THE EAGLE EYE SEPTEMBER ISSUE 2022

The Eagle Eye SEPTEMBER 2022 I VERS. 3 ISSUE 2 OAK GROVE HIGH SCHOOL

Table Table of of Contents Contents

1. Head in the Clouds Beats n Eats 2. Fall Club Day 3. Dodgeball Tournament 4. September: Month of Chill on the Hills 5. Hot Takes: Closed Campus 6. Water Quality on Campus 7. Endangered Animals Spotlight 8. Upcoming Events + September Interactive 9. September Comic 10. 2223 TEE Committee Message 11. The Eagle Eye Announcements 12. TEE Social Media & Committee Information

Written By OGHS ASB On October 10, 2022, ASB brought back our bi-annual Fall Beats N’ Eats: Head in the Clouds with a bang! ASB was very excited to bring back this highly anticipated event and began preparations as soon as the school year started. Oak Grove had overwhelming amounts of talent ranging from our performance clubs, soloists, and even cultural performances. There was a huge surprise planned for the crowd, including two special guest performers.

Lil Gas and Big Smoke performed their Bay Area hit single, “SLZ”. Various social media posts from TikTok and Instagram were made to show the crowd’s excitement! Beats N’ Eats gave Lil Gas and Big Smoke the opportunity to perform for the very first time and we were glad to provide them with such a positive experience. For our second surprise of the night, Priceless Da ROC, D-MAC, Seannysean, and several other local artists came to

perform their hit singles. Throughout the night, Oak Grove clubs sold delicious snacks, Chick N Bros sold their famous fried chicken, and many ended the night with Cookies N Creams’ sweet treats.

However, Beats N’ Eats is not quite over yet, ASB hopes you all can join us for our Spring Beats N’ Eats!

Written By OGHS ASB Oak Grove hosted our annual Fall Club Day on September 13, 2022 during lunch.

The hill was filled with tables for every school club and organization with beautifully decorated posters and trifolds on display. Through this event, the student body was able to explore various clubs that could potentially initiate a spark of interest and passion. There is an overwhelming selection of clubs this year for students to choose and participate in.

During this exciting lunch event, the students crowded the hill with their phones out to scan sig up QR codes for the clubs. Almost all clubs gave out candy and treats for their new members, creating a welcoming club community.

From culture clubs to service clubs, Oak Grove has it all! If you missed this season's Club Day, don't worry! There will be a Spring Club Day in semester 2!

Written by Brandon Lopez The end of August and the beginning of Fall signifies two things at Oak Grove High School. The start of school for one, but more importantly, the beginning of Oak Grove’s short yet incredibly intense dodgeball season! The two-week-long season started and ended in the small gym during lunch after students gathered up teams of five during the designated sign-up period. The event kicked off on September 12th, with 9 teams this year around, these teams being named: Worst Team, Best Team, Triple T’s, Asians, Belicos, Dodgeball Daddies, 2024 Best Class, Beans & Rice, and Class of 2025. Each game was played on a best two out of three basis, with teams being pinned against each other bracket style. Each team gave it their all but after some whittling down, it came down to Asians vs 2024 Best Class. Every game was intense but this was the most intense of all, as both teams gave it their all to win the top secret prize awarded to whichever team came out on top.

Ultimately, Asians managed to gain the

upper hand on 2024 Best Class and won the competition on September 23rd, marking the end of Dodgeball season here at Oak Grove. After a long-deserved Fall break, the winning team will come back to school and enjoy their top secret prize.

! r e b m Septe

THE MONTH OF

CHILL ON THE HILLS Tết Trung Thu, also known as the MidAutumn Moon Festival, is a harvest festival held to honor the Moon, which is at its brightest point during this time of the year. During this celebration, held in the eighth lunar month, people pray in temples, create lanterns, and eat the infamous moon cakes. Similarly, during Tết Trung Thu on the Hill, the Vietnamese Student Union handed out mooncakes to students, created and hung up lanterns made by our school’s UNICEF and VSU club, and even had a special performance from our performance chair, Timothy Nguyen, and co-publicist, Jay Nguyen! We also invited one of our members, Leanne Nguyen, to sing a special Vietnamese Tết Trung Thu song. In between and after the performances, members were invited to come onto the stage to take pictures with our backdrop that we painted. We had an incredible time celebrating Tết Trung Thu with you, and we hoped you enjoyed a glimpse into Vietnamese culture!

Hispanic Heritage Month kicked off on September 15th and to celebrate its start, Latinx Student Union decided to throw its own Chill on the Hill Takeover! LSU’s chill on the hill was filled with a variety of activities and events all themed around Hispanic culture. The takeover began with Folklorico’s wonderful performance of Las Alazanas and was followed up by the main game of the event, musical chairs! Music is perhaps one of the most valued aspects of Hispanic culture so we made sure to play some of the biggest Hispanic hits of the past and present as our participants played in the game.

There were two rounds of musical chairs and as such two winners each received a 15-dollar Starbucks gift card! Simultaneously during the takeover, multiple games of Loteria were being played in X-4 with candy prizes! Throughout the entirety of the event, people vibed to the Hispanic music playing in the background as they took pictures against our brilliant culturethemed backdrop! This ultimately culminated in students dancing El Caballo Dorado as the lunch bell rang and the event came to an end.

This takeover was held in order to celebrate and appreciate the giant Hispanic culture present at Oak Grove, and in those regards and many others, this event was a success!

SEPTEMBER'S ENDANGERED ANIMALS SPOTLIGHT

Written By Environmental Action Club Animal: Sea Otter Status: Critical Meet the Sea Otter: Your fuzzy friend, the sea otter, is native to California coasts! Rambunctious and intelligent, sea otters once filled the Pacific coast, eating bivalve mollusks like mussels, clams, or even abalone and holding hands with their fellow fuzzy partners. However, the sea otter population has dwindled to a devastatingly low 13% since 1977 due to a multitude of reasons.

Why Sea Otters are going extinct: While an increasing rate of sea otter mortalities come from white shark bites, sea otters also face risks from human impacts. Habitat degradation, coastal pollutants, and major oil spills all threaten the sea otter population. These fuzzy friends depend on the right conditions to thrive and, unfortunately, those conditions are no longer being met.

How you can help: There are a multitude of ways to help our local sea otter communities thrive! Established in 2007, the California Sea Otter Fund is a great place to send donations. In fact, it can be found on line 410 in the Voluntary Contributions section of your California Income Tax Form. Here at EAC we encourage you to consider donating to the California Sea Otter Fund or even making simple changes at home that directly affect your California Coast. To learn more about how to help sea otters, visit Sea Otter Conservation at Aquarium of the Pacific

LOCKED GATES: SAFETY PROCEDURE OR SAFETY HAZARD? Anonymous Submission One of Oak Grove’s main concerns has always been maintaining the safety and security of its students and faculty members. A rule recently implemented in the 2022-2023 school year is making many students question whether their safety is still a priority. Following a new and strict closed campus regimen, Oak Grove is now locking all its gates and denying students from stepping foot beyond the gated campus during school hours. Though this rule was put in place to protect students from potential dangers entering campus, many students fear that it’s doing the opposite. In Parkland Florida, on February 14th, 2018 a student of Stoneman Douglas High School opened fire on his peers from the entrance of campus. Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people that day, including 14 students and 3 staff members. With school shootings on the rise, safety drills regarding these events have been implemented and typically feature three protocols:

run, hide, and defend. However, with the new gated campus, the option to ‘run’ is severely hindered.

Although the harm that the locked gates may cause in the event of an emergency is but a hypothetical situation -- what isn’t hypothetical is the danger and troubles that these gates have caused students currently. Many students in Leadership -- a class which takes place in Q2 (a classroom beyond the gates) -- have complained of being consistently locked out of their classes. One anonymous student claims that in their attempt to re-enter campus during Lunch, a staff member refused to open the gates for them and other students and told them to ‘just walk around.’ For a policy meant to keep students safe, it is incredibly hypocritical that Oak Grove expects their students to make their way outside of campus, out to open and busy roads in order to simply join their peers inside the school.

Additionally, the new policy has also made it difficult for students and staff alike to get to and from classrooms in a timely manner. Even though many

Seniors have an ‘open’ 6th period, lots of them have still complained about being locked inside campus even when they are no longer meant to be in class.

Also, students have found it difficult to get to their classes on time since because of the locked gates, they are forced to either walk around to a longer route to their classes or sit and wait for the gates to be opened for them (which does not always happen on time). This leads to many students stressing about tardies and also to students missing out on valuable instructional time.

Although we understand the motivation behind Oak Grove’s new closed gate policy, we do hope that our administration takes a step back to recognize the issues with their new rulings. From locking students outside of class to creating potential safety hazards in the case of life-threatening emergencies, there are many alarming issues with keeping our gates locked.

Our hope is that we can mitigate and work to create a balance that truly works in favor of the student body.

Written By Emma Anderson Have you ever needed water at school? When you went to get it were you repelled by the chlorinated taste?

I reached out to four school and district officials with questions about the water quality at our school. Two of them responded with some information and seemed interested in resolving the issue, those two being Mr. McCoy, the vice principal, and Mr. Sidlauskas, director of facilities, maintenance, and operations. I also did my own research. This was written with that information.

There are several different models of water fountains at Oak Grove High School, some of them may be filtered, some may be unfiltered; I was unable to get a definitive answer.

Unfiltered water in San José can include chemicals such as chloramine (a mix of chlorine and ammonia) to keep the water clean, and fluoride, added to water to improve dental health. It does not appear that the water is filtered. The water tastes and smells of chlorine, and I and others have noticed small bits floating in it. I have to wash my water bottle each day to get rid of the stench.

I personally used a water testing kit (https://watertestingkits.com/) and found that the water has a hardness of 200 ppm (parts per million), the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) recommends that the max hardness for drinking water be under 50

ppm. The EPA also recommends that the copper be less than 1.3 ppm, the water sample I tested had 1.3 ppm. In addition to the water itself, the fountains aren’t always kept clean or functioning. I and Mr. Mccoy went around and found that 6 out of the 16 fountains weren’t working properly; some of the 16 fountains were very dirty.

The recommended amount of water to be consumed each day is at least 64 ounces, or 8 eight-ounce glasses a day. To be at school from 8:30am to 3:30pm, even longer for students that are in clubs or sports teams, without access to palatable drinking water is absurd.

The water provider for our school is Great Oaks Water Company. In their most recent annual report they state: "Your water is safe, clean and great tasting... As your water provider, Great Oaks is uniquely positioned to be an advocate on your behalf for positive change on the water issues that affect your lives." Yet, the water doesn’t seem clean or great tasting. I don’t even know if it truly is safe.

We deserve better tasting water, so it doesn’t interrupt our education.

There was dirt on the fountain, I found that disgusting. I hope they clean that so people can get water.

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Happy Autumn

The Eagle Eye Committee Message Congratulations on making it through the first two months of school!

September was an eventful month with our Fall Beats n Eats and Club Day. Oak Grove sure knows how to make the fall festivities come to life! As we are entering October, we hope you all success in your academic ventures and extracurricular pursuits. You already made it through the first term so don't give up now! Clubs and organizations are beginning to open board applications and seeking spirited and hard-working individuals, so look out for those!

As always, thank you so much for tuning into this month's newsletter! We hope to see you again next month!

- 2022-2023 The Eagle Eye Committee

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ANNOUNCEMENTS See you all at the homecoming parade and dance!

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2022-2023

COMMITTEE Vivian Pham - Committee Head

Trang Ly - Committee Head

Kyle Nguyen - Outreach Coordinator

Mailan Vuong - Illustrator

Lilyanna Salinas - Outreach Coordinator

Rhea Dhanowa - Entry Manager