The Coat of Arms issue 49.3

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serving Menlo’s upper school since 1973

Menlo Introduces New Honors Classes, Phasing Out APs

by JACOB REICH

Menlo’s administration is currently looking at places where they can further revitalize the curriculum with dynamic, engaging, challenging courses that meet the school’s goals, according to Upper School Director John Schafer. These goals include relevance of course material, a variety of modes of assessment, and skill development.

The curriculum at Menlo is constantly evolving as new courses are added and existing classes are changed. Advanced Placement courses have strict guidelines and tests that teachers must follow, which frequently prevent teachers from using alternative assessment formats. The administration’s decision to keep specific AP classes is also influenced by which courses can be replaced with more suitable honors courses. This decision has sparked a divide, with some students and teachers advocating for the retention of APs and others supporting the decision to remove many of them.

The College Board website explains that the AP program consists of college-level courses and exams available to high schoolers. AP classes can help students stand out, earn college credit and save money. When a course has the AP label, it has been through the course audit process. Each time a school adds a new teacher to teach an AP class or adds a new AP course, teachers must submit their syllabus and then, if the course is authorized, teachers are granted access to AP resources. This process ensures that the course meets the school’s requirements.

According to Schafer, Menlo is choosing to discontinue many APs as they do not align with the school’s goals for an effective curriculum. Menlo plans to

remove some AP classes and replace them with honors classes, which will be designed to be just as challenging as AP classes while still providing the same GPA boost of 0.5. Not all AP classes will be phased out. However, Schafer confirmed that, while Menlo may have its method for calculating GPA, the colleges that students apply to may recalculate to fairly assess all students. “It doesn’t really matter how we calculate a GPA because colleges calculate it the way they want to,” Schafer said.

Upper School Science Department Chair Jamie Formato sees an advantage in phasing out AP classes. “The reasoning behind [the decision to discontinue APs] is that we have the space and time to develop more exciting curricular options. The College Board AP program is highly scripted and presents a lot of constraints on teachers, and we feel like we have more exciting things to offer than an AP,” Formato said.

Similarly to Formato, English teacher Oscar King, who teaches AP English Language and Composition, sees the removal of many APs as an opportunity to improve courses. “As far as moving away from APs is concerned, the department and I are excited to design an English curriculum for our students that is guided not by the College Board — a non-profit organization — but by Menlo’s core academic values, including interdisciplinary exploration, student

Staffillustration:SophieFang

Faculty Attend the 2022 People of Color Conference in San Antonio

by ABIGAIL BECKER

For over 30 years, the National Association of Independent Schools has hosted a People of Color Conference aimed at creating equity, providing a safe space for educators of color and assisting in justice-oriented professional development. In December 2022, 16 Menlo School staff members from seven departments attended the conference

What’s Inside?

located in San Antonio, Texas. According to data collected by Chief of Institutional Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Keith Wheeler on 13 of the 16 staff members who attended, 10 have attended PoCC for one to three years, two have attended for four to six years and one has attended for seven to 10 years. There were more than 7,800 people total

who participated this past year, according to the PoCC website.

The event, which took place over the course of four days, included a variety of activities: seminars delivered by selected speakers, workshops, master classes and exhibits from companies advancing diversity and social justice. The Student Diversity Leadership Conference, which

The Coat of Arms Discusses: Affirmative Action

occurred in tandem with PoCC, was aimed at supporting students of color. However, due to limited availability and a lottery system for selected schools, Menlo was unable to bring students in 2022.

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MSPA to Organize Grade-Wide Pre-Parties Before Semi, Prom

by ALEA MARKS

Before school dances, it is a Menlo tradition for students to attend pre-parties. The pre-parties are designed for students to take pictures before the dance and spend time with their friends or dates. In the past, pre-parties have not been organized by the school, as individual friend groups organized their own preparties and hosted them at their houses. This year, the Menlo School Parent Association decided to organize gradewide pre-parties before the semi-formal dance and prom in order to encourage inclusivity.

Due to the fact that the pre-parties were historically divided up by friend groups, there was often a sense of exclusivity.

Especially for the freshmen who are still finding their place in the social scene, pre-parties can be a source of anxiety. “I remember worrying about being invited to a pre-party freshman year. It made it hard to look forward to the dance because I was so preoccupied about it,” senior Cate Pittman said. In order to combat this issue, all freshmen will have a pre-party

at Menlo before the dance to decrease the possibility of exclusion.

According to MSPA member Renee Barkley, the idea for grade-wide preparties was first introduced last year.

“There had been a couple grade-wide pre-parties in the past, and the feedback from parents and students was super positive,” Barkley said.

The planning for the grade-wide pre-parties is completely directed by the MSPA, and the administration is not involved in any capacity beyond communicating the plans for the actual dance.

The pre-parties’ locations will vary for each grade, some being on campus and some being hosted by Menlo families.

“[The goal] is to provide a location where the whole grade could get together, take photos as a whole class and in smaller groups,” she said.

“Ideally, we would not spend a ton of money on these events because they’re really meant to be a place just for the kids

to come together. They aren’t supposed to have a fancy party before the [dance].”

Coordinator of Student Activities

Frances Ferrell acts as a liaison between the MSPA and the administration regarding plans for the dances. While she agrees with the goals of inclusivity and supports the MSPA in planning the gradewide pre-parties, she believes them to be somewhat unrealistic due to the possibility of the pre-parties being over the top. “A lot of times [the pre-parties] are hosted in homes that are pretty large and not everyone would feel comfortable,” she said.

Freshman class president Jade Yoo agrees with Ferrell that off-campus pre-parties could contradict the school’s goals of inclusivity. “The freshman preparty happening at school gets rid of that feeling of a pre-party resembling a flamboyant display of wealth,” Yoo said.

Senior class president Tudor Braicu

is in support of grade-wide pre-parties but thinks they should not be hosted at people’s houses. “I think it would be better if the pre-parties were organized at a more central place,” Braicu said.

Junior class president Paige Miller thinks the benefits of grade-wide preparties outweigh the possible negative effects. Due to COVID, both the junior

opportunities, and she thinks that grade-wide pre-parties are a great way to facilitate more bonding between students. “I do understand how it can be viewed as exclusive or a display of wealth, but at the same time, if there wasn't a grade wide pre-party there would still be like three smaller pre-parties within friend groups,” Miller said.

Global Issues Class, IP Program Foster Student Initiative

by ANDREA LI

Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection

Product Development trains rats and dogs to detect landmines and tuberculosis.

APOPO, as the non-governmental organization is abbreviated in Dutch, is also one example of an NGO given $2,000 by the Global Issues for Global Citizens class at Menlo.

The Global Issues class and the Menlo Interdisciplinary and Personalized Scholars Program are available to students that are willing to take the initiative and work on personalized projects. The Menlo IP program encourages student initiative by culminating in a final capstone project, where students in one of the four fields of study in the program — civic leadership, community engagement and impact, arts and letters or global scholars — create an original project that is a summation of their work over the course. Meanwhile, the Global Issues class ends in a competition for the Youth Philanthropy Project grant, which allows students to donate to an NGO of their choice.

For his IP capstone project, junior Ryan Li investigated the long-term economic impacts of the exploitation of 19th-century Chinese-American migrant labor in the United States. Li was able to learn a lot from the course, and ended up writing a paper for his final project. “The overall IP capstone process has allowed me to do extensive research on a topic that I was interested in but usually wouldn't be able to study in other classes,” Li said. “In other classes, I wouldn't have learned that the over-exploitation of Chinese labor in an economic capitalist system actually led

to political and social problems too.”

Junior Nikhil Kothari also chose to write a paper for his IP capstone project.

“I chose to study the Uyghur crisis, a cultural genocide occuring right now, [...] because the Uyghur crisis is intertwined with the history of how ethnic minorities have been treated in China,” Kothari said.

Similar to the global outlook of the Menlo IP program, the Global Issues for Global Citizens class aims to educate students about the global community.

“I want students to not only become well educated about the most pressing challenges that face us as a global community, but I also want students to become cosmopolitans,” Global Issues for Global Citizens teacher Matthew Nelson said.

Toward the end of the Global Issues class, students begin researching NGOs they wish to donate to, eventually deciding on one NGO. After this, according to Nelson, students contact their NGO, then pitch their NGO to the class to potentially be selected as a finalist for the YPP. Then, they pitch their NGOs to HAND foundation cofounder Noosheen Hashemi and Menlo Middle School parent Yana Kalika, who decide the grant recipients. Finalists are guaranteed around $1,000 for their NGO, but they are often granted more.

“So this year because we had two sections with 18 students in both sections [...] we had four finalists and one honorable mention move on to the final round,” Nelson said. “Then once on to the final round, these students amplify their presentations from five minutes to 10 minutes and they pitch once again, not to the class directly, but to Ms. Hashemi and Ms. Kalika [...] after each finalist presents, Ms. Kalika and Ms. Hashemi offer feedback, and then they award these cash prizes to the NGOs.”

This year, a total of eight students were awarded $2,000 for each of their NGOs.

One of these students was senior Justin Pretre, who chose to give the

money to APOPO. Pretre found APOPO as he was looking for an NGO related to animals. “I was looking at NGOs that were related to animals and researching the best ones [...] I thought that [APOPO] was really interesting and unique, so I kind of just decided to focus on that,” Pretre said. According to Pretre, the money donated will likely go to research and training the animals.

Junior Danae Yotopoulos chose Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation to donate to because of its goals to rescue children in Vietnam from human trafficking.

“From the start, I knew I wanted to focus my project on an NGO that addresses human trafficking,” Yotopoulos said. “Through their holistic approach to provide exceptional care to Vietnamese children in crisis [...] I knew Blue Dragon was a perfect candidate for the HAND grant.”

The money Yotopoulos donated with the help of the HAND grant will be going to help rescue two children from human trafficking. “After being in contact with Kim Miller, a member of the Blue Dragon team, I learned that [...] the cost to rescue one victim of human trafficking is about $1000, so this donation will be used to rescue two children from human

trafficking either within, or across the borders of, Vietnam,” Yotopoulos said.

Meanwhile, senior Jane Hratko, another finalist for the grant, chose to benefit Reclaim Childhood. According to their website, Reclaim Childhood provides “safe and inclusive spaces for refugee and local girls in Jordan to thrive by playing sports, working with coaches, and building community.”

Hratko chose Reclaim Childhood for various reasons but was primarily interested in its method of providing for young refugee girls. “I was particularly drawn to Reclaim Childhood because of its theory of change: using sports to facilitate the social inclusion of girls, especially refugee girls, in Jordanian society,” Hratko said. “Being on sports teams was a special source of community in my childhood and I wanted to help make that possible for other girls as well.”

For Hratko, the Global Issues for Global Citizens class and its culmination in the YPP was powerful. “I learned to think more deeply about the responsibility that we have, as individuals, to help solve global issues. The YPP showed me that I can have a measurable, positive impact and it certainly inspires me as I think about what I want to pursue in college and beyond,” Hratko said.

HAND Foundation co-founder Noosheen Hashemi, Global Issues for Global Citizens teacher Matthew Nelson, senior Justin Pretre, junior Danae Yotopoulos, senior Jane Hratko and Yana Kalika pose for a photo. Photo courtesy of Jane Hratko

The YPP showed me that I can have a measurable, positive impact.

Senior Jane Hratko

Staff illustration: Dorinda Xiao

Administrators Announce COVID-19, Campus Goals for 2023

by SOPHIE STONE

As the new year begins, Menlo has begun to make plans and goals for the future. 2023 marks the third year since Menlo first implemented COVID-19 restrictions, and the campus will hopefully continue to transition away from them. Additionally, Menlo faculty are looking ahead to future courses and community-building activities.

Upper School Director John Schafer predicts that 2023 will bring more transitions back to pre-COVID Menlo.

AP Tests, cont.

voice and choice and applied learning in real-world contexts,” King wrote in an email to The Coat of Arms.

Formato stressed that some APs have been and will continue to be treated differently than others. “Not all AP courses are equivalent. [...] Some AP classes like AP Physics are a very good curriculum, and when we drop AP Physics, we’re not going to deviate from that curriculum much anyways because there’s a very strong alignment between college physics departments and the College Board program for that subject,” Formato said.

align well with college curriculums, and those classes may require significant changes. Junior Jackson Deutch believes that certain subjects are better suited for an AP curriculum. “For my AP U.S. History class last year, I felt satisfied, but I wish that some things had been different about the year. For AP Physics 2, it’s the best class that I’ve taken so far in my life.” According to Deutch, this is because some AP classes do a better

Since the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, Menlo has reopened cafeteria seating and recently reintroduced reusable cutlery and dishes to the cafeteria in an effort to move away from plastic and paper dishes. “These things may strike one as minor, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s one more step back toward normal,” Schafer said. “We’re not 100% normal yet, but we are eager to move in that direction.” COVID restrictions have also been lessened for gym assemblies,

with masks being optional since last semester.

was just easier [for the faculty] to get together. It was easier to socialize, to have lunch together, to congregate,” Schafer said. Because of the COVIDrelated restrictions during the past couple of years, faculty members are more separated, and some of the newer members aren’t familiar with all of their colleagues.

Schafer believes that strong bonds within departments can enhance the teachers’ ability to teach their students. “It should be wonderful to work with your colleagues. There are some pretty dynamic, interesting people here that we could all learn from and share ideas with,” Schafer said. Some of these plans include activities similar to what students have experienced, such as getting together the day before school begins and going

Menlo Abroad has also been revived, offering a trip to Costa Rica for rising sophomores, juniors and seniors during MTERM. The main focus of the trip is the extended homestay, where pairs of students are hosted by Costa Rican families and will be able to visit community organizations including an organic farm and a local elementary school. The Borderlands program is also continuing for another year, offering three one-week trips to the southwestern United States to study indigenous America, immigration and related issues. Students will travel to El Paso, Texas, Northern Arizona or Southern Arizona.

Schafer also looks forward to building a stronger sense of community within the faculty. “Before COVID, it

on retreats. “We’re trying to rebuild a sense of community within the faculty,” Schafer said.

job of being creative about the curriculum or getting students to focus on learning rather than just the test. He clarified that it is not the teacher that makes some AP classes less desirable; it is the curriculum. Deutch believes that the inflexibility of AP curriculums can make a class feel less enjoyable as it can create a sense of

Senior Bax Barlow understands why the school is getting rid of many APs but also believes they serve an important purpose: providing college credit. “As someone who is applying to college and looking at getting some credit, I think it would be

four other colleges give students no credit for AP tests.

Deutch agrees with Barlow that AP classes have some value in college admissions. “From a college standpoint, as a method of differentiation, [...] I think that they do serve as a little bit of an advantage,” Deutch said.

Schafer said that students see AP classes as a way to distinguish themselves from others, but he emphasized that Menlo’s curriculum offers other diffcult courses that are not AP. “Students think about AP as the way they distinguish themselves. Well, the AP is not the only game in town for our classes, there are plenty of challenging, rigorous and intriguing classes in our curriculum that are not AP,”

Additionally, Schafer said that passing AP tests plays a different role than in years past. “There are a lot of colleges that don’t give you a credit [for taking APs] or they give you some other placement test to see what level of whatever math or whatever it is you go into [instead of relying on the AP score],”

good,” Formato said.

Dartmouth College, Williams College and

Upper School Director John Schafer looks forward to loosened COVID-19 restrictions in the cafeteria, in the gym and at assemblies. Staff photo: Jacob Reich

These things may strike one as minor, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s one more step back toward normal.

Upper School Director John Schafer

There are some pretty dynamic, interesting people here that we could all learn from and share ideas with.

Schafer

People of Color Conference, cont.

Upper School Counselor Stefie Dominguez found particular value in a workshop that provided case studies for equity in school counseling. “We were able to, as a group, work on [the case studies] and decide what we would do and learn from people that actually went through the case,” Dominguez said.

Math teacher Coltrane Hunt attended a workshop called Developing Black Male Educators, which equipped him with tools to build intention around ancestry, navigate important conversations without fear of political backlash and succeed in professional development. “I just feel like I have more awareness about who I am on this campus and what I can do to fulfill my intended purpose,” Hunt said.

Beyond gaining interpersonal skills, teachers were inspired by courses offered by a consortium of other schools. English teacher Whitney Newton, for example, learned about Asian American Studies classes. Similarly, history teacher Carmen Borbón intends to implement a peer-topeer interview model to build trust in her Ethnic Studies class after learning about the system from a fellow history teacher. As part of this model, students will ask each other questions about their families’ histories and cultures. “I feel like that would be a good thing for Ethnic Studies, to help kids learn from each other’s backgrounds and experiences,” Borbón said. “[PoCC] feels kind of liberating. I come back refreshed and full of new ideas.”

For Borbón, it was affirming to work with other educators of color. “I think that being in a space where you’re one of very few people can be really taxing at times,” Borbón said. “It’s just really nice to go to a space where I look around and

everybody sort of looks like me. I don’t feel like I’m the odd one out, which is nice.”

faculty who attended appreciated the connection they were able to build with fellow Menlo employees. Ferrell, who alongside Wheeler, helped organize the experience, made sure to incorporate fun activities like joint dinners and a karaoke night. “We had a fantastic group,” Hunt said. “We’re very vulnerable and really open with listening and validating people’s experiences and insights about what’s been happening on campus.”

Ferrell believes that this positive group experience helps faculty work together better at school. “I got to know them on a more personal level, so I feel like I’m able to work with them in a different capacity,” Ferrell said.

Another important aspect of the PoCC were the affinity groups, which met once a day and were intended to create a supportive place for people in the same racial or ethnic group, according to the PoCC website. Some affinity groups consisted of subsections, such as Latinx educators who were also queer, an affinity group that Dominguez engaged in. “I came back to Menlo refreshed, like I’m not alone in my mission of belonging,” Dominguez said.

There was also a White Accountability and Awareness Affinity Group, which Newton and Student Activities Coordinator Frances Ferrell attended. Newton valued the opportunity to be an ally and exist in a space occupied by a majority of people of color. “It was definitely a different experience because, for most of us living in a predominantly white area, you don’t have that sense of being a minority ever,” Newton said.

Outside the conference itself, the

Overall, the Menlo attendees came away with a desire to promote conversation about racial justice on campus and further the equity, diversity, belonging and inclusion efforts already in place. “I came back with a mindset of, ‘I really do want to try and make Menlo a space where truly everyone belongs,’”

Dominguez said.

This aspiration is supported by Wheeler’s survey data: of the 13 staff who responded, 11 indicated that they strongly agreed that PoCC made a meaningful difference in their work with students, faculty, staff and parents, while the remaining two agreed. All 13 respondents concurred that PoCC gave them time to build and bond with colleagues. 11 indicated “yes” when asked whether the conference provided them with resources/ learning materials they can apply immediately to their role at Menlo, while two indicated “somewhat.”

Hunt explained how the faculty who attended can bring their knowledge back to Menlo and be stewards of equity on campus. “I think it will bring greater enthusiasm for diversity and belonging on this campus, by us coming back and being almost the [teacher’s assistants], if you will, so that others who are venturing into this new experience feel supported,” he said.

Adam Gelb, Security Enforce Attendance Mandate at Assemblies

by GEOFFREY FRANC

As Christian Pulisic scored the goal that sent the United States to the World Cup knockout stage, all Menlo students sat calmly in the gym for the Distracted Driving Assembly. Or did they? Security did their best to enforce assembly attendance, but a group of sophomores watched the game in the Creative Arts and Design Center, and about 10 seniors drove to a local restaurant to watch the game. Even some students present at the assembly watched on their phones, out of sight of the teachers patrolling the bleachers’ aisles.

Although some students choose to skip other assemblies, the Distracted

Driving Assembly highlighted the challenges the Menlo administration faces in keeping students engaged during assemblies. “Sometimes students automatically think, ‘well, I’ve seen this assembly before, or I’ve seen this content before, it doesn’t apply to me,’” Upper School Assistant Director Adam Gelb said.

In an attempt to enforce the assembly attendance mandate, the administration asks the security team to stop any student leaving through the front gates during assemblies, according to Director of Security Mustapha Moutri. “If they don’t have a note [from the Student Life

Office], or they’re not getting picked up for a doctor’s appointment or a dentist appointment, then they'll have to go back and go to the assembly,” Moutri said.

According to Gelb, a security officer is also dispatched to watch over the quad during assemblies, where many students leave their bags unattended.

Gelb said that most of the students he gives “friendly reminders” to are usually using the time for academic endeavors, not to have fun. “The students that I’ve seen that needed the reminders are always usually doing something like cramming for an exam, or preparing an essay or even meeting with a teacher,” Gelb said.

Gelb added that he and class deans walk through the library and other common study areas to remind students to go to the assembly, adding that they find “between two and five” students on campus not attending every assembly.

Moutri added that the security team finds a couple of students trying to leave campus entirely during each assembly. Gelb believes that most of these students are likely juniors and seniors because their ability to drive allows

After a student has gotten more than one “friendly reminder” to return to an assembly, Gelb asks the student to come for a check-in. He sometimes follows these meetings up with an email to the student’s parents; Gelb said that he sent less than five such emails in the first semester.

Some students are exempt from attending an assembly and instead meet with the school counselors if they express they would find the event distressing, Gelb added.

While he agrees that there is variability in turnout from assembly to assembly, Gelb doesn’t believe that it depends on the gravity of the topic. In the example of the Distracted Driving Assembly, Gelb believes that the subject connected with its audience of new drivers.

However, certain assemblies are guaranteed high turnout. “No one’s skipping the Holiday Assembly, that’s for sure,” Gelb said.

Gelb also noted the difficulty in curating an array of assemblies that are interesting to students. “To fill an assembly for 45 minutes and [to have] it be engaging for 600 students is a tough, tough ask,” he said.

Gelb said he plans to send out a survey to students asking for feedback on the assembly program in the Upper School, in part to better understand why students skip assemblies. “I kind of want to know, ‘why?’” Gelb said.

Menlo faculty take a picture in front of a sign at the People of Color Conference in San Antonio. Photo courtesy of Keith Wheeler

“

History teacher Carmen Borbón

a decreased obedience of authority that comes with increased comfort at Menlo.

Sports 5

Menlo Challenges Traditional School Spirit by Forgoing a Live Mascot, Marching Band and Cheerleading Team

by ASHER DARLING

Menlo, unlike many schools, doesn't have a mascot, marching band or cheerleading team to boost school spirit and pride. Since its establishment in 1915, Menlo has gone through a variety of changes. The school was originally an all-boys military school before transitioning into a co-ed day school between 1979-81. Then, on June 30, 1994, Menlo College and Menlo School formally separated.

marching band at Menlo; however, Upper School Assistant Athletic Director Buffie Ward says that several times in the past, a jazz band has performed at football and basketball games. In regards to an official marching band, Ward isn’t sure if Menlo is large enough to support one.

Upper School Music Teacher Leo Kitajima Geefay says that the deficits surrounding Menlo’s music program likely had an impact on the lack of a marching band. “I don't know the full history of the program, but I know that the school did not have a full-time instrumental music teacher until very recently in 2017,” he said. Kitajima Geefay indicated that a marching band is a very specific type of ensemble. “Wellestablished marching band programs usually have pipelines of music students being trained in the specific skills necessary to performin a marching band,” he added.

Several of Menlo’s peer schools, including Sacred Heart Prep and MenloAtherton High School, offer cheerleading.

Nevertheless, Menlo has had JV and varsity cheerleading teams in 1981. Also, during the ’80s, Menlo had an all-male cheerleading team called the Knightmares. Their unique performances during football and basketball games were wildly popular.

Sophomore Avani Ganesan, who is a part of Menlo’s Upper School dance team, is content with the lack of a cheerleading squad. “I think the history of cheerleading was inherently sexist, and Menlo didn’t think that reflected its morals,” Ganesan said.

Freshman Jade Yoo, who is also a member of the dance team, says that the team serves as an alternative cheerleading team. “We performed at Valpo Bowl this year and have a bunch of games scheduled as well,” Yoo said.

Conversely, Ganesan compared dance and cheerleading. “I think there is a generalization between the two,” Ganesan said. “We like to group them together. They’re both very complicated and require a lot of practice and commitment.”

Moreover, Ganesan has heard of general interest in having a cheerleading team and thinks it could be a possibility for Menlo as long as it is inclusive and recognized as its own sport.

At this point, Koberlein emphasized that in the sense of spirit, a mascot, marching band and cheerleading team are all connected in bringing excitement to events.

Ward believes a reason behind the absence of a mascot, marching band and cheerleading team may also be attributed to a lack of student interest. Additionally, she clarified that the Upper School Athletic Department is always open to methods of boosting spirit in the sports community. “We welcome the ideas and involvement of our entire community in these efforts,” she said.

Yoo believes that the spirit in the community flourishes even without a mascot, marching band or official cheerleading team. “I think that Menlo is generally a pretty spirited place,” she said. “But I guess it can’t hurt.”

Middle School Athletic Director Joe McDonald believes the absence of a mascot, marching band and cheerleading team is linked to how many shifts Menlo has had in its identity.

At Menlo, the knight emblem isn’t currently displayed during sporting events. “We’ve used it before, and I think it would be great to start having a physical symbol again,” McDonald said. There is a short history of a knight mascot. According to McDonald, over 20 years ago, someone dressed as a knight and rode a horse onto the field for a football game.

If Menlo were to implement a mascot, Upper School Athletic Director Earl Koberlein would want one that had a significant impact on the athletic community. "I'd love a mascot that had lots of spirit and was there to support players and enhance events,” Koberlein said.

Historically, there has never been a

(Far Above) Menlo students cheer on varsity boys basketball team as they play against rival Sacred Heart Prep on Jan. 20. Staff photo: Lexi Friesel. (Above) Menlo's 1981 JV cheerleading team. Photo courtesy of Menlo School

“

I think it would be great to start having a physical symbol again.

Middle School Athletic Director Joe McDonald

Girls Flag Football To Be Recognized as a Sport

by LEXI FRIESEL

In order to move towards its Title IX goal of achieving gender equality in athletics, the Northern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation will vote on recognizing girls flag football as an official California high school sport. If approved this February, it will be up to individual schools to decide whether or not to introduce a program at their

respective institutions.

According to the Mid Peninsula Post, the push to create football programs for girls started in the Southern CIF Section, which oversees high school athletics in Southern California. After a successful test run by schools, the CIF Southern Section officially decided to recognize girls flag football as a sport.

In terms of a potential high school program being introduced at Menlo, the sport would need to be approved by both the CIF and the Central Coast Section. “The CCS Board of Managers met on Jan. 25, 2023 and approved adding the sport, but did not determine what season it would be played in,” Menlo School Athletic Director Earl Koberlein said.

According to Koberlein, several factors must be considered in order to hypothetically introduce a girls flag football program at the school. The distribution of field space, budget and coaches are crucial to the success of beginning a program. “In the fall, we would have to identify additional football coaches because coaches who are working with the boys football program would not have time to coach both boys and girls,” Koberlein said. “In the winter, you have weather issues and soccer.”

Additionally, Koberlein emphasized the importance of student interest in the program. “If it were to be a spring sport, the program might [heavily] compete with lacrosse for athletes.”

If there are not enough girls interested in playing, the school wouldn’t be able to add a program. “I have no idea if there’s 50 girls in the school who would want to participate or only one,” Koberlein said. “People are always asking if we can add other CCS sports [such as] boys volleyball, softball, squash and rowing, but we usually cannot because there are only a few students interested.”

At this time, Koberlein emphasized that there have been no concrete decisions regarding the sport in the CCS or

Northern Section of the CIF.

Menlo has had a short unofficial flag football season for interested eighth grade girls in the spring, in which they have the opportunity to scrimmage local schools such as Sacred Heart Prep. “We’ve had a middle school girls’ flag football program for around 20 years in the spring,” Middle School Athletic Director Joe McDonald said. “The Central Coast Section is meeting to see if they will approve girls high school flag football. Menlo School will need to look at all the factors involved in approving girls flag football. Season of play, field availability, coaching and other variables need to be considered before Menlo can implement the girls flag football program.”

Practices, Competitions Over Breaks Vary by Sport

by DEVON SCHAEFER

Menlo in-season sports teams decide on whether they have practices over school vacations depending on whether the coaches prioritize improving the teams skills or leaving more time for families to be together. The varsity boys basketball team takes the holiday break to get better with mandatory practices and a team trip. “If we didn’t practice over break, we would not at all be competitive,” head coach Ben Batory said. “Consider our peer group, Sacred Heart Prep, is practicing and if we want to not get our butts kicked, we need to be practicing also.”

Batory grew up in New York and went to Canisius High School. Over the holiday break, his practice schedule was rigorous. He practiced twice a day in a building with no heat, despite the harsh climate. “I wanted to be a college athlete, and I knew that’s what it took to be good,” Batory said. “I appreciated the opportunity over break to honestly just focus on my sport and not have schoolwork as the overhang,” Batory said. The brutal training brought his team together.

While Batory was motivated by having practices over break growing up, he believes traveling with the team offers a more balanced and fun break. He tries to find locations that allow for a feeling of being on break, cultural life experiences and getting better at basketball, all at the same time. This year, the team traveled to New York City for a four game series

against schools in the city.

Sophomore Tate Cohen emphasized that because he enjoys basketball, practicing and having games over break is fun. Additionally, he is able to put more effort into basketball over break due to the lack of classes. “You can be active more during practices during break, which I like,” Cohen said. While he enjoyed the

practices, Cohen also enjoyed the trip for the balance of team bonding, competitive play, and exploring New York City.

Girls soccer coach Ross Ireland takes a different approach to breaks. He offers optional practices that are sparsely attended. Ireland believes that the break is a great time for families to get out of town and relax, which is the main reason his

practices are not mandatory. If a player is at home, Ireland believes she should be at practice. However, he suspects that many students who are in town do not attend practice. “I think some take that little break to completely decompress from school-associated activities,” Ireland said. “I wish they didn’t.”

Staff illustration: Sophie Fang

The boys basketball team traveled to New York City over winter break to play four games and bond as a team. Photo courtesy of Samantha Leeper

Senior Eloise Thompson runs the ball during the Homecoming flag football game. Photo courtesy of Tripp Robbins

Hazing on Menlo Teams: A Tradition of the Past?

by ERICA FENYO

Girls soccer players walk the halls wearing costumes and accessories, girls water polo players spend the day with swimsuits stretched over their clothes and the football and boys lacrosse teams initiate their freshman teammates with crazy haircuts. On almost every Menlo sports team, the freshmen or new varsity players participate in an embarrassing ritual, usually on the day of their first home game.

teammates. “It’s kind of a big tradition to bring the whole team together when a lot of people get haircuts, so we did that before the playoffs,” Freehill said.

Riley agreed that the team culture welcomed the freshmen in the fall. “I definitely thought that the team culture was amazing,” Riley said. “For my first high school sport, I’m really happy that it was as good as football.”

After getting his hair cut by the seniors, Riley does not believe that the tradition amounts to anything meanspirited. “I know a lot of people can say that it seems like hazing, but I don’t really see it like that,” Riley said.

Still, rumors persist about boys who feel pressured into complying. Several team members and players’ parents declined to comment about the haircut tradition and whether or not it was a positive experience.

Several teams also participate in orientation rituals that are more temporary. The girls soccer team encourages the new varsity players to dress up in wacky costumes for their first game day.

enjoyed it, so I’d say [the costumes] helped with bonding.”

The football team is most known for giving freshmen bizarre haircuts when they join the varsity squad for the playoffs, but this year some freshmen believe that the team turned a new leaf, as players are now given the option to participate.

When freshmen Palmer Riley and Jack Freehill got pulled up to varsity for the post-season games, both agreed to get their hair cut to bond with their

When COVID-19 canceled the tradition for the 2020-21 soccer season, senior Hannah Gorospe missed out on her opportunity to wear costumes with her teammates. Instead, she got to dress up as a junior during her first full season on varsity after hybrid learning. “Since so many other teammates had to wear costumes last year, I didn’t feel out of place,” Gorospe said. “I thought the costumes were really funny, and I even

Now that she is a senior on the team, Gorospe was excited to continue the tradition for the team’s first game on Jan. 18, 2023. “I think this tradition doesn’t really hurt anyone. It’s all in good spirits, and it gets us excited for our game later in the day,” Gorospe said.

On the girls water polo team, freshmen have the option to wear swimsuits over their clothes on the first home game day of the season. Seniors also design colorful signs advertising the upcoming games for the freshmen to wear as necklaces.

Only half of the water polo

freshmen chose to participate, one of them being Kate Hirsch. “I feel like it wasn’t anything really embarrassing or demeaning and was definitely conducted in a very comfortable way,” Hirsch said. “Some of the other freshmen were a little bit hesitant, and the older teammates were receptive and weren’t forcing anyone to do anything.”

When she becomes a senior, Hirsch plans to continue the tradition. “I will probably continue it when I’m a senior unless other teammates really don’t want to since I don’t really see anything harmful with the tradition, but obviously people might have differing opinions.”

I thought the costumes were really funny, and I even enjoyed it, so I’d say [the costumes] helped with bonding.

Senior Hannah Gorospe

Staff illustration: Sutton Inouye

Lucas Vogel, Basketball, WashU

by JAKE LIEBERMAN

Senior Lucas Vogel committed to Washington University in St. Louis for basketball in October 2022.

Vogel started playing basketball in third grade in National Junior Basketball programs. “It started to get a little more serious in middle school. Freshman year, it got taken to another level,” Vogel said. Over the summer in high school, Vogel worked year round to get recruited and improve his game. Vogel went to a handful of camps and played in several tournaments with his Amateur Athletic Union team. “I did a lot of things to get me in front of college coaches, and that was a lot of AAU tournaments.”

Vogel loves the game and community of basketball. “You have a built-in mini family. And also, basketball is a break from my everyday life. It’s a nice feeling to have a break from reality.”

Vogel also brings a versatility to his game that not many high school basketball players possess. “I would say I’m a multidimensional scorer. I’m pretty athletic.” Vogel is a guard, and a strong shooter and can score from anywhere on the court. Comparing himself to college and NBA players, Vogel has a few in mind. “I would say my college [comparison] is [former Villanova guard]

Collin Gillespie. Multi-dimensional scorer, can shoot the three ball.” Vogel also compared his style of play to Detroit Pistons forward Bogan Bogdanović.

Vogel knew that WashU was the right school for him. “When I visited, it felt like home. The people were awesome.”

Vogel also mentioned that the players on the team “already felt like family.”

COMMITTED CORNER COMMITTED CORNER

Malia Thompson, Rowing, University of Texas

by SOPHIE STONE

Senior Malia Thompson committed to row at the University of Texas at Austin in November 2022. As a child, Thompson played a variety of sports, from soccer to tennis to basketball. She had trouble finding one sport she enjoyed enough to pursue at the collegiate level. Thompson played volleyball for Menlo during her freshman, sophomore and junior years of high school until one of her volleyball teammates introduced her to rowing. “At the time I was really into volleyball,” Thompson said. “Then, after I realized that I really wasn't enjoying playing volleyball, I was like, ‘I might as well just try rowing,’ and I ended up really liking it.”

and after that I started reaching out to schools,” Thompson said.

Division I schools usually recruit 12 students per class for their rowing team, and by the time Thompson started her recruiting process in October, most Division I schools had already completed their 2023 recruiting class. “Starting a sport during senior year is pretty intimidating because most people have started years ago. [...] It was kind of discouraging,” Thompson said. However, the University of Texas at Austin still had space on their roster.

Overall, Vogel was confident in his decision. “They have strong academics, it’s a really strong DIII program, and it checked all the boxes. I had this gut feeling, and I followed it.”

This season Vogel is trying to accomplish a few goals, one of which he’s already done. Vogel has already surpassed 1,000 points in his Menlo varsity career, which was an individual goal of his. He also hopes to make a deep run in the state playoffs with the team.

When he’s out with his teammates and shooting around, he likes to keep it loose. “When I get too stressed, I play worse. I like to just have fun and remember that basketball is just a game.”

Vogel is extremely excited to play the game he loves in college. “I would say I’m really excited to just have a built-in family when you’re there. Everyone has each other’s backs, and that feeling is just unmatched.”

Thompson has been rowing at NorCal Crew in Redwood City with 70 other girls since August 2022. Because she started rowing so late, Thompson originally didn’t consider being recruited by a college as an option. “Then my coach told me, ‘I think you can [get recruited] if you really want it [...],

Thompson had UT Austin on her college list before she even began thinking about being recruited. When she visited in February 2022, the school’s location and size appealed to her. “Going to a small [high] school made me realize that I would have more fun at a bigger school,” Thompson said. “I just loved the vibe of the campus and everyone seemed really cool and it was a great community.”

Aiden Deffner, Track/XC, Johns Hopkins University

by CAROLINE CLACK

Senior Aiden Deffner committed to run Division III cross country and track at Johns Hopkins University in October 2022. Deffner began running his freshman year at Menlo and has loved it ever since. “I love how rewarding it feels when I break my personal records after a long season of hard work,” Deffner said.

Varsity coach Jorge Chen was thrilled about Deffner’s commitment and was quick to praise him. “I enjoyed having Aiden on this team because he is not only an amazing athlete but a big-hearted human being,” Chen said. The Positive Coaching Alliance also acknowledged this when they gave Deffner the Triple-Impact Competitor Award for the West Region last August. “[Deffner is] a phenomenal leader who showed that even if you’re on JV your frosh year, you can go up to varsity, be a leader and run in college through resilience and hard work.”

Unlike most committed athletes, Deffner wasn’t set on running in college, despite his love of the sport. It was only after a visit to Johns Hopkins University,

where he spent the weekend with the team, that he decided running collegiately was the path for him. “I loved spending time with the team and felt really comfortable,” Deffner said.

Deffner sought a well-rounded school that would offer him opportunities academically and fuel his passion for running. Johns Hopkins fulfilled both of his requirements. Additionally, Deffner liked Johns Hopkins’ commitment to a positive environment and community for students.

Deffner’s teammates have enjoyed his easy-to-talk-to personality and positive attitude. “Out of everyone on the team, Aiden is the one who isn't afraid to speak up and say something whether it's serious or funny,” sophomore Will Hauser said. Sophomore Landon Pretre concurred. “He's always there as someone to talk to, he's always making everyone laugh, and he's like a second big brother to me.”

After four years at Menlo, Deffner is excited to challenge his coastal California

background and immerse himself in the colder Maryland climate. “I’m not sure

how well I’ll adjust to it because it gets pretty cold in the winter,” Deffner said.

Lucas Vogel recently surpassed 1,000 points scored in his Menlo career and is eager to start his collegiate career at WashU. Staff

photo: Lexi Friesel

Aiden Deffner is looking forward to finishing out his last season of track at Menlo and joining the Johns Hopkins team next fall. Photo courtesy of Deffner

Malia Thompson practices with NorCal Crew in the Bay. Photo courtesy of Thompson

Teachers Brighten up Classrooms With Unique Decor

By LizzieFreehill

By LizzieFreehill

feel at home during class. The pieces of art shown above were made by AP English Literature and Composition students. “I’m always amazed by what they can do,” Pressesky said. Staff photos: Lizzie Freehill

Teachers Have the Freedom to Design Their Classes

By Tatumherrin By Tatumherrin

A defining characteristic of Menlo is the individuality of its classes; not every high school has a Global Mythologies English elective and not every Advanced Placement Statistics class lets its students retake every quiz three times. Menlo students get access to these unique features because Menlo teachers take initiative and the faculty places trust in the teachers in return.

Senior English electives are constructed from the ground up by the teacher that teaches that class, allowing teachers to build courses that cater to their specific expertise and interests. As a result, English electives are constantly evolving as teachers with different specialties move through the school.

“We’re at a point where we’re going to have the opportunity for probably many more electives than we currently have,” English teacher Jay Bush said.

“So I think [English teachers] are all really excited about possibilities,” he said. According to Bush, creating a course is one of his favorite aspects of being an educator.

from the department.

Bush explains that the more unique classes are available, the more likely students will be able to find a topic that genuinely interests them. “There’s an extremely high value to student engagement, and students learn a lot more when they’re engaged in the course,” Bush said.

At his last school, the curriculum was more fixed, while at Menlo, the careful hiring process results in more trust in the teachers. “When I came in with my interest in modernist poetry, I think a lot of people would think that sounds really weird and niche. But when I said ‘Look, [...] I think I can get kids to really like this hard stuff,’ the school trusted that,” Bush said.

To Bush, this freedom is a defining characteristic of his experiences as a Menlo English teacher. “As a teacher, that kind of freedom is something that you really value because this creative part of the job is part of why most of us

became teachers,” he said.

through quizzes which they can retake up to three times. “I want the students to perform to a high standard. I really tried to calibrate the quizzes so that if you pass this quiz, you’re good enough in this topic to get a five on the AP exam,” he said.

Previously, Millstein allowed unlimited retakes. He recently switched to a maximum of three because he felt that allowing students three retakes still encourages them to continue their learning without also encouraging them to procrastinate and neglect studying for their first attempt.

But making several versions of every quiz can be difficult. “Probably the most challenging part of it is continuing to be able to create meaningful and fresh versions to assess the same body of knowledge,” Millstein said. He finds it worth the trouble, though. By allowing students to keep

either recommend changes or approve it as a high school math that you can get a credit from,” Millstein explained. Millstein shares Bush’s opinion on Menlo’s flexibility. “As teachers here, our philosophy is to let students express themselves. [...] I think the administration has the same thoughts about teachers,” Millstein said.

-JayBush,Englishteacher

But that doesn’t mean teachers pursue just any arbitrary idea. First, the teacher generates a basic, overarching outline for the course and presents it to the department. If their idea is approved by the department, the teacher then fleshes out the course into units and builds the lesson plans. The finalized course name and description is shown to Upper School Director John Schafer.

Bush explains that, based on his experience, the first year of a brand new class comes with challenges. Over time, however, the course gains its footing, especially with constructive feedback provided by students and check-ins

Another freedom accessible to Menlo teachers is grading style. Math teacher Dennis Millstein in particular has taken advantage of this freedom for his Statistics classes. His grading system was inspired by Upper School Director John Schafer.

Schafer encourages teachers to allow “second bites of the apple,” in which students can retake assessments to get closer to mastery. “The point of a test is not simply to find that the student has 83% mastery and that is the end of it. The student should fix [and] learn from [their] errors,” Schafer wrote in an email to The Coat of Arms.

In Millstein’s model, students get “multiple bites of the apple.” Students are never assessed through tests; rather, Millstein assesses students

taking the quizzes, Millstein encourages students to continue to fill the holes in their understanding.

Because Menlo is slowly moving away from APs, Millstein is preparing to reshape the AP Statistics class. Similar to Bush, Millstein is excited about this aspect of creation. Millstein also hopes to dive into practical application, particularly through Machine Learning and Data Science. Similar to the English department, however, Millstein will first present his ideas to his colleagues in the Math Department.

The curriculum undergoes an external check as well. “There’s a process for submitting the description of the class and having the description audited by representatives of the University of California system who

(Below) History teacher Matthew Nelson has students in his Global Issues for Global Citizens class each take a different colored string and use pins to connect five places where they have traveled, or where they hope to visit in the future. There are two maps in Nelson’s room — one for each of his two semester-long Global Issues classes.

(Left) To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15Oct. 15), Spanish teacher Alita Guzmán had students each color a square which, when placed together, form a mural of important Hispanic figures. The colorful visual includes images and quotes from Selena Quintanilla, Ceasar Chavez, Juan Herrera, Roberto Clemente, Sonia Sotomayor, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Ellen Ochoa. On the same bulletin board, student work can be seen, and above the board hang the flags of Hispanic countries.

(Far Above) French teacher Corinne Chung does what she can to make her classroom feel unlike a typical classroom. One corner in the French room includes greenery,lows and cushions, student artwork and posters. The strings of ornaments hanging from the ceiling were each decorated by Chung’s students.

(Above) English teacher Lena Pressesky likes to have a visual project or activity at the beginning of the year to use as classroom decor. She believes this custom allows students to feel a sense of ownership over the classroom and

“Thiscreativepartof thejobiswhymostof usbecameteachers."

Teachers’ Involvement Extends Beyond the Classroom

ByANNIESTENT

ByANNIESTENT

At Menlo, being a teacher goes beyond teaching a class. Along with their classes, they advise clubs, lead advocacies and much more. This is no mistake: teacher contracts are designed to include these requirements in order to cultivate a community where teachers and students are connected. The standard teacher contract requires teachers to teach at least four classes and be an advocate or be involved in an extracurricular program, according to Upper School

Director John Schafer. Those requirements vary in order to maintain equality among workload and commitments for teachers. “Arts teachers actually teach [more classes] than the math or science teachers, [in order to even the workload], because they in theory have less prepping and grading and so forth,” Schafer said.

The extracurricular and advocacy requirements are flexible as well. Some teachers run one major organization within the school, such as Junior Classical League, while others have several lower commitment roles. For certain tasks, such as fire drills or other emergency drills, small teams of teachers are formed to organize them. These teams exemplify lower commitment extracurricular roles.

Extracurriculars are not tracked by hours, but the level of commitment required is noted by the administration, specifically Upper School Assistant Director Adam Gelb, in order to keep time commitments relatively equal. Teachers with less time-consuming extracurriculars are still heavily involved in the school by other means. “We have a teacher who does not have a particularly heavy load on extracurriculars, so she helps out with subbing for other teachers. [...] The theory is that everybody pitches in,” Schafer said.

Teachers have agency in what they participate in; they are free to propose an idea for a new club or join an existing program. If they do not express specific interests, they

are requested in a place where the school is in need, including but not limited to a club, admissions office or the Learning Center.

This freedom allows for teachers to be involved in a multitude of different things. Upper School English teacher Oscar King has a freshman advocacy with Upper School History teacher Nick Merlesena, and is an advisor for three different clubs. King advises the Menlo Literary Magazine, the Dungeons & Dragons Club and the Anime Club. For Dungeons & Dragons Club as well as Anime Club, he was asked by students who knew he was interested in the subjects to be their advisor.

“[Club advising] is so much fun. It’s all the fun and intellectual curiosity of a class, but no homework or grading,” King said.

In addition to the freedom of extracurriculars, not all teachers have an advocacy. Some instead serve as academic advisors who help students plan their classes, a program started last year. Upper School History teacher Katharine Hanson is an advisor and has enjoyed her involvement so far.

“It’s really fun to be an [academic advisor] because the school has so many new classes every year, it’s like an explosion of new things, new aca-

demic offerings,” Hanson said.

Academic advisors help students navigate class offerings and build their schedules as they move through the high school. Many classes, especially later on, have prerequisites that need to be filled by classes that students take as a freshman or sophomore. The math course a student takes as a freshman can determine what science and math classes they take as a senior, for example.

Teachers like Hanson, who chose to be academic advisors, can help to make the process of choosing classes easier. “The idea is just a little more explanation and communication about [building a schedule],” she said.

Hanson also advises the Business & Entrepreneurship Club. Similar to King, she was approached by students asking her to be the advisor, as every official club needs a teacher advisor.

There are many different paths for teachers to fill the extracurricular requirement. Every path helps to achieve the administration’s goal of having teachers be strongly involved on campus. “This is the kind of school which heavily believes in the relationships between teachers and students. We want teachers to be around,” Schafer said.

Teachers Face Challenges With Transportation

ByGEOFFREYFRANC

ByGEOFFREYFRANC

At 6:30 a.m., most students are just waking up, or still asleep. But not math teacher Adam Whistler. Instead, he’s putting on a podcast or audiobook — usually related to politics or television — and starting his hour-long commute from Oakland to Menlo.

Whistler said he aims to be at school around 8 a.m., but to do that, he can’t leave later than 6:30. If he leaves even a mere 15 minutes later, he could end up 45 minutes late due to a sudden build up of traffic on his route.

Whistler used to live in an apartment in San Francisco with his wife, who works in the financial district. But when the pandemic hit, they found their apartment was too small for both of them to work in and began searching for a bigger place to rent. “We got really lucky and found a great little house [...] about five minutes from the BART line for my wife to get to work really easily,” he said. Being able to walk to a BART station gives Whistler the opportunity to commute to Menlo by train, but he said he only took the train once last semester because it takes 90 minutes each way. When he does take the train, he’s able to grade and plan lessons during his commute. “The day I took the train, I had a really great day,” he said. “Driving is stressful.”

Similarly, photography and animation teacher Amanda Kyed — who lives with her husband in the West Portal neighborhood of San Fran-

cisco — said that taking public transit would add another hour to her commute in each direction. Instead, Kyed leaves her home in her car around 6:50 every morning. This gets her to school around 7:30. Kyed said she encounters a similar problem to Whistler, where if she leaves later than her usual time, she hits heavy traffic which lengthens her 40 minute commute to an hour.

Kyed moved to San Francisco during the pandemic, when her husband could still work remotely for his job in Los Angeles. She didn’t have a job when they moved to the Bay Area, so proximity to her husband’s family and friends was the driving factor in their choice of location. “We live about a mile away from everyone he’s related to,” Kyed said.

English teacher Whitney Newton also moved during the pandemic. She relocated from El Granada (near Half Moon Bay) to Morgan Hill (south of San Jose). Newton and her husband had bought a house in El Granada in 2015, but they moved to Morgan Hill in 2020 for her husband’s job, then back to El Granada in 2022.

When Newton and her husband started looking to buy a house back in 2015, they initially hoped to take advantage of the Faculty Housing Loan Program, a loan program for Menlo faculty trying to put money down on a house. But Newton and her husband kept getting outbid in the competitive Redwood City housing market.

Their struggle, however, soon revealed itself to be a blessing in

disguise. After reluctantly visiting a house in El Granada, Newton fell in love. “I saw the house, I saw the ocean from our living room, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is where we’re gonna live,’” Newton said. “It was literally the best decision I've ever made in my life.” From El Granada, Newton says it generally takes around 45 minutes to drive to Menlo.

Newton had sought out a condo in Morgan Hill close to the Caltrain station in the town, imagining she could take the train to the station in Menlo Park instead of driving. But, similar to Kyed, she soon discovered that public transportation wasn’t a vi able option. “I tried to [take the train] one day, and it took me longer, was going to cost me about 20 bucks a day — which is more than it was costing me in gas — and one of the trains got canceled and it ended up being a total disaster, and my husband had to pick me up,” Newton said.

After this experience, Newton drove to work from Morgan Hill until she moved back to El Granada where it took her around 90 minutes to get to school because of traffic.

The teacher with perhaps the longest commute is Chief of Insti tutional Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Keith Wheeler. While Wheeler spends most of his time in the Bay Area, his two eighth grade sons in Los Angeles keep him flying back and forth. Wheeler said that, although he frequently checks in with

his children through FaceTime and text, he tries to be in Los Angeles for his boys’ activities. “I remember like my first or second year, sometimes I would fly back during a week when I didn’t have any event going on here, and I would coach my sons or be at my sons’ basketball practice,” he said.

Staffillustration: MicheleHratko

“Thetheoryisthat everybodypitchesin.”

- JohnSchafer,UpperSchoolDirector

“Itwasliterallythebest decisionI'veevermade inmylife.”

-WhitneyNewton,EnglishTeacher

Grammys Predictions: Who Should Win the Big Four Awards

by KAYLIE WU

Each year, the Recording Academy presents the Annual Grammy Awards to recognize famous artists and their teams for outstanding achievement in the music industry. The awards show is meant to accurately represent an entire year’s worth of music; this means that Recording Academy members must carefully vote upon nominee lists that not only resonate with international fanbases, but that also align with the major events that took place within the music world that year, or between Oct. 1, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022. On Nov. 15, 2022, when the list of nominees for the upcoming 65th Grammy Awards was released, fans were surprised to see a few of their favorite artists completely left out; ultimately, the Recording Academy’s full list of nominees more or less accurately represents the 2022 music industry as a whole, while simultaneously still snubbing a few major artists, like Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj.

The Grammys’ “Big Four” awards — “Record of the Year,” “Song of the Year,” “Album of the Year” and “Best New Artist” — succeeded not only in summarizing what music was most popular in 2022, but also in including a very diverse range of artists. This year, recently popular musicians such as Steve Lacy were nominated for “Record of the Year,” along with artists and bands who have been famous for much longer time spans, such as Beyonce and ABBA.

Although Steve Lacy is not nearly as famous as the iconic Beyonce or ABBA, his nomination is easily just as deserved, and his music has the popularity to prove it. Steve Lacy’s nominated “Bad Habit” went viral on TikTok immediately after its release in June 2022, helping to expose the rest of his discography to millions of users. The song also has more Spotify streams than both Beyonce’s “BREAK

MY SOUL” and ABBA’s “Don’t Shut Me Down.” Even when these “BREAK

MY SOUL” and “Don’t Shut Me Down” streams are added together, “Bad Habit” was still played about 200 million more times, asserting that Steve Lacy’s slightly less “mainstream” music is just as Grammy-worthy.

Meanwhile, it’s highly reputable to see that the “Album of the Year” category incorporates many genres besides pop and rap, from country to soul to alternative rock to even Latin trap and reggaeton. In 2022, Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” was the most consumed album in the United States, not to mention that it was the first all-Spanish album to accomplish this. Given that the album has already gone down in American history, there is absolutely no doubt that “Un Verano Sin Ti” rightfully earned its nomination.

“Un Verano Sin Ti” is also the first all-Spanish album to be nominated for “Album of the Year” in the 65 years that the Annual Grammy Awards have existed, meaning that if Bad Bunny wins, he will have the first non-English album to receive

this honor.

Despite the recognition of these record-breaking superstars, there are still a few other significant artists who did not receive any of their well-deserved nominations.

It was especially surprising for Megan Thee Stallion’s name to be completely left out of this year’s nominations. In March 2022, Megan Thee Stallion released “Sweetest Pie” with Dua Lipa, which was even included in Billboard’s

male artist since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” in 1998. Even if not nominated in one of the “Big Four” categories, “Super Freaky Girl” still deserved some sort of recognition from the Recording Academy; the song generated much more buzz and emotionally impacted fans way more than songs nominated in “Rap” categories, including Gunna’s “pushin P” and DJ Khaled’s “Beautiful.”

Nicki Minaj is not new to feeling snubbed by the Recording Academy, either; while the rapper has been nominated ten times in past years, she still has yet to win an award. “Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had 7 songs simultaneously charting on billboard & bigger first week than any female rapper in the last decade,” Nicki Minaj tweeted in 2020.

“Hot 100 Songs” in 2022, ranking in the 62nd spot. Statistically, Megan Thee Stallion’s second studio album, “Traumazine,” was also much more successful than several Grammy-nominated albums, including Mary J. Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous” and Brandi Carlile’s “In These Silent Days.” While these two artists are certainly deserving of their nominations, given that even Billboard considers “Sweetest Pie” to have had a big cultural impact in 2022, it would make sense for Megan Thee Stallion to have earned at least one nomination this year as well.

Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” was shockingly excluded from this year’s list of Grammy nominations as well. Similarly placed in Billboard’s 2022 “Hot 100,” the song became a massive dance trend on TikTok, not to mention that it was also the first No. 1 debut for a hip-hop song by a solo fe-

Drake also released two of this year’s biggest albums — “Honestly, Nevermind” and “Her Loss” — both of which did not receive any nominations. According to Forbes, this is because Drake himself chose for his work to not even be considered, as the artist has expressed several problems regarding discrimination with the Recording Academy in the past; however, Drake’s “Jimmy Cooks” with 21 Savage was still one of the biggest hits of the year, making it especially difficult to agree that the Grammys are accurately depicting the 2022 music world without any acknowledgement of it.

Bruno Mars also shared with Rolling Stone that Silk Sonic, his band with Anderson Paak, would similarly not be submitting any music to be considered for the Grammys this year. In 2022, Silk Sonic only released one song: “Love’s Train.” While the band certainly did not have nearly as big of an impact as Drake this year, the song is still an important homage to rhythm switches and vocal hiccups in the ‘70s, and deserved at least a nomination in one of the R&B categories.

Never forget the Grammys didn’t give me my best new artist award when I had 7 songs simultaneously charting on billboard.

Nicki Minaj

New Year’s Resolutions Bring More Harm Than Good

by ANNIE STENT

New Year’s resolutions are often seen as an opportunity for self-improvement in the coming year. The clock striking midnight on New Year’s Eve is seen as a reset, a chance for people to make a promise to themselves. The cliché of breaking that promise within the first few weeks is one that people are used to, but an overlooked reality is that New Year’s Resolutions can easily trigger disordered eating.

exercise can be positive goals for some people. However, the increased mentions of diet and exercise around the holiday can be very harmful for those recovering from or currently struggling with eating disorders. This harm occurs whether they make a resolution of this nature or not.

Hearing a family member, friend or even stranger set goals regarding their bodies can cause a similar desire in the mind of a disordered eater because eating disorders are inherently competitive.

New Year’s resolutions are not very effective in the first place and often leave people feeling as though they have failed when they don’t fully carry out their resolutions. At the very least, New Year’s resolutions are forgotten. By February of 2021, 80% of people admitted to abandoning their resolutions for 2021.

With a new year, there is often the strange expectation that we will achieve goals that we weren’t able to in the previous year. This is not to say that all resolutions are impossible, but we seem to forget that there is no magical change on Jan. 1. Our lives are generally still the same, and the same obstacles that kept us from sticking to our resolutions the year before still remain.

Despite this, we still make resolutions, which can be positive, but many tend to contain ideas of fitness or weight loss. In 2019, 59% of resolutions included a desire to exercise more and 48% included a desire to lose weight. There is nothing wrong with either resolution, and weight loss or increased

According to April Lyons M.D., L.P.C., who specializes in eating disorders, an eating disorder can in some cases feel like a competition to be the thinnest, so hearing someone wanting to change or shrink their body can activate that competition. Even if it does not stem from a competitive desire, hearing someone talk about their body with a desire to change it brings up those thoughts for disordered eaters. While your goal might entail going to the gym a few more times a week or adding a salad to a meal, this might entail more harmful tendencies for someone with an eating disorder.

Disordered eating was something that I struggled with for a while and is probably something that I will be continually working against for most of my life. In past years, my New Year’s resolutions included pictures of what I wanted to look like, numbers I wanted to be and calorie tracking apps that were going to get me there. Obviously, those behaviors were not just occurring around New Year’s, but the holiday was a time when I would really reset and focus on my goals, no matter how harmful they were to me. Hearing my family members talk about the work out regimens they were starting or meal plans they were using made me feel like this was normal. Everyone was doing it, so I should too.

To be clear, hearing someone have a fitness goal as a resolution is not the sole reason that a disordered eater struggles. Additionally, while there is also nothing wrong with wanting to make changes in

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Editor-in-Chief............................................................Alex Levitt

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the new year, it is important to recognize that sharing fitness or weight loss goals can be triggering. Discussing your plans for changing your appearance or general fitness, especially if those plans may not even last far past February, is not worth the harm it may cause your loved ones. There are less triggering ways to speak about fitness or even weight loss goals. Phrasing exercise goals along the lines of “I want to get stronger” is much more positive than “I want to burn more calories this year.” Unfortunately, knowing what will or won’t trigger people is hard, so avoiding the topic, especially in a time when it tends to come up a bit more often than usual, is the best option.

becomes triggering is also an option. Naturally changing the subject or even being more direct and saying, “Hey, can we talk about something else?” does not have to be a big deal and if someone does change the subject, saying “Okay,” or just quickly going along with it is important.

can be positive. They can be

opportunities to take agency in a new year, a new chapter of your life. However, we need to be aware of when and how New Year’s resolutions surrounding fitness and body image can be harmful in order to cultivate a more universally positive experience.

By February of 2021, 80% of people admited to abandoing their resolutions for 2021.

Should Colleges Use Affirmative Action in Admissions?

similar case against the University of North Carolina — SFFA seeks a ruling that finds racial preferences in college admissions unconstitutional. Indeed, today in 2023, affirmative action — a policy that relies upon discrimination towards Asian Americans, is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, generalizes racial groups and perpetuates socioeconomic homogeny — cannot continue.

Harvard continues to disadvantage Asian Americans in admissions. Despite having the highest average academic qualifications of any racial group, Asian Americans have the lowest admittance rate to Harvard. The university’s internal reports have found there is a “negative chance of getting into Harvard by virtue of being Asian,” according to court documents. Some proponents of affirmative action see it as a way to counteract past discrimination against Black and Latino Americans. Yet they fail to see that affirmative action allows systematic support the Supreme Court banning

perspective fails to consider the danger of using arbitrarily-defined race classifications. According to the Census Bureau, “White” includes everyone from Swedes to Afghans, “Asian” can be anyone from the culturally and ethnically diverse and colossal continent of Asia and “Hispanic” can mean a Spanish aristocrat or a poor farmer in Mexico. But by using these classifications to determine an applicant’s access to resources to boost chances of admission, colleges forget that, while people of color still disproportionately lack access to these resources, there is socioeconomic diversity within these groups in a way there wasn’t in the past. Assumptions are made based on race but do not necessarily reflect reality.

A common misconception is that affirmative action is key to reducing the racial wealth gap. However, researcher Richard Kahlenberg, an expert witness for SFFA, notes that most of Harvard’s underrepresented students are already well off. “Seventy-one percent of Black, Latino, and Native American students at Harvard come from college-educated homes with incomes above the national median; such students are in roughly the most advantaged fifth of families of their own race,” Kahlenberg wrote in The Atlantic. By allowing colleges to consider race in admissions to achieve racial diversity, we give them a

way out of admitting a socioeconomically diverse class. According to The New York Times, only 4.5% of Harvard’s students come from the bottom 20% of the income spectrum. America’s colleges and universities need to take a raceneutral approach to affirmative action. Socioeconomic factors like family income, school quality and the accessibility of college counseling must be considered to properly gauge an applicant’s potential. Justices of the Supreme Court: affirmative action can no longer be used as a tactic to suppress Asian Americans, generalize racial groups and preserve the systematic advantages for the already privileged. Scrap it.

Black Americans were denied the opportunity to buy or sell their homes because of redlining. Redlining, a discriminatory practice, worked by labeling majority Black and Latino communities as “red” areas, signaling to potential investors to not give out loans to families in those areas. Redlining was just one of the institutional barriers to success that many Black and Latino Americans faced decades ago, and its impacts continue to be felt today. Underfunded schools, persisting wealth disparities and a history of limited resources are just a few of the ongoing impacts of redlining. This is when affirmative action comes in to close the gap between this disparity. Without affirmative action, our society would continue to accept and perpetuate the inequalities that trap Black Americans in a cycle of poverty.

According to a study from EdBuild, predominantly white school districts have access to funding worth $23 billion more than districts with primarily students of color. This $23 billion difference means that white school districts have access to significantly better resources, luxuries that all Menlo students enjoy going to a wealthy private school in Atherton, California. These superior educational resources include better access to excellent teaching, higher academic rigor and more

education, Black and Latino youth become significantly more likely to fall back into the cycle of poverty. Moreover, according to a study by Linda Darling-Hammond, former Professor of Education at Stanford University, when schools have diverse teaching forces, the effects can be profound. “[I] n New York City, roughly 90 percent of the variance in student reading and mathematics scores at grades 3, 6 and 8 was a function of differences in teacher qualifications. The schools with highly qualified teachers serving large numbers of minority and low-income students performed as well as much more advantaged schools,” Darling- Hammond wrote.

SAT scores also illustrate the educational achievement gaps we see in schools. According to a study from the Brookings Institution, Black and Latino students perform significantly lower than white and Asian students on the SAT. These factors make affirmative action incredibly important. When working with fewer resources, less help and fewer opportunities, of course students of color are unlikely to perform up to their true potential. Working under the assumption that Black and Latino students can perform better when given the resources to succeed is the only just way to create fairness in the college admissions process.

One of the most common

Breaking Hearts and Breaking Banks: Stop Celebrating Valentine’s Day

by ELLIE MCCUSKER

Valentine’s Day: a utopian day of opening gifts, smelling flowers, looking lovingly into another’s eyes and sharing spaghetti over a candlelit dinner. Unless you’re single. Valentine’s Day for singles consists of constant reminders of your misery. Sure, many people may be content without a partner, but it’s no secret that singles worldwide dread Valentine's Day. According to the website Insider.com, for 47.3% of single people above 18 (115.78 million people), Valentine’s Day realis tically sucks — it’s either a painful reminder of a lost re lationship or of tragic loneliness, and it all happens while you are eating chocolate alone, watching a rom-com.

While it seems that Valentine’s Day is incon sequential, the holiday’s focus on happy couples and

are potentially deceiving. Despite endless sweet messages and gifts, many women spend the day in fear. Jessica Dearth, director of the women’s shelter Officials with Eve Incorporated, says that stresses and financial burdens of the holiday increase domestic violence and emotional abuse. Nearly 5 million women are victims of abuse annually on Valentine’s Day. Gifts, affection and love bombing are used as manipulative weapons to control the abused.

Gifts, flowers, jewelry and expensive meals add up not only in price but also in waste. According to a survey of 7,384 adults by the National Retail Federation, the average person spends $161.96 on Valentine’s Day for their partners, children, parents and friends. Further,

men spend $229.54, while women spend $97.77, creating unequal presumptions between men and women. The NRF survey concluded that $3.9 billion is spent on jewelry, $2.1 billion on clothing, $1.8 billion on candy, $1.3 billion on cards and $886 million on pets. Realistically, Valentine’s Day puts a price on love and is a competition for wealth and materialism.

Not only are obscene amounts of money spent, but the result is products wasted. Cut flowers generate 9 million kilograms of CO2 , the release of balloons take 450 years to degrade, while straws, plastic bags and cards take 500 years to degrade, according to Plastic Oceans. Despite Valentine’s Day’s intentions of admiration and joy, it creates broken hearts, insecurities, empty wallets, dead flowers and candy wrappers. For singles and couples, the negatives outweigh the benefits. Valentine’s Day is notoriously a dreadful holiday.

Corrections and Retakes Can Change Menlo’s Grade Culture

by ZOE

For many Menlo students, getting good grades is a top priority. As the college application process has gotten more competitive, having exceptional grades can almost feel like a necessity. However, many factors such as mental health, learning differences and packed schedules can interfere with students’ ability to thrive in school. If a school culture prioritizes grades above all else, it can take away from students’ learning. Menlo’s grade culture needs to change, and the allowance of retakes and corrections across all classes can help foster that change. Although opportunities to raise test scores can be seen as a way for students to just boost their grade, they also ensure better retention of material.

When the focus of school is to get good grades, it creates a toxic culture and learning loses value. “What develops is a competitive mindset that prioritizes grades

over curiosity. [...] Therefore learning becomes a task rather than a happy pastime,” Bryce Holland said in a Virginia Review article. In a study by researchers at University of East Anglia, students that had been tested on subjects from their A-level syllabus were only able to answer an average 40% of questions correctly. Similar to the function of Advanced Placement testing in the U.S, A-level courses are offered to UK students in the two-year period post high school. They help demonstrate students’ qualifications when applying for high level educational institutions. However, the lack of retention illustrates how a grade focused system prioritizes short term recollection over long term knowledge.

If teachers allow students to retake and correct tests, there would be less pressure surrounding grades, shifting the focus back to learning. Not only can retakes eliminate a fear of failure, but they allow students room to review and grow from their mistakes. Often if a student is not given an incentive to try and improve in the future, they might not have a reason to review what they have done wrong. If testing is the method in which students’ learning is evaluated, it should be viewed as an iterative process where students are given a reason to want to improve from their mistakes.

A study published in Sage Journal found that students who were offered the ability to review their tests before a retake showed higher improvement than those who were not given the opportunity. Giving students the ability to review and correct mistakes can increase understanding of the material covered in class.

Another study, funded by the National Science Foundation, found that students in classes that offered frequent testing that incorporated elements of “mastery testing and second-chance testing” overall tended to score higher than those in classes without. Mastery test-

ing is a technique of formative tests and quizzes to help prevent students from falling behind on class material and ensure strong foundational knowledge. The results of this study indicate that when testing is an iterative process, used as a tool for learning rather than an evaluation of knowledge, students tend to perform better in their classes.

At Menlo, testing should be viewed in the same light. Rather than being a somewhat stressful evaluation, evaluations should be used as a method to further learning. One of the easiest solutions to assessment-focused learning is to allow students retakes and corrections. With flexibility around grading and testing policies, every Menlo teacher has different options regarding retakes: Some teachers offer unlimited retakes, some have mandatory corrections and others offer neither. However, these opportunities to revise will eliminate pressure around performance, take away the fear of failure and allow students to build an understanding of material rather than simply memorizing information for cumulative assessments.

When the focus of school is to get good grades, it creates a toxic culture where learning loses value.

ADLER

“Senioritis”: Students Offer Insight on Whether Senior Burnout is Rumor or Reality

by KAYLIE WU

Every year, it is common for high school seniors to experience a phenomenon known as “senioritis.”

Senioritis refers to a student’s lack of motivation — and sometimes even a decline in grades — caused by the stress of college applications and the exhaustion of being in high school for four years. Menlo seniors have offered various definitions of what senioritis is, as well as different timelines for when the occurrence actually began to affect them.

Senioritis is very real for seniors Sean Nesamoney and Nyla Sharma, and has existed since the start of the 202223 school year. Nesamoney’s senioritis does not keep him from completing assignments or preparing for exams, but insteads manifests as a lack of motivation.

“I think [senioritis is] really valid for people because you’ve been trying so hard to maintain good grades for three years, so at one point you’re bound to burn out,” he said. “I’ve already noticed it start. When I was a junior, I would try to get as much work done as I could every

to complete her school work this year.

“I’ve developed an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mindset,” she said. “If I don’t take

be much more relaxed.

Despite showing symptoms of senioritis, Nesamoney believes his flexible schedule as a second semester senior will allow him to still complete all his school work. “I’ve lost the stress of having to do college applications and maintain extracurriculars, so I’ll have more time to do work,” he said. Sharma also thinks that senioritis will increase as the second semester continues, but she also expects her teachers to be much more lenient.

For senior William Mahe, senioritis means not looking forward to school as much and not being as engaged in class content. Mahe was disappointed by how it lowered his excitement to attend certain classes. “[Senioritis] kinda sucks,” he said.

doing this?’”

Similarly, senior Malia Chavinson is already into college, but does not believe the acceptance has impacted her senioritis at all. Chavinson defines senioritis as the lack of effort that seniors put into school work due to already completing the college application process. “I think I’m experiencing more burnout than senioritis,” Chavinson said. “I know I should be working and have a semi-desire to, I just struggle to actually do it.”

weekend, but now I’m tired, and I try to get work done quickly instead.”

Sharma is similarly less motivated

anything out of my bag, then I don’t [need to] do it, so I leave my bag downstairs.” While Sharma still completes all of her schoolwork, she has noticed a decrease in motivation compared to in previous years.

Although Nesamoney believes that he experienced senioritis in the first semester, he thinks it has heightened even more as the second semester continues. “With the weather being so gloomy in November and December, there’s already been a lack of energy, so when [the] second semester hits, everyone’s just like fullblown senioritis,” he said. Nesamoney thinks senioritis is more significant in the second semester because the college application process is completed, and grades do not matter as much compared to in the first semester. While senior Natalie Westermann did not experience senioritis as a first semester senior, she agrees with Nesamoney that the second semester will

Unlike Nesamoney, Mahe thinks his senioritis had a much stronger presence during the first semester, rather than in the second. “I have much more free time in the second semester, so I think [senioritis] is less bad.”

Being a committed athlete also plays a role in the extent to which some students experience senioritis. Having already committed to run Division I cross country and track and field at UC Berkeley, senior Justin Pretre does not share the same stress regarding college applications as many of his classmates. According to Pretre, he feels he has a lot more time to rest and maintain a healthy sleep schedule; Pretre now often sleeps after sports practice, rather than immediately rushing to complete any school work. However, Pretre hasn’t lost motivation to keep up with his grades, either. “I’m trying to keep my grades the same that they were before I committed, out of self-respect,” Pretre said. “But sometimes when I’m grinding out some homework, it’s definitely an internal battle, and I’m just like, ‘Why am I

Chavinson defines her senioritis as enjoying a nice break before starting college. “I see senioritis as a blessing, personally. I’ve been busy and overworked, so I’m excited to get the chance to step back and explore things I haven’t gotten to try before,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I plan to slack off. I still intend to give things my best effort, but my best effort may be limited to an hour of homework rather than three.”

I’ve developed an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mindset [with regard to school work.]

Senior Nyla Sharma

I’m trying to keep my grades the same they were before I committed, out of self-respect.

I see senioritis as a blessing, personally. I’ve been busy and overworked, so I’m excited to get the chance to step back and explore things I haven’t gotten to try before.

Senior Justin Pretre

Senior Malia Chavinson

Staff illustration: Sutton Inouye

Students Question Menlo Cafeteria Etiquette and Quad Cleanliness

Throughout the first semester of the 2022-23 school year, Menlo slowly restored the cafeteria to its pre-pandemic state, with indoor dining and self-serve buffet lines both reopened. Despite these advancements, students agree that the cafeteria still suffers from a lack of respect; from line-cutting to various abandoned messes, students hope the cafeteria can maintain a cleaner look as the second semester proceeds.

Freshman Jade Yoo has observed many instances in the cafeteria in which students completely avoided cleaning up their messes, and can almost always

spot dropped food on the floors. Even though the cafeteria feels mostly clean, Yoo thinks the student body should work harder to keep the floors clean, rather than leaving stepped-on food to be cleaned by the FLIK staff. “I’ve also noticed a lot of double-dipping in shared peanut butter and jam containers,” she said.

Junior Zach Ruwitch agrees that double-dipping in the cafeteria can be a problem. Ruwitch is allergic to nuts, leading him to avoid the sandwich spreads at school, including those that do not actually contain nuts. “I tend to stay clear of the jam, even though it doesn’t have nuts

in it, just because I have seen [people] being a little careless with the peanut butter tub right next to it,” he said.

Junior Tate Lee perceives linecutting to also be typical at Menlo. Rather than waiting through a long line for hot lunch, students often opt to meet up with their friends, who have already made it to the very front; Director of Security Mustapha Moutri often guards the hot lunch line to prevent students from cutting in front of one another. According to Lee, since line-cutting seems so normalized amongst the student body, it can be difficult for anyone to get upset or speak up

Selected Student Profile: Landon Pretre

by JAKE LIEBERMAN

Q: Since you’re a big runner, do you have a pump-up song or artist that gets you in the zone before a run?

I don’t usually listen to much music when I’m running because we’re not supposed to rely on it. But, when our team is running together, we’ll sometimes have a speaker and listen to some 2000s [music], Katy Perry or Taylor Swift.

Q: Do you have a favorite place to run?

Right by my house is this place called Huddart Park. We usually just run around Atherton.

Q: If you could have one food for the rest of your life what would it be?

I really like pulled pork sandwiches. That’s probably my go-to.

Q: Are you more of a winter or summer type of guy?

I’m a summer type of guy. Most of the time we run with our shirts off, and you can’t do that during the winter. I like the summer because I feel a lot more free.

Q: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

I like California. I hope I can stay. If there

was another place, probably Oregon. I like the weather up there. Eugene is called “TrackTown USA.” There’s amazing running trails up there, and there’s a super cool stadium called Hayward Field.

Q: What’s your favorite color?

It’s kinda been green. I don’t really have one anymore, but I’ve been raised for it to be the color green.

Q: Do you have a dream job?

Other than probably being a professional athlete, I want to be a lawyer. I think it would be fun, but I haven’t really pursued it yet because of school. In college, I’d probably think about that.

Q: If you are not at school, where would people find you?

If I’m not at the track, I’d probably be in my room or in the gym. One of the two.

Q: What’s your favorite sweet?

I really like rocky road ice cream. I think that it has a nice mix of nuts and chocolate in it.

Q: Do you have any nicknames?

I’m usually just called Landon. Most of

my friends know my brother too, so they can’t call me Pretre. I’ve kinda just stuck with Landon.

Q: Do you have a favorite movie?

I like all the Marvel movies. “The Maze Runner” movies were really good.

Q: If you could meet up with anyone, who would it be?

I’d say Dwayne Johnson. I feel like he’s a cool dude.

Q: Would you want to go back in time or travel into the future?

Probably the future. I feel like I’ve done a lot of things in the past that I wouldn’t want to relive (laughing).

Q: Do you think cereal is a soup?

I feel like it could be considered a soup. It has the liquid and food aspect.

Q: Do you have a favorite animal?

I like dogs. I have two dogs: two yellow labs. I also think birds are pretty interesting.

Q: How do you feel about putting pineapple on pizza?

about the issue. “[Line-cutting has] gotten to the point where it’s so common that few students comment on it,” she said.

Yoo agrees that line-cutting is prominent on campus, but is not usually bothered by the matter unless classmates decide to skip the line together, in a large group. “I think I wouldn’t mind much if just one person cuts with their friends, but when it’s a whole group of people that altogether join one friend who was standing in line, then it gets a bit frustrating,” Yoo said.

Senior Emily Gruber thinks cafeteria etiquette should also extend onto the grade quads, too. Gruber notices a lot of trash left behind on the senior quad after lunch everyday.

“As high school seniors, we should be responsible and socially aware enough to clean up after ourselves and throw away our own trash,” senior Evelyn Zhou said. “Sometimes the administration sends out emails about how we didn’t clean up the quad, and I feel like that should be a given. The administration shouldn’t have to email us.”

While senior Sean Nesamoney agrees that too much trash on the quad reflects poorly on the student body, he also thinks that the administration shouldn’t designate certain groups of students, such as random advocacies or sports teams, to clean up after these messes, either. “Assigning either advocacies or [student groups] to be cleaning up after people is not going to solve the problem,” Nesamoney said. “[The administration and teachers] should hold people accountable.” Nesamoney doesn’t think it’s fair for certain students to be in charge of throwing away hundreds of dirty plates on behalf of their classmates, especially when everyone could easily throw away their own individual trash instead.

I’m a super basic pizza guy. I just like my cheese pizza, sometimes pepperoni.

Junior Sarah Glodek and sophomore Katie Bischof serve themselves lunch in the cafeteria. Photo by Arthi Abhyanker

Landon Pretre runs for Menlo in a cross country meet. Photo courtesy of Pretre

Students and Faculty Balance Competing Uses of Library

by SONIA DHOLAKIA

Menlo students use the campus library in several different ways. Between studying, working with friends and even sleeping, the library serves many purposes apart from simply storing books. Sometimes these different uses can conflict with one another when productivity is minimized.

“It’s a really active library,” Head Librarian Brittney Otero said. “There’s a lot of engagement within the library and all the different spaces in it.”

Junior Derek Jain chooses to get to school early — around 7:45 a.m. — and does his work in the library until the school day starts. According to Jain, the space tends to get busy right before the start of school and during lunch. During these busy times, Jain finds it challenging to be as productive because of the various distractions. “I’m able to still get my work done, but it definitely does get crowded, especially when there’s no tables and I have to sit on a couch,” he said.

Goel, before the buses depart from school at 3:30 p.m., the library feels too cramped with students, similar to how Jain finds it in the mornings before class. “If someone is being disruptive and disrupting all that quiet space, it does get kind of hard to do your work,” Goel said.

Otero agrees with Goel that students can be distracting to others in the library. “If there is a student or group that is trying to be studious, and we can see that a group is being too loud, that’s when it starts to affect others,” Otero said.

According to Otero, the Class of 2026 in particular has encountered some difficulties with socializing too disruptively in the library. In an effort to combat these distractions, Otero asked Freshman Dean Sabahat Adil to host her history tutorials in the library classroom and encourage freshmen students to be productive.

Adrian Del Rio prefers to spend his free time in the Student Center, specifically in math teacher John Norris’s room. According to Del Rio, the environment of the Student Center is more relaxed and casual than the library’s.

Goel agrees that the Student Center is a more laid-back space. “For me, the Student Center is more of a place to spend time with your friends and talk about the week, and then the library is the place to actually get your work done,” Goel said.

According to Otero, the Student Center should be used as more of a socializing opportunity than the library. “We provide that Student Center space, so we’re able to sort of defer students down there that maybe just want to hang out and socialize,” she said.

Otero and the rest of the library staff attempt to minimize the noise level by walking around the library and reminding students to be quiet if they are being too loud. However, Otero believes the librarians’ goal is not to limit the collaborative environment of the space.

According to Otero, during the 2022-23 school year, students have been asked to leave the library a “handful of times,” mainly after school, due to their distracting behavior. Librarians only ask students to leave if the student has already been given multiple warnings or reminders by the librarians.

Freshman Ananya Goel stays in the library after school before her mock trial practices on Wednesdays and also finds it difficult to get work done. According to

Sophomore Avani Ganesan believes that socialization in the library can be beneficial at times. “I think it’s fine if [students] are chatting, as long as they’re not being actively disruptive to other people,” Ganesan said. “Being productive often means chatting with other people and sharing ideas.”

However, not all students choose to work with others in the library. Senior

“We’re not trying to take away any kind of social atmosphere in the library; people can definitely hang out as long as they’re not taking away from others’ experiences,” Otero said.

Jain also believes that if a student needs to be asked to quiet down three or more times, then they are likely serving as a distraction to others who are trying to use the library. According to Jain, while the library can sometimes be a balance of studying and socializing, it should ultimately lean more towards the studying side.

Like Jain, Otero believes the library’s first priority is to be a productive location and resource for Menlo students. “We do want, at the core of it, to be that [the library] is a place where students feel like they can get their stuff done, and that [the librarians] are here to help facilitate that,” she said.

Students study in the library before school starts. While Head Librian Brittney Otero believes the library is active at all times of the day, it is especailly busy in the morning. Staff photo: Sonia Dholakia

If someone is being disruptive and disrupting all that quiet space, it does get kind of hard to do your work.

Freshman Ananya Goel

People can definitely hang out [in the library] as long as they’re not taking away from others’ experiences.

Otero

There’s a lot of engagement within the library and all the different spaces in it.

Head Librian Brittney Otero

Staff illustration: Sutton Inouye

Arts & Lifestyle

Looking Ahead: Fashion Trend and Style Predictions for 2023

by PENELOPE STINSON

As we step into 2023, the fashion industry is bracing for a new year of sustainable and innovative styles. While 2022 saw trends of comfort, practicality and fast fashion, 2023 is predicted to return with much more expression, from bold color palettes to versatile sihlouettes to renewed leather. Fashion in 2023 will be diverse and exciting, with a wide range of styles and trends to choose from. Even the editors at Vogue have already invested in their Western denim, maxi skirts and draped pieces for the upcoming spring; now is the time to get your head start!

Utility & Cargo Pants:

Pockets practically littered the 2023 runways. From Miu Miu to Louis Vuitton, numerous brands displayed all kinds of cargo pants on the Spring/Summer 2023 runways. Utility clothes are in; consumers are indicating a shift towards more economical, practical and long-lasting clothing, according to Vogue. Cargo pants are perfectly functional (with oh-so-many pockets) and bring to mind a particular 90s and 2000s nostalgia. Often worn with a tight baby T-shirt, cargo pants come in all shapes and sizes: satin or denim, tight and cropped or big and billowing, any style works. Just as long as there are pockets.

Asymmetrical Goddess Dresses:

The title may be confusing, but the trend is simple. Billowing, layered, ruched dresses with asymmetric hemlines and lengths that evoke dreams of Italian vacations and warm, breezy summer days. All across Spring/Summer 2023 runway shows, from Valentino to Fendi, were elegant dresses. Silk fabrics were everywhere; designers draped, layered and swathed models, exploring modern ways to highlight the body. Alongside the free-flowing dresses, the asymmetric cuts were common on recent runways. According to Vogue, half skirts (no, not midi skirts; half skirts are instead maxi-length, with a giant slit down the middle), and their counterpart asymmetrical dresses will be dominant in 2023 fashion. Together, the flowing dresses with the liquid-like effect of asymmetric cuts create a new and fashionable look.

Wild West:

You may not be a cast member on “Yellowstone” standing outside of your ranch in Wyoming, but you can still be a cowboy. According to Vogue, there was a resurgence of all-denim looks on the runway for 2023. Add to that the American West-inspired shows from Ralph Lauren and Burberry on the 2023 Spring/Summer runway, and it’s confirmed: the rugged looks are in. Alongside the cowboy boots that have landed in essentially every major American clothing store, like Free People, Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom, the wild west trend includes suede jackets, Canadian tuxedos, leather vests and fringe. Now is the time to buy that cowboy hat.

Maxi Skirts & Maxi Dresses:

First, it was the microskirts (skirts the size of a largesized belt) that went viral on TikTok; now, it’s the maxi skirt. The SKIMs maxi dress went viral on TikTok, and practically every TikTok influencer who tried it on insisted that it really is “the most flattering piece of clothing, like, ever.” But the maxi skirt trend is more than Kim Kardashian. Long dresses have dominated recent fashion shows, with 81% of designers including them in their collections, according to Vogue. Similar to other 2023 fashion trends, the recent popularity of maxi skirts represent a shift towards more practical clothing.

Aggressive Leather:

Leather pants started coming back into fashion late in 2020 (Aritzia’s “The Melina Pant,” anyone?) and since then, it’s been leather everything. Fall 2022 street style consisted of leather blazers, bombers, boots and bags, according to Forbes, and supermodel Kate Moss continued

the trend by wearing an all-leather outfit (which presented as a pair of regular jeans and a white tank top) on the Bottega Veneta Spring/Summer 2023 runway. Noting the all-leather looks presented on numerous Spring/Summer 2023 runways, Cosmopolitan also predicted the rise of “Biker Vibes” for 2023, meaning it’s not just the leather that’s trendy, it’s the grunge look that’s back as well.

Monochrome:

In the spirit of easy, functional and yet also stylish clothing, monochrome will be keeping its crown throughout 2023. Dominating Spring/Summer 2022 runways, monochrome made a comeback last year; it also moved beyond previously-muted tones to bright and loud primary colors, according to Vogue. Monochrome can be simple or extravagant, flashy or simple, dressed-up or dresseddown, and the best part is, it doesn’t require buying any clothing, simply matching already-bought pieces.

Slip-on Shoes:

The New York Times decreed the year of 2023 as the end of shoelaces, and the masses seem to agree. In 2022, nearly every shoe that went viral on TikTok was some sort of slip-on. From the UGG slippers to the Miu Miu ballet flats to the BIRKENSTOCK Boston Clogs, people seem to want simplicity and ease. Slip-on shoes offer a certain type of comfort and speed that shoes with laces cannot. If 2022 was the post-COVID-19 year of flashy and fierce fashion, 2023 is the year of utility, comfort and quality.

Photos by Chloe Lee Models: Sophomore Avani Ganesan, juniors Elizabeth Powell and Salma Siddiqui, seniors Ellie Hardegree, Helen Barkley and Maya Debnath