2
NEWS
T HE U NION
APRIL 2015
AP Music Theory class added BY AYSHA REHMAN
An Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory class will be offered at MHS in the coming year, according to Music Teacher Emily Moore. The class was approved by the school district this year and will be available for all band students, Moore said. “This is where you get to do a lot of writing and analyzing music,” Moore said. “You get to learn a lot about music you might not get to learn [in your regular music classes].” The course will mainly feature techniques and concepts related to reading and writing music, according to Music Teacher Chris Kaldy. The class will also focus on sight-singing, which is singing a melody given the notes, along with dictation, in which the students learn to write out the rhythms they hear, Kaldy said. “They learn the forms of the music; they learn how the chord structures work,” Kaldy said. “They learn how to understand chord progressions, so that’s what the course is.” Although the class has no prerequisites, it is strongly recommended that prospective students have a background in music, Moore said. Freshmen are advised not to take the course, while upperclassmen that have taken a music class are encouraged to take it, Moore said. “When I was in high school, I took it, and it really helped me understand
music. I really loved it,” Moore said. “I wanted to bring that here and teach it.” Sophomore Noemi Crisanto, hopes to become a better musician and deepen her understanding of music. She first heard about AP Music Theory from Moore during class, according to Crisanto. “I am pretty excited that we will have the option of taking this course,” Crisanto said. “Not only will I be able to learn more about music but I will be able to take it as a class here in Milpitas High.” The actual AP test will consist of multiple choice questions that involve the recognition of chords and other components of the class, such as sight-singing, Moore said. For sight-singing, the students will be recorded and the recordings are sent in for grading, Moore said. At the moment there are 33 students signed up for the class, according to Kaldy. The hope is that the course will take place during second period with Moore as the primary teacher, Kaldy said. Kaldy hopes that the students will become better musicians from this class, Kaldy said. They can also possibly earn college credit for doing something they love, Kaldy said. “They will definitely have a leg up on other students that don’t have that experience in college if they are a music major,” Kaldy said.
Plans to hire new college counselor BY IVAN HUANG
MHS will hire a new counselor next year who will focus primarily on assisting students with college applications, according to Principal Cheryl Lawton. This is being done in order to allow the rest of the counselors to concentrate more on academics and scheduling, Lawton said. The school is understaffed on counselors compared to other schools, Lawton said. MHS hopes to hire more counselors in order to decrease the student to counselor ratio, Lawton said. “Most schools have a ratio of about 400 to 500 [students] per counselor,” Lawton said. “We’re way over that. Ideally, we’ll be able to add at least one more counselor for next year.” The hire is meant to help alleviate the understaffing of counselors at MHS, Lawton added. Though there are about 3100 students at MHS currently, the school is expected to get a couple hundred more in the next few years, according to Lawton.
“What we currently have are four full-time academic counselors,” Lawton said. “We have the full-time CASSY counselors. We also have the equivalent of two full-time psychologists that help with special ed.” The additional hire will help the current counseling staff greatly, Counselor Cory Nakamoto said. Even though the current counseling staff is handling the workload very well, the presence of a College and Career Advisor would be highly beneficial, Nakamoto said. “Our counseling team is very competent and effective and we work extremely well together,” Nakamoto said via email. “I’ve worked at different high schools and this is by far the most efficient team I’ve been a part of.” The hire will hopefully be the first of several more to help reduce the student to counselor ratio, Lawton said. Some more counselors may be brought in to work with student scheduling, Lawton said.
2016 wins Trojan Olympics FROM PAGE 1
said. The Seniors finished their decorations first because that was their main priority, according to Hoang. They worked on the dance and pyramid simultaneously for approximately three hours a day, two days per week, Hoang added. The area the Seniors really excelled in were the games, Senior [Game Coordinator] Kyle Nguyen said. “I set up the games and made sure they went smoothly, ” Nguyen said. “They were very competitive, and a lot of games were a lot closer than I expected.” Ultimately, the Seniors’ dance was what hurt them, according to Louie. Their dance exceeded the maximum time limit, causing the Seniors to lose points, Louie explained. The Sophomores and Juniors also lost points because their actual ticket sales had discrepancies from their reported ticket sales by an amount of five to ten dollars, Louie continued. Although the Seniors lost, Hoang is happy for everyone who put in effort. “It was upsetting at first, but honest-
ly it doesn’t matter because T.O. is meant to encourage unity within our school,” Hoang said. “I was surprised that the freshmen were very spirited this year.” Junior Class President Hallie Almogela shares the same sentiment as Hoang, according to Almogela. Even though the Juniors won, the most important thing is that everyone was so spirited, Almogela said. “I’m happy that we won and were having so much fun together, but it didn’t matter what grade you were in,” Almogela said. “This was the most spirited T.O. I’ve been to.” Almogela choreographed the dance, and another officer was in charge of the pyramid, but people helped out with all the tasks, Almogela said. “As a class, what we did well was when we had our work days; we had a lot of different helpers. Having a lot of juniors come to help built us up and increased our morale,” Almogela said. “I think that we should give Germain more appreciation and a big thank you. He was in charge of everything for 12 weeks.”
Courtesy of Alan Pham
The 2015 MHS Inter-School Science Fair High School Division winners display their awards with MHS alum and Science Fair Founder Ivy Pham (far right) and Science Club Co-President Alan Pham (Back row, second from left).
3rd Annual Science Fair held; reforms implemented BY NEAL BANSAL
The third annual MHS Science Fair was hosted by the Science Club on Saturday, March 21, according to Science Club Co-President Alan Pham. The purpose of the science fair is to promote interest in science among students ranging across all grade levels, Pham said. Approximately 30 of the 150 projects entered were from MHS, Pham said. Many of the participants came from the Milpitas middle schools, Pham said. While the science fair was open to anyone from any city, a majority of the participants came from the Bay Area, Pham added. “The winners were decided by five judges,” Pham said.
The judges were Science Club Advisor Karen Truesdell, Science Teacher Christopher O’Connor, Science Teacher April Hong, Rancho Science Teacher Diallo Sims, and Math Teacher Elena Sherbakov, Pham said. “We raffled out the prizes, instead of rewarding first, second, and third places prizes,” Pham said. “Our point is to encourage participation.” The science fair was organized by multiple committees, of which Pham was in charge of, Truesdell said. The individual committees were responsible for creating the judging rubric, organizing volunteers, and setting up the sales of milk tea, Truesdell said. “There were a lot fewer high school participants this year,” Truesdell said.
A possible reason for the change is that not as many teachers assigned a science fair project as a class project this year, Truesdell said. Sims was there with his students, who turned in projects into the science fair, Truesdell said. There will be more guest speakers next year to talk about how to do science projects, Pham said. This year, Stanford Mathematics Professor Arezoo Islami gave a speech about Stanford’s summer math program and encouraged students to join, Pham said. Islami also gave a math lesson to everyone present at the science fair, Pham said. “Next year, we’re planning on giving students a lot more support with their projects,” Pham said.
New pool water burning swimmers’ skin BY ABIGAIL ECAL AND RUTH PARK
The MHS swimming pool has chlorine levels that are higher than they should be, according to Varsity Swim Captain Don Huynh. This has been a continuous problem since the beginning of the season, Huynh said. On Feb. 25, 48 members of the MHS swim team felt a burning sensation after swimming in the pool, according to Huynh. The majority of the team still felt pain when they got home, Huynh continued. “So, we showed our coach the [pH] meter, and we told her, ‘Oh the chlorine is off, the pH is off,’” Huynh said. “She kind of played it off as if we can’t do anything about; we just have to swim.” Senior Katelyn Bui brought a chemical kit to test the chlorine levels of the pool, according to Bui. The chlorine level was higher than the standard level, while the pH reading was too low, Bui said. “[The pool] literally looked like Gatorade,” K. Bui said. “The chlorine was like five or higher than a five and the pH was 7.2. [The pH] is supposed to be around 7.8. I’m a lifeguard and we do these chemical checks.” People with eczema on the team would get terrible skin conditions after swimming in the pool, according to K. Bui. Irritation would cause them to scratch their skin to a point where it would bleed, K. Bui said.
“Overtime, the chlorine level seemed okay, so we still swam, but then our skin would feel worse,” K. Bui said. “I felt like I dumped my face in acid. It’d get red and super ashy. At first, individually, we just thought that we were like seeing things, but then as we talked as a team, we realized that everyone was getting it.” Head Varsity Swim Coach Jennifer Loomis is unaware of the full effects the pool has had on the swimmers’ skin and overall health, according to Sophomore Ca-Zao Bui. Despite this, the coach still makes them swim in the pool every day, C. Bui said. “Someone overheard [our opponents] complaining about how messed up our chlorine levels were,” C. Bui said. “I guess they felt it after just two hours, and we swim in it every single day.” Director of Maintenance Operations & Transportation Brian Shreve claims that MUSD checks the pool levels daily. Outside contractors also come approximately three times a week, according to Shreve. “[The chlorine level] won’t be exactly the same every day,” Shreve said. “With the system being brand new, there have been a couple of times we have not been satisfied with the level and so we closed the pool.” The maintenance of the pool is getting better with more practice and experience, Shreve said. Other than the few days the pool has been closed, the
chlorine levels have been acceptable, according to Shreve. Members of the Newark Swim Team have also commented on the pool’s chlorinated levels, according to Junior Holly Nguyen. This might take away MHS’s privileges to host meets, Nguyen said. “We tried to tell the coaches, and I think they sent people over, but it was kind of just a brushed-off situation,” Nguyen said. “I do know that they didn’t care about it when we told them.” As of the end of March, C. Bui says that the pool conditions have not been getting better. Coach claims that to have fixed the chlorine levels, but the other swimmers and I feel that there’s too much chlorine,” C. Bui said. “Our skin has been really dry [and] my legs are still really splotchy and dry.”
Gallery of pool victims can be accessed via QR code or online at mhstheunion.com
Bomb threat incident forces evacuation FROM PAGE 1
ny since he only made a threat, the Milpitas Post reported. “I would estimate that between the money that the school lost, the money that was lost in cafeteria revenue, the money that it cost the police department for all of their people, all their personnel, it was probably a
couple hundred thousand dollars at least,” Lawton said. Non-monetary losses include productivity and time spent by law enforcement personnel and the 15 people that came over from the district office, according to Stocks. “I think in a perfect world the student in question would be responsible for repaying the money,” Stocks
said. “This is the first time this has ever happened here,” Lawton said. “I have experienced real bombs at my other school. The student was arrested, tried as an adult, and he is now serving a life sentence. […] There are severe consequences for threats too in addition now to a police record.”