The Highlander

Page 1

The

Highlander Read about social media safety on pgs.10 &11

www.scotscoop.com

World news

March 2013, Vol IV, Issue VI

Bursting at the seams

Carlmont at full capacity, new buildings to be made How much do you know? Pgs. 4 & 5

Tattoos

Free expression for teenagers. Pgs. 6 & 7

Riding the yellow bus

With each passing year, new faces arrive at Carlmont. But how many of these new faces can the school accept before the capacity reaches its maximum? The school district aims to continue expanding the campus in order to push this maximum to a new high, scheduling the construction of several new buildings to commence soon. “Up in U-wing, there is a flat area that was originally going to be a green engineering building, but that project didn’t get funded,” said Assistant Vice Principal Ralph Crame. Instead, after reviewing the projected enrollment increases, the district decided to fund the construction of two science buildings, three regular classrooms and a staff restroom. All of these additions are expected to be ready for the 2014-2015 school year. This project stemmed from a district-wide upsurge in enrollment that caused a reevaluation of the boundaries dividing the living areas that determine which school a student will attend. Since Carlmont will be receiving the greatest amount of new students, its population rising to about 2400 students in the future, the new construction is seen as absolutely necessary. “It is true that Carlmont’s population is increasing at a faster rate than that of other schools,” said Crame. “But there has to be a limit because we will eventually run out of space.” Junior Ethan Wallace believes that the school already has run out of space, stating, “Personally? I think Carlmont is overpopulated right now. I wish I went to smaller school in general where teachers are

Photos by Gianna Dimick

By Rachel Schuster Senior Editor

more one-on-one with students.” Some students expressed similar concerns about population size becoming overbearing in a classroom setting. “Some of my classes are a little packed. Sometimes I don’t ask as many questions because there are so many people, so it does affect my ability to learn,” said sophomore Amanda Breslauer. Within the next 10 years, the Sequoia High School Union District is predicted to be educating approximately 10,000 students

Honor the honor code The daily struggles of living in EPA. Pg.13

Hidden holidays

National High Five Day and other outrageous holidays. Pg.14

By Reggie Chatman Jr. Staff Writer

In a school of 2,135 people, the diversity of a student differs but where is the line between right and wrong when it comes to an individual’s moral code? That depends on the individual. Everyone has a unique standard that they live up to. That standard is based on who a person is and how they hold him/herself. Individual standards then affect your morals. One’s morals helps one decide what is wrong and what is right. One’s morals help one decide where the invisible line between working together and cheating on homework and tests is. The line is different for everyone. “As long as you’re helping the person, but in not in the way that they are not learning the subject,” said junior Parsa Attari. “If you just give them the answers and they just copy it, that’s not ok.” The idea behind cheating is often clearer on tests than with homework, but the invisible line about what is right and what is wrong is still apparent. “For tests, it’s pretty clear as to if

someone is cheating or not. There is a certain expectation that if we are taking tests at school that obviously you cannot use unauthorized aid,” said senior Luke Li. “I think the line gets a little more blurred with take home tests.” In the technologically advanced society that we live in today, online take home tests, quizzes and homework assignments are becoming more prominent. The lack of teacher supervision during these at home tasks creates an easier opportunity for students to cheat. The use of technology has affected some students here on campus multiple times duration of the throughout the school year and has caused cheating to become a widespread issue for teachers. As described by senior AP Government student Max McBride, at the end of last semester, the schools, AP Government teachers found that the there had been mass cheating on the final exam. A version of the test had been leaked online. Whether the online test and answers were stumbled upon and used as a study tool or deliberately passed from student to student knowing full well that it was the

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– Carlmont with close to 2400, Sequoia with 2300, Menlo-Atherton with 2000 and Woodside with 1800. “We believe that the increase in students is due mostly to the relocation of large corporations, like Facebook, into the areas near Carlmont,” said Instructional Vice Principal Robert Fishtrom. This movement has caused the population to rise in not only the cities near the campus, but also in the feeder schools like Ralston Middle School, Terra Linda Middle School,

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Celebrating in secret

Telling friends about college acceptances

By Graham Godwin News and Opinion Editor The proverbial “skinny” or “fat” letters are starting to arrive in mailboxes, signaling the answer to the long awaited questions, “where’d you get in?” Students now know if they have been accepted, rejected or waitlisted to the colleges of their dreams. When the answers flow in, people naturally want to broadcast the results to everyone they know. Logging onto to Facebook with endless updates of smiley or sad faces, or posting acceptance letters on Instagram on a daily basis has become a natural occurrence for high school seniors. Naturally, students are extremely excited, as March symbolizes the accumulation of 14 years of back breaking schoolwork. But the other side of the process must be taken into account too, for every success story, comes one with an opposite ending. Instead of elation, a feeling of helpless

dejection and second guessing. Some students openly boast about getting accepted to schools that their best friends may have not gotten into, making what should be a joyous occasion, into a rather awkward conundrum. Students ask themselves, “How do I celebrate my achievements, without hurting the people around me?” Which bears the question, should the college admission process be a bit more private? Senior Emily Cox, was recently informed that she didn’t get into Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, but all around her it seemed that her friends were getting nothing but good news, “Getting rejected from a college is a challenge within itself, especially when I knew that my grades, SAT scores, and extracurricular activities greatly out did some of the people that did get in, So yes, I was frustrated that some of my friends got into Cal Poly when I didn’t, but it must mean that they either had

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