Stratospheric explorer pushes students to fly to new heights
Aviva Futornick, Staff Reporter
February 3, 2016
Twenty-six miles, 15 minutes, 821 miles per hour and another layer of the Earth’s atmosphere: Alan Eustace made history on Oct. 24, 2014 after making the world’s highest freefall. Eustace spoke at Sequoia Jan. 29 to talk to students about his journey out of this world. “[I thought] what would it be like to han...
Love conquers time in Scottish musical Brigadoon
Mars Svec-Burdick, Page Editor
December 28, 2015
The curtain rose on a tree-bordered stage and Scottish accents emerged from beyond the fog machine as Carrington Hall was transported back 200 years for the opening night of “Brigadoon” Friday Nov. 20. Scene one: a pair of well dressed contemporary New Yorkers wandered through the forests of ...
Undocumented students reach for college dreams at dinner
Claire Bugos, Executive Editor
December 28, 2015
Members of the Dream Club shared their stories, gratitude and messages of hope during the sixth annual “Making Dreams Come True” dinner held in the MPR Nov. 20. Former councilwoman Barbara Pierce spoke and presented a certificate of recognition from the city of Redwood City for their efforts. A repr...
Students scroll past work on Chromebooks
Nicholas Abraham and Alex Vick
December 14, 2015
Chromebooks are used for everything from surveys to testing to turning in assignments. But these gadgets can be distractions from the very thing they were designed to help with: schoolwork. A recent study done by Stanford demonstrated that students with open laptops remembered less of what was said dur...
Academic programs support school in stepping over achievement gap
Benjy Jude, Staff Reporter
November 13, 2015
Why does one student go to a community college when another goes to UCLA? The achievement gap is one reason. For the first time this year, Sequoia is working with Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS), an organization that advocates for better representation of non-white students of low socio-economic...
Test-optional trend relieves seniors and SAT’s significance
Maddie Pei and Philip Tyson
November 13, 2015
SAT and ACT are among the scariest letters in a high schooler’s vocabulary. This year, however, some Sequoia seniors applying to college can breathe sighs of relief. Over 800 accredited colleges, including the recent addition of George Washington University, have eliminated their requirement for standardi...
Modern grading method abolishes check-box mentality
Philip Tyson, Copy Editor
November 13, 2015
This year, for juniors enrolled in IB History of the Americas, only seven assessments—four pass/fail Essential Knowledge (EK) quizzes and three essays—determine a student’s first semester grade. “We’ve lowered the amount we expect you to know well, and we’re fine-tuning what we want you t...
Meet the candidates: A look at the Board of Trustees hopefuls
Claire Bugos, Executive Editor
November 3, 2015
On Tuesday, Nov. 3, voters will cast their votes to elect three members of the Sequoia Union High School District Board of Trustees in the first all mail-in election in San Mateo county. The five candidates, including three incumbents have been vying for three open spots on the Board for months. Dur...
Speakers address Latino issues, inspire youth at Voto Latino Power Summit
Emily Ducker, Entertainment Editor
October 17, 2015
Thousands of young people from 13 states filled the halls and classrooms of Stanford University Saturday, October 17 for Voto Latino’s annual Power Summit. Celebrity and professional speakers including actor Wilmer Valderrama, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and former mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Vi...
ASB brings land of Oz to Sequoia
Maddie Pei, Staff Reporter
October 16, 2015
Black and white to bursts of color. Yellow brick roads and witches’ castles. Flying monkeys and great wizards and the Emerald City. Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Associated Student Body (ASB) envisions the land of Oz to come to Gym 1 on Oct. 24 for one night for this year’s theme “N...
Record high room temperatures not cool, pose health hazard
Mackenzie Clarke, Staff Reporter
October 16, 2015
Record high temperatures in August and September made classroom environments unbearable. Because the majority of classrooms at Sequoia lack air conditioning, many students are forced to spend afternoon block-periods in uncomfortably hot rooms learning as usual without disruption. “It makes teaching difficult because ther...
National teacher shortage impacts English Department
Carmen Vescia, Executive Editor
September 14, 2015
Squinting at his schedule, the freshman thinks there must be a mistake: there’s a blank space where his English teacher’s name should be. But it’s not a mistake, it’s simply a symptom of the regional, statewide and even nationwide teacher shortage. The English Department is still trying to fi...
