

Mental preparation didn’t seem to be a problem for Berkeley, as they managed to secure many top finishes.

The group of Yair Naftalin-Kelman, Giuseppe Chiappetta, Jalen Madjidi, and Matteo Small took first in the men’s varsity 4x400 relay. Freshman Carina

Nottingham and junior Mason Mullen both clinched first place in the women’s and men’s 3200-meter race, respectively.

In the men’s 110-meter hurdles, Josiah Smith secured first place, while senior Alessandra IonescuZanetti claimed first place in the women’s 300-meter hurdles. Senior Luke DeValpine dusted his competition in the 1600, nearly lapping another runner en route to victory.

Berkeley’s top runners will compete for glory in the Sacramento Meet of Champions, on Saturday, April 22.

CARINA THOMAS

Me? A leader? My past self could only laugh at the very suggestion of that title being assigned to me. As a quiet kid, taking on leadership roles was so foreign to me-- as if that title were reserved only for those who were loud, authoritative, or just incredibly confident. And so, I decided to accept the fact that I simply was not born to lead.

That is, up until high school I began to become informed on how being a leader is crucial to sticking out on my college applications. Thus, as a high achiever obsessed with academic validation, taking on leadership roles became a prioritized task on my college application to-do list.

Being elected as captain of my club soccer team at the beginning of freshman year was the first time in my life where I took on a serious leadership role. I was extremely nervous and confused I had no idea how to take on the role as captain when my whole life I’d been quiet and reserved. Overwhelmed by this new responsibility, I decided to start by reflecting on which of my qualities made my coach believe I was worthy of the captain role in the first place. Throughout the prior season, I’d been focusing on my growth and learning to become a better player by changing my reaction to mistakes and how I approached challenges. I realized that I could project my expertise towards adapting a growth mindset onto my teammates, leading by example. I began to lead and enhance group discussions during games and practices, moved onto the next play whenever I made a mistake, increasingly used my voice on the field, and focused on my game every second of the play. I wasn’t a particularly loud or authoritative person, but I found other ways to act as a leader by embracing my qualities which contributed to my team maintaining a positive environment and achieving success throughout the season.

From being captain of both my club and high school soccer team, I learned that having a leadership title is not to place oneself on a “higher podium” or for the sole purpose of standing out on one’s college applications. Instead, being a leader means taking on the responsibility of inspiring others and lifting them up to reach their full potential, all while being aware of the fact that you, yourself, still have just as much learning to do and work to put in.

If I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t fit for the captain role simply because I didn’t feel that I was at my full confidence, that mindset would have immediately determined the insecure player that I would represent on the field. I instead took a leap of faith by choosing to just trust myself and my ability to step onto the field with confidence I pulled out of nowhere. Everyone is capable of having a profound impact on the people and environment around them. No matter what your personality or confidence level, your own unique qualities and strengths are what make you just as capable of leadership as anyone else. The only way to grow as a student, athlete, or person in general is to adopt something that you’ve never tried before adapt to taking on the role of leadership.

AVA MUSSI

Racers power through the pain under as BHS athletes warm up on April 13.

LARSEN PORTER

Leo Asfar completes his swing as spectators look on.

Athletes adapt to exercising while fasting

BY SASKIA FREEDBERG staff writer

“It’s just hard trying to keep going and keep trying to play your sport when you’re really thirsty and hungry,” said Iman Shaikh, a senior and member of the Berkeley High School affiliated rugby team. For her and other Muslim student athletes, March 22 marked the beginning of a month of fasting while the sun is out in observance of Ramadan.

“(Fasting) is an important ritual or tradition of Islam so it’s important for me,” Sami Khayatei Houssaini, a junior on the crew team, said. “But

also it teaches you a lot about self restraint but also empathy towards people or sharing the experiences of some people who may not have frequent access to food or beverage everyday.”

Shaikh described being tired at school and after school. “By the time I come home I’m so exhausted that I just want to go to sleep,” Shaikh said. “It’s kind of hard balancing your school life and your religious life, like trying to pray and read the Quran.”

For Khayatei Houssaini, morning practices are “okay because I still have water in me and some food in me, so it’s not as hard. But towards the end of the day in the

evening it does sometimes get a little hard because I’m hungry, and also starting to get a little thirsty.”

Khayatei Houssaini remembered feeling hungry and thirsty the evening of the crew team’s individual pace tests, saying that “I didn’t feel super great, but I decided to do it anyway.

It was challenging but I was able to do it better than I had previously done. But afterwards it did not feel great at all, I couldn’t drink any water afterwards so that was a little hard.”

Similarly, Shaikh has continued to put full effort into rugby games and practices, but hasn’t always felt at her strongest.

“I try to try my best as much as I was before, but obviously like during games it’s definitely hard to try to keep like a hundred percent energy throughout the whole time just because it’s like you don’t really get any breaks,” Shaikh said. “And you havent really eaten food all day and you can’t really drink any water.”

Both Shaikh and Houssaini have experienced understanding and

ATHLETE PROFILE: OLIVER SHRIEVE

supportive teammates and coaches.

“Everybody’s been very supportive,” Houssaini said. “(They’ve been) telling me that if at any point I don’t feel well just to tell them, that I can stop at any time, and just to take care of myself.”

Senior Basil Adnan described his shift in sleep schedule as a result of fasting, as he wakes up before sunrise to eat, goes back to sleep, and wakes up a bit later than usual. Adnan, who regularly exercises, added that during Ramadan, he tends to exercise more at night, after breaking his fast. Additionally, “The only other change I made in my routine was going for walks and making it less physically intense, so I wouldn’t be as hungry or thirsty,” Adnan wrote.

For Shaikh, part of balancing sports, school, and religion means leaving some practices early to break her fast with her family. Both Shaikh and Houssaini mentioned breaking their fast with their family or friends as a highlight of Ramadan for them.

BHS swim takes on San Leandro meet

BY SIMON POLICY staff writer

The Berkeley High School swim team soaked in the sun on Friday, 14 April, 2023 as they huddled beside the San Leandro High School outdoor pool. John Mcdonald, one of the team’s head coaches, stood with the athletes as he gave some supportive final words: if any team member were to swim with enough effort to need help getting out of the pool, he’d be the first one there to proudly help them out. After energetically chanting “Juice the Jackets,” BHS swimmers cheered and kicked off the swim meet.

Over the next couple of hours, swimmers shot back and forth through the pool in both relay races and general races of varying lengths. Teammates, friends and family members cheered from the bleachers as BHS won one race after the other.

“Not only do we have talented swimmers, but we have swimmers who are getting better even though they’re already really good,” said Margaux Vuillequez, a junior on the team.

Charlotte Livermore is a sophomore who swims

for both BHS and club. She highlighted a particularly unique aspect of swimming. “I’ve played soccer,” said Livermore. “It’s a lot more competitive with people on your team. … I’m just a competitive person. So I’d get hella mad. But with swimming, it’s more competitive with myself because, like, I want to break my time.” Livermore was happy about the results of her races. “I’ve dropped a ton of time and I’m three seconds away from breaking the one-hundred meter (breaststroke) time.”

Annamaria AcostaFerezi, a junior on the team, explained how the individual competition of swimming can be less stressful and more constructive as compared to the competition present in other sports. “(Swimming) has been a mostly positive experience, because it’s an outlet for my anxiety. So it’s helped me do better in school, I feel more relaxed,” she said.

As the sun set and the BHS team cheered around the pool at the San Leandro swim meet, it was clear that each swimmer shared an equal amount of care for not only the sport, but the team itself.

Oliver Shrieve, junior and Berkeley High School boys volleyball captain, started playing volleyball at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School when he was 11 years old. He played baseball, basketball, football, and did crew before choosing to commit to volleyball. “I picked volleyball up very quickly. It didn’t take that long to get good,” Shrieve explained. He started playing club volleyball just last year in the tenth grade, where he realized both his love for the sport and his incredible potential. Shrieve boasts a jaw-dropping 38 inch vertical jump. Despite his unusually late start, Shrieve is a Division I prospective athlete. “The volleyball community is really welcoming, and that’s probably what I like most about the sport,” he said. Shrieve is one of few returning players for BHS, as most of last year’s squad graduated in 2022. “This year we’re rebuilding. The goal is to just keep improving as much as we can throughout the season,” Shrieve remarked. There are many new and younger players on the 2023 roster. With Shrieve leading the way, there is no doubt the BHS boys volleyball program will go on to do great things.

— Zada Sanger

ROBERT GELLNER

Swimmers dive into their meet under the bright sun.