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Review Club Day, recap the Watermelon Run and get to know Fremont’s newest teachers see pages 6 and 7
Fremont High School
the
PHOENIX
Vol. 3 Issue No. 1 Sept. 30, 2014
Staff and students leave a permanent mark
Photo courtesy of Sue Larson
by Kayla Layaoen Managing Editor
“I’m so excited,” a passing Fremont High School student said at the beam signing ceremony on Sept. 16. “History is in the making.” Fremont High School staff and students, along with district representatives, got the chance to leave their mark on the new cafeteria building that is currently under construction. During an after-school ceremony, a small group of
staff and students gathered to hear Principal Bryan Emmert talk about the new building and what it will mean for the FHS community at the beam signing ceremony. “This will connect to Fremont for years and years to come,” Emmert said. Emmert called up several different groups, including staff members, who are also alumni, ASB students and members of the district’s board of trustees, to come up during the ceremony and sign a beam.
This was then lifted and put into place in the cafeteria’s infrastructure. The beam will not be painted over and the signatures will be visible in the completed building. The money for the new building comes from the $198 million Measure B Bond that voters in the district passed in 2008 in order to fund new facilities in all 5 schools in the Fremont Union High School District. According to the district’s website, an additional $33.4 million has been accumulated to assist with this project.
Photo courtesy of Sue Larson
New school year, newly improved counseling by Juan Martinez
Assistant Arts & Ent. Editor
The new school year has brought a lot of change to Fremont, some more noticeable than others. One major alteration is the way students are organized in the new guidance system. The counselors are now in charge of different grade groups rather than in alphabetical order. Originally, the way students were organized was by last name. This year, each member of the guidance
team manages a certain grade group and follows them until graduation, with the exception of freshman. Lisa Freitas is now in charge of all freshman, and counsels all the freshman classes that enter FHS. Dan Amezquita counsels the present sophomores, Bo Buhisan is in charge of current juniors and Sandy Woosley and Sherry Fazzio, are co-counselors for current seniors. This new change was agreed upon last year during a guidance meeting to
make the process of helping all students more efficient. Throughout the years a student attends FHS, they will always have the same guidance counselor, which makes things a lot easier to understand how they’re organized rather than having them switch counselors every year. Another reason for the change is that it’s useful for the guidance counselors to follow their corresponding grade’s curriculum. It’s harder to juggle knowledge about each grade level and
each class in that grade level. Each student has a different high school experience. This new system allows the counselors to help students decide on classes that are suitable to them, rather than giving them any unnecessary classes. “Before, we would have to learn the curriculums for government, US history and world history,” Mr. Amezquita said. “Now I only have to focus on world history.” In the old system, the guidance counselors had to
be more biased on who had priority with them. Seniors had priority so they could graduate on time. Now this is not always the case. “Seniors had priority at the beginning of the year for graduation and juniors the second half, so there was almost no time for the sophomores,” Mr. Amezquita said. Just because they’re not your official guidance counselor, doesn’t mean you can’t go to any one of them for advice. Just like most of the FHS staff
students may say they seem scary but past students would say they’re all approachable. Mr. Amezquita says that past students still visit and say things like “I can’t believe you’re not my guidance counselors any more”. Students are encouraged to check which guidance counselor applies to them and maybe even drop by to introduce themselves. Chances are they would be happy to see you.