NEWS AND FEATURES
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COLARD MAKES A STRONG CULTURAL CONNECTION AT DOUGHERTY By Sasha Hassan & Kavin Kumaravel Co-News Editor & Co-Arts & Entertainment Editor With seven years of teaching experience and plenty of enthusiasm, Mrs. Sarah Colard is Dougherty’s newest French III teacher. Born in France, Colard moved to Cameroon when she was nine months old, where she lived for 13 years until her parents’ divorce. She then returned to France and lived there for the next seven years. “I am French,” she notes laughing. “I have the accent and everything.” While finishing up high school in France, Colard visited California as an exchange student and fell in love with the area. She moved to California at 17. Colard then attended Golden Gate University in San Francisco and Saint Mary’s, where she got her bachelor’s degree and teaching credentials. “It sounds kind of corny, but I remember always wanting to be a teacher,” Colard stated. So far she has taught at Concord High School for two years and California High School for three years, making this year her fourth year in the district and her seventh teaching. Colard’s experience so far has been warm and welcoming. She notes that, upon arrival, the students were polite and that the staff made her feel welcome. “The staff is so welcoming. During the training, I felt like I belonged to the school,” Colard said. While she’s still in the process of settling in, Colard brings her desire to expand her French class beyond simple vocabulary memorization or routine testing, by teaching students about French culture. “Culture is the connection you have with the language,” Colard stated. “Just reading the book and talking … it’s not
Colard is DV’s newest French teacher // HARMONIE YACOB
why you’re learning the language. You should have that cultural connection.” In order to make her class immersive and exciting, Colard has her students watch French movies, listen to French songs and occasionally indulge in French food. Ultimately, she seeks to create a learning environment that will allow her students to converse with native speakers. “I really want people to talk and communicate. If you take French, you should be able to go to France and communicate with French people,” Colard said. Colard carries her passion outside of school as well. She loves traveling to different countries alongside visiting her family in France every summer and spending time outdoors. While she’s open to almost any genre of music, she has a special place in her heart for French rap and Ed Sheeran, whose concert she attended this summer. Her curious palate has also led her to try all sorts of different foods. “I like Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian and Korean [food]. My favorite food changes all the time. Right now I really love Korean food,” she said. Besides eating food, Colard also enjoys cooking her own French food at home. Following her outgoing and adventurous perspective on life, Colard encourages her students to take risks. “Be daring,” she noted in her parting comments. “Never give up.”
THE WILDCAT TRIBUNE www.thewildcattribune.com Facebook: DVHSTribune Twitter: @WildcatTribune Instagram: Wildcat_Tribune The Wildcat Tribune strives to cover the news accurately, fairly and honestly. It is our policy to correct significant errors of fact. All corrections should be emailed to wildcattribunestaff@ gmail.com. The Wildcat Tribune, Dougherty Valley’s student-produced newspaper, is dedicated to printing the truth, refraining from libel and obscenity and abiding by the journalistic code of ethics. Advertising material is printed herein for informational purposes and is not to be construed as an expression of endorsement or verification of such commercial ventures by the staff, school or district. The journalism class is located in Room 1205 at
Dougherty Valley High School 10550 Albion Road San Ramon, CA 94582
EDITORS Armaan Rashid & Amanda Su, Editors-in-Chief Elisa Fang, Managing Editor Anumita Jain, Managing Web Editor Taylor Atienza & Sasha Hassan, News Editors Brandon Shi, Opinions Editor Megan Tsang & Kavin Kumaravel, Arts & Entertainment Editors Ronit Kumar, Sports Editor Miguel Dickenson, Assistant Opinions & Sports Editor Skyler Spears, Photography Editor Harmonie Yacob, Assistant Photo Editor Sarah Kim & Elaine Yang, Arts & Graphics Editors Riya Bindlish, Anika Garg, Sraavya Sambara & Daniel Shen, Copy Editors Maitri Parikh, Social Media Editor Amruta Baradwaj, Activities Director
STAFF WRITERS Tejasvi Anand, Oce Bohra, Pranav Chillappagari, Eric Chang, Steven Deng, Michael Han, Ashita Jewargi, Arjun Johal, Aisha Khandelwal, Sheyda Ladjevardi, Caroline Lobel, Arshia Mehta, Harshita Neralla, Anouki Panthagani, Jessie Tsang, Katie Williams & Claire Zhang
HONORED GUEST CONTRIBUTOR Karen Wang
ADVISOR Ms. Rachel Decker
“DREAMERS”
other anonymous Dougherty student believes the absence of immigrant workers will allow for unemployed Americans to begin supporting the economy. “We’re aware that people are worried about how much money we’ll lose based on how many people will be displaced from their jobs, but those jobs will be filled by Americans. We cannot deny that illegal immigration is a problem,” they said, later adding that “‘America first’ is not a joke.” The repeal of the DACA program has also caused concern in the realm of education, where the ability for undocumented students to continue their education remains a point of uncertainty. “Our overarching goal remains the same,” said Principal Dave Kravitz. “We want our students to feel safe on our campus, in all facets of their lives,
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so that they can have the best, most fair access to a high quality education.” Ms. Elizabeth Graswich, the Director of Communications & Community Relations for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, echoed similar sentiments, placing an emphasis on equity and inclusion. She stressed the district’s intent to provide education for all students, regardless of their identities. The DACA repeal will significantly impact California, where the number of Dreamers is estimated to be more than 220,000, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. California’s response to the actions of the Trump administration can be seen at both the state and local level. Governor Jerry Brown plans to propose the appropriation of $30 million intended to support the Dreamers (LA Times).
Additionally, the California Community College system has documented their intent to “vigorously advocate at every level of government to protect our students and our system’s values” in their “Resolution of the Board of Governors”. Although some of California’s responses to the repeal have been made obvious, the constantly-developing nature of the attitudes and events surrounding the DACA repeal make it all the more difficult to pin down any definite conclusions. The complexity of immigration issues cannot be reduced to DACA alone, and until further decisions are made, the fate of the Dreamers will remain surrounded by uncertainty. •Brandon Shi, Opinions Editor, contributed to this article
SAN RAMON CELEBRATES 150 YEARS OF COMMUNITY
Two CSF volunteers, Odelia Chong, left. and Aisha Khandelwa, right, pose for a photo outside of City Hall in celebration of San Ramon’s 150th Anniversary // SKYLER SPEARS
By Ronit Kumar Sports Editor At the Crow Canyon Iron Horse Trail Crossing, San Ramon citizens of all ages waited along with San Ramon Mayor Bill Clarkson and Commissioner Philip G. O’Loane to begin the 1.5 mile walk to City Hall of Sept. 9 to celebrate 150 years of community in San Ramon. Mayor Clarkson and Commissioner O’Loane arranged a hike along the scenic Iron Horse Trail to explain how San Ramon developed from a village to a populous city. Before the walk, O’Loane showed the crowd a map of the San Ramon hiking trails and explained some of the future developments in store, like an Iron Horse Trail Crossing to be built on the intersection of the trail and Bollinger Canyon Road to control rush hour traffic. During the hike, San Ramon residents had the chance to explore the extensive Chinese contributions to railroads along the Iron Horse Trail, remains of the San Ramon village and architecture of the suggested Spanish mission in San Ramon. After the hike, residents from the Crow Canyon and California High School Walk arrived at City Hall welcomed with festive balloons, pretzels, popcorn and detailed exhibits of San Ramon history. Visitors received rulers and cards for arriving at the event. Eventually, the city officials, including Mayor Clarkson, began to give
their speeches to commemorate the 150th anniversary of San Ramon. City Manager Joe Gorton, Planning Commissioner Jeanne Benedetti, Council Member Harry Sachs, Clarkson and other officials explained the history of San Ramon in great depth. Clarkson mentioned that San Ramon was as old as European California because the Spanish suggested San Ramon as a mission while traveling through the state. It has old relationships with the Gold Rush — two men, known as the Weemer Boys who worked at Sutter’s Mill, lived in San Ramon. Eventually, many new facilities such as schools, a post office, and shops were built. These developments transformed the San Ramon village into the populous city of San Ramon. “I feel I am 150 years old. It’s very exciting to see the city grow and prosper and knowing the background of your community,” said Gorton. The officials at the birthday party enthusiastically introduced many of the facilities in modern day San Ramon, like the city’s highly advanced schools. Many high quality services such as the park system, cricket fields, soccer turf fields, entertainment and the living space maintain high living standards in San Ramon, according to the officials. “Looking at [the] vision of the public, our job is to promote quality of life and community’s residence and promote the wellbeing of people for the community as a whole,” said Sachs. Many of the older facilities also
helped San Ramon grow from a village to a city. There were small buildings like the post office, stage stop, livery stables, stagecoach stop, hotels, saloons, Chinese wash houses for laundry, shoe shop, blacksmiths and a few houses. The main public buildings included a school, church, jail and community hall. Most of these buildings were along the county round (San Ramon Valley Boulevard) and Old Crow Canyon Road (Deerwood Road). “Education, [a] great school district, the library over there ... Beautiful education has contributed to this city’s growth the most,” said Clarkson. Concerning future developments, San Ramon officials have two priorities. First, a city center with a variety of amenities will be built, to give the community a place to gather. In order to control traffic at the center, parking garages will be built for visitors. Secondly, the San Ramon officials have designed multiple plans to reduce traffic, especially on roads like Bollinger Canyon Road and near City Hall. There will be an Iron Horse Trail Crossing built and more lanes added to Bollinger Canyon Road. “San Ramon is a desirable place for people to live and we need to build carefully. We need to pick which projects to build, [which] to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to them,” said Clarkson. Over the course of 150 years, the San Ramon village has grown into a populous city as a result of construction and education.
NEW CLASS HERO’S JOURNEY BLASTS OFF AT DOUGHERTY By Sraavya Sambara & Pranav Chillappagari News Copy Editor & Staff Writer
English teacher Mrs. Jessica Tsuji is teaching the new Hero’s Journey class at Dougherty Valley High School in an effort to start conversations about what it means to be a literary hero, and how it applies to real life. In the senior English course, students analyze the characteristics of heroes found in literary works and then apply the lessons they
learn to community service projects. The real-life applicability of this course is very important to Tsuji. She explains, “The whole idea of us reading books at school is to take something from them. The authors can teach us lessons. But we very rarely can actually try to do those lessons. In this class, the community service aspect is where we take the things we’ve learned and apply them to actual situations in life.” Tsuji also hopes that, through this course, students will learn how to become better people. Her unorthodox approach focuses
on cultivating “heroic” traits in students. Students of the class have recently started Acts of Random Kindness projects. These projects, aimed to prepare students for larger community service ventures, entails going to a class and helping a teacher to make their day a little easier. For her project, senior Simran Chodavarapu decided to help Ms. Ramona Altman in Dance 3 by evaluating student dances. Chodavarapu expressed, “I learned that to be a hero, you don’t necessarily have to save someone. Patience and respect can also make
you a good person, a.k.a. a hero.” In seeing the effects of their service firsthand, Tsuji hopes that students will become more interested in future projects. The quarterly curriculum of Hero’s Journey includes books and a community service project specifically tailored to highlight those book’s morals. This is in addition to senior English requirements, like research and working on college essays. This unique class, in the words of one student, teaches that “anyone can make a difference.”