Big name brands see special feature pages 6 & 7
growing up adopted see page 10
bay area spring break see page 4
Fremont High School
the
PHOENIX
Vol. 7 Issue No. 6 April 5, 2019
Deans address the FHS Prom policy by Nadia Anees
Editor-in-Chief
In February, the Fremont High School deans, George Bechara and Chris Moore released information via Schoolloop email regarding the conditions for purchasing tickets for both senior and junior prom this year, some of which have raised concerns among the FHS student body. Senior prom will be held on May 11, 2019, and junior prom is on the 12th of April. According to the guidelines listed in the email, in order to be able to attend prom, students must clear any delinquencies they have and return books that they have borrowed from the school. In addition, they may not attend prom if they are tardy four or more times in a single week, or ten times in total between the weeks of February 25th through May 3rd. They must also be present at school on the day of prom, as well as have made up any missed or late detentions. Students who are considered “chronically absent” and have received the third letter from the deans will not be allowed to attend prom. In an email sent out on March 25th by the deans, students with delinquencies will have received tickets
that must get signed and cleared in order for them to be eligible to buy prom tickets. According to a survey produced by staff writers at The Phoenix, several students are familiar with the conditions and 62% have an issue with them. About 19.7% of the survey takers felt they would not likely be able to attend prom due to the issues caused by the conditions. 69.6% of survey takers said they will be fine in handling the conditions and the rest of the survey takers replied saying they were uncertain. Many students have advocated for a change in the tardy rule due to reasons such as the traffic in the morning, students who have part time jobs, the distances that students live from school and other external factors which are not in the students’ control. “The tardies [rule] is pretty unreasonable,” senior Lucas Morales said. “Sure, an argument can be made that we can leave the house earlier or whatever, but sometimes it’s not up to us. For example, I drive my brother to school and he has no pressure to be on time. So then there’s conflict because I’m worried about prom and he doesn’t think it’s a big deal. Essentially,
the tardies rule is stressful and it even extends into my family.” Some students think the tardy rule should be applied only for periods after their first class, as a result of this. Multiple students also replied saying that the deans should extend the number of tardies that exempt students from attending prom, as only ten in total or four in a week is too little. “Traffic around FHS is extremely hard to navigate in the mornings and many students are late for class as a result,” an anonymous survey-taker and FHS student said. “A better option would be to penalize students who are late to any classes after their first class, because they are far more likely to have been fooling around than simply oversleeping.” Another anonymous survey taker proposes a different idea to change the current prom conditions. “I think that the tardy rule could be amended to only include truancy, i.e. tardies of at least 15 minutes, since it’s absolutely possible to incidentally be late due to passing period ten times over three months, but that shouldn’t be punished,” the unnamed survey taker says. According to FHS Dean
of Students, George Bechara, a large reason that prom privileges regarding tardies are being enforced this year is due to the disruption in classrooms that is caused by late students. “Most teachers are not happy when students are coming late to their classrooms because it disrupts the class and there’s a lot of disruption that’s happening when students are constantly late to class,” Bechara said. “And believe me, we have teachers that are frustrated, so one way to address this is: look, we have people who want to go to privileges like dances or the prom and if I’m going to continue to get teacher complaints about tardies then there’s one way to address it.“ Regarding the effect that tardies have on teachers, English teacher, Onette Zabinski can understand the policy to an extent. “I think it matters more if it’s an overall class trend than if it’s a sparing case,” Zabinski says. “I think that when the majority of a class or a portion of your class is late then you would be in support of this policy.” The deans also encourage students who are struggling with attendance to have conversations with them regarding potential
solutions to their tardiness. “We highly recommend students coming in to speak with us if they [sic] think their tardies are a little excessive, but if you’re late everyday then you need to come talk to us about what’s going on,” Bechara said. “If attendance is a problem we need students to talk to us. This is also an opportunity to build a connection with the student or maybe refer them to certain resources that they might not know about.” Zabinski also agrees that having conversations regarding why students are late is also important so that students can find solutions and avoid getting their privileges taken away. “I wonder if it is more important to talk to students about why they’re coming late because we can’t really make assumptions about why people are arriving at the time they’re arriving,” Zabinski says. “There’s a lot of students that have frankly, just reached their breaking point in terms of all the different things that they’re juggling and they just need to take a breather when it’s quiet in the hall rather than when they’re on their way to class with hundreds of students.” When asked how strict-
ly in place these conditions are, Bechara says it’s difficult to give a firm answer. “It’s a relative case by case, it’s hard to give you guidelines because it really depends on the student,” he says. “If I have a student who is trying to do their best, they’re passing their classes, they have a few tardies here and there, we’ll be forgiving with that but if we have a student who is maybe cutting some classes, then that conversation is going to be a little different because we want to make sure every student is coming on time, everyday to all of their classes.“ Additionally, the deans want students to know that the conditions are not new and are not intended to punish students. “We want all students to be able to go to these events and that’s hopefully the message people are getting, it’s not supposed to be like a punishment or anything like that but we are also trying to model what real life looks like,” Bechara says. “Like if you have a speeding ticket, and you don’t do anything about it, you sit on it and next thing you know your license gets suspended, so we’re trying to model these real life things for students.” The Phoenix | Thomas Poplawski
What to look for when choosing a university by Vivien Su
A&E Editor
Now that it’s April, most Fremont seniors are finished with their application process, and now comes the tough decision of choosing the perfect university. When choosing a college, there are multiple factors that come into play like the types of courses offered, location, size and cost. With so many variables on the table, it can be especially challenging to select the best school.
“For me, the first priority was major,” said senior Nikhil Mekkattuparamban. “Then, it was location. And then I looked at the opportunities. So I used those three criteria to narrow the list, and then from there, I looked at cost and people I know going there.” For senior Varun Srivastava, the factors that mattered the most to him were “Price, location, prestige, quality of my major (department) [and] school culture.” Students have to be able to imagine themselves in that school. After all,
students are going to be spending at least four years at the school. “It’s important to visit the colleges you are considering and really try to imagine yourself living there,” said senior Dhanya Paul. Oftentimes, the cost of traveling out-of-state or even within a few hundred miles of California can cause a huge financial burden. Thankfully, many universities offer easily accessible virtual tours on their school websites. Although the experience is not as impactful as visiting the school in
person, the virtual tour still sheds plenty of insight on what the campus is actually like. But no matter what, it is important to realize that visting the college in person can be extremely insightful experiences. “Summer is coming up,” said Lupita Yanez, Fremont’s College and Career center advisor. “I would highly encourage students to take advantage of that because there’s nothing like being able to experience the college or university on your own.” Aside from actual and
virtual tours, students can also engage with universities when representatives visit. “When we have our fall college visits, [students should] make sure to also go to those,” said Yanez. “It is a great opportunity especially for students that might not be able to travel to those particular colleges or universities. I just think it makes a world of difference.” Yanez also emphasizes the significance of the students being able to envision themselves on the college campus. “Do a backpack test,”
said Yanez. “What I mean by that is if and when you visit a college, try to envision yourself walking around campus with your backpack on. Think about the following, ‘Do I really see myself here? Is this a place I could call home for the next four years?’” The reputation of the school plays a significant factor, no doubt. It is very easy for students to gravitate towards the top 5% schools
See College Selection on page 2