This agreement will be voted on by the teachers’ union from May 13 to 17 and the result will be announced on May 17. It has also been added to the agenda for the upcoming school board meeting on May 21 to be discussed by the district officials and school board members, where the entire contract is slated to be ratified.

Every year, PAUSD negotiates new terms with PAEA, which represents the certified staff such as teachers, and California School Employees Association Chapter 301, which represents the classified staff such as aides and custodians. Usually in this district, negotiations end in an agreement after early discussions. However, this year, the district and union could not come to a compromise after initial negotiations, setting the precedent for the first impasse between PAUSD and PAEA.

A closer look at the numbers

The original proposal by PAEA included an 8% increase from the 2022-23 teacher’s salary which was responded with 2% counteroffer from PAUSD. PAEA’s best and final offer was 5.5% which is 2% higher than PAUSD’s final offer of 3.5%. The tentative agreement reached on May 6 proposes a 4% increase for this year.

According to PAEA’s website, PAUSD has significantly lower salary growth and maximum salaries than neighboring districts. Going into this year’s negotiations, PAUSD’s salary growth from 2021 to 2024 was 10.2%, compared to the 15.8% increase in the Mountain View and Los Altos district, the 15.8% increase in the Los Gatos and Saratoga districts, and the 19.0% increase in the Santa Clara School District. If the tentative agreement is approved, PAUSD’s salary increase would become 15.2% for this year.

PAUSD’s current maximum salary is $154,366, which is 24.8% lower than Mountain View-Los Altos School District, 9.8% lower than Fremont Union High School District and 7.1% lower than Santa Clara Unified School District. PAEA President Teri Baldwin stressed that this gap plays a significant role in communicating the value of teachers.

“We always want our community to know that we are trying to recruit and retain the best teachers for our students, and we’re falling behind in salary in the area,” Baldwin said. “If we’re the number one district, we should be the number one or at least close to the number one in salary in the area.”

Beginnings of negotiations

In the context of these district negotiations, the impasse was prompted by a disagreement from PAUSD and PAEA’s final offers regarding the teacher’s contract for the 2024-25 school year. As a result, a third-party mediator stepped in to aid both sides to come to an agreement. The mediator assigned to this case was from the California Public Employment Relations Board. According to Superintendent Don Austin and Baldwin, both negotiation teams are separated and the mediator worked with both parties to reach an agreement.

The negotiations cover a variety of topics including class size, working conditions, evaluations, and salary — the subject cultivating the most discourse. The negotiations, which happen every year between PAUSD and PAEA, are not open the public. This year, the union and district called for an impasse, prolonging the negotiations for another six months.A the school board meeting on April 23, PAEA members expressed dissatisfaction during the open forum about the PAUSD salary schedule, and their experiences in the district. CSEA 301 Chapter President Mrigendra Steiner announced CSEA’s alliance with PAEA in hopes for a quick resolution of the negotiations that honors the professionality of the teachers. Retiring Gunn math teacher Kathy Hawes spoke about her 32 years at Gunn and the salary gap between MVLA and PAUSD.

“I’m concerned that people aren’t going to stay (in PAUSD) because (I talked to) my good friend who left for MVLA, and if I was there now I’d be making 37 thousand more a year,” she said in the meeting. “I love my department, I love my collaboration, I love the people I work with, but at some point I have to think about what would that $37,000 do for my retirement? What would that do for my cost of living? Can I afford to keep working in Palo Alto? And if we lose our experienced staff, how are we going to keep our traditions, culture and history?”

Teacher librarian Daljeet Gill also compared his current position to a higher salary at MVLA, but decided to stay at Gunn because of his long term affection for the school. In his opinion, the negotiations are not just about money but about convincing teachers to stay.

“If all we cared about was money, none of us would be in education,” he said. “The people that I see on campus, this staff, is incredible. They do so much for students that go above and beyond. But the more the pay gap increases, (the more that) you don’t necessarily feel like you’re able to do these things (for the students and) support yourself and your family as easily. Maybe there’s a little bit of not feeling as valued, and that maybe you’re more valued somewhere else.”

PAUSD Budget Reserves

A popular solution suggested by the teachers union is to pull from the district’s large reserves to fund a salary increase since PAUSD does not have an upper limit on the reserves, and its size has increased 187% since 2021, currently containing $135 million. According to the district website, PAUSD’s $135 million reserve is 34% of its operating budget, which is two times more than the 17% recommended by experts. PAEA members made the argument that a fraction of these funds can be allocated towards teachers’ salaries. However, according to Austin, drawing money from the reserve is not as simple or advisable as it may seem.

Austin likens the reserve to a savings account, asserting that regularly drawing from it for an ongoing expense is unsustainable because it won’t replenish itself if the district spends at a deficit from relying on the reserve. PAUSD Chief Business Officer Carolyn Chow provided an example for this analogy, explaining that the reserve is used for one-time costs and budgeted purchases.

“In your savings account, you might have to (pay for) a new washer and dryer, tuition for college and a vacation, right?” she said. “Once you spend it, it’s gone, you have to resave again. So in our case, we have a whole list of things that are in the reserves. So for example, we have textbook adoptions that don’t come up every year but we have to set aside money for so in our budget, maybe every five or 10 years we try to save up for it.”

PAEA negotiations team member and Gunn economics teacher Jeff Patrick agrees that it is unwise to use the reserve funds for an indefinite amount of time, but he thinks that the analogy of a savings account isn’t accurate to this situation.

“I think it’s a sort of disingenuous analogy given that the district’s not saving that money for retirement or college expenses, whatever it is that families typically save money for,” he said. “So we further don’t understand, and I would say have not been adequately given an explanation of why the district continues to expand that reserve over time.”

Patrick thinks that regardless of how the reserve is spent, the important next step is to address how much money is being added to it.

“In my personal view, and this is reflected by a lot of people that I’ve talked to about it, (it’s like), ‘Fine, you’ve got the reserve and it is what it is, let’s (just) stop making it bigger,’” he said. “So (going forward) making sure that any surplus money that the district has gets put into compensation or something that’s going to directly affect students rather than to sit in the reserves.”

Public Reception

Throughout the negotiation process, PAEA has aimed to raise visibility by organizing rallies and encouraging teachers to wear their PAEA shirts on Fridays and during events to show their support for the union.

One such example is on the morning of April 30, when teachers at all PAUSD schools assembled by school entrances and held signs such as “honk for teachers” or “supporting PAEA = supporting students.” Baldwin thought this rally was a great success and received a lot of community support.

“I think it’s been great,” she said. “Students have been out here and I’ve seen them out at different sites as well. And parents seemed very receptive. And even if we aren’t asking, they’re honking and showing their support.” PAEA and PAUSD have both been committed to keeping the public informed about this process. All negotiations prior to the impasse, which must legally remain confidential, and the current proposal of the tentative agreement are published on both websites. Each website has summaries of the proposals to make it more digestible for the public, however, due to the complexity of the negotiations Austin emphasized the importance of keeping the discussion contained so that its nuances are not miscommunicated.

“(Students) can have opinions, but really, this is between two negotiating teams that have a total of 10 people (and) that’s where it should stay because it’s impossible to explain every nuance,” he said. “I have concerns about involving students in this negotiation because if the question is ‘do you love your teacher,’ I’m going to hope the answer is always yes. I love our teachers. Everyone should love our teachers.”

School Board President Jesse Ladomirak echoed Austin’s sentiment.

“If your teacher is telling you something, our hope is that you trust your teacher,” she said. “If your teacher is telling you something, we don’t have a lot of interest in trying to get you to think the other way.”

These negotiations have been the subject of many campus conversations and for good reason: PAUSD, which has never been at an impasse for teacher contracts, may be the outlier in district negotiations. According to Chow, the district and union requests were farther apart than normal this year, but mediation is a normal and helpful part of many similar negotiations.

“I’ve been in other districts where they’re at an impasse all the time, every day of the year they’re in there at impasse,” she said. “It’s just what happens when you’re negotiating and you get stuck and need a mediator and come in and help parties (with) out of the box thinking.”

Although this impasse is a rare and complex topic, both the union members and district officials are committed to maintaining professionalism and respect in the midst of this negotiation.

“If (people) take anything away (from this), it’s not a fight, it’s a negotiation process which happens every year,” Austin said. “This year, we’re bringing in somebody to help us work through the tension. And it’s all going to be fine.”

A correction regarding the percentage of the reserves has been updated from the print edition.

What is the Wellness Center?

Located in P-231, the Wellness Center allows students to seek professional mental health services, destress with friends, engage in activities designed for relaxation and have a quick snack.Ìę

Around 300 students visit the center each day for therapy appointments, quick breaks, eating lunch and relaxing, according Wellness Coordinator Michelle Ramos. Students can drop in at any time between 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, including class time. The center is also open to those enrolled in summer school. When the Wellness Center is closed, students are directed to Allcove in Palo Alto, which is a separate wellness center.Ìę

If a student needs to connect with a therapist, they can either have a drop-in session or refer themselves to their counselor or Ramos for ongoing therapy sessions.Ìę

For drop-in sessions, students are prompted to fill out a short form on an iPad by the entrance so that the wellness team is aware of their needs. They are connected to a therapist right away ifÌę one is available.Ìę

Students have up to three drop-in sessions without officially notifying anyone. Counselors may be notified in case of academic concerns or stressors, and parents may also be notified unless they are a barrier to mental health. However, according to Ramos, about 97% of students who believe that their parents are against therapy find their parents to be supportive. All content during therapy sessions always remains confidential with a few exceptions.Ìę

The Wellness Center’s staff is comprised of Ramos, Wellness Outreach Specialist Rosie Castillo who focuses on promoting the center and mental health, Mental Health and Wellness Associate Dani Warren, Mental Health and Wellness Therapist Paul Hickey and PAUSD Mental Health and Wellness Therapist Brittney Tabel who provide counseling services to Gunn students.

Over the past school year, the Wellness Center has organized various activities, ranging from decorating sugar cookies and painting to bringing animals on campus. These events not only help students hang out and unwind, but also destigmatize mental health struggles.

“People tend to internalize (their emotions) because they believe that no one else understands what it is like or no one else is feeling that way,” Castillo said.Ìę

According to Castillo, destigmatizing mental health issues will make students more willing to reach out for help.Ìę

“We wouldn’t shame anyone for going to the doctor for getting an annual breast exam for breast cancer,” she said. “Why would we want people to feel ashamed that they have to seek support for therapy?”Ìę

Student response to the Wellness Center

Results from the Panorama Survey from fall of 2023 show that 56% of respondents have often felt sad and 31% respondents often felt worried, increasing from fall of 2022 by 12% and 6% respectively .Ìę

ÌęFor junior Mia Saad, who visits the center once a week, the Wellness Center is a safe space.

“I go whenever there are drop-ins to take a break or for food,” she said. “Talking to people is nice, especially therapists, and it is also just a quiet place to relax. They (therapists) help you clear your mind and help you look at other thought processes. If you have issues, then you can think and scroll down on your own thoughts, but they can help you think from a different perspective.”

However, some students believed that the Wellness Center lacked visibility, making students feel unsure of utilizing the center for their mental health needs. One such student is sophomore Milcah Morrison, who upon coming to Gunn, recalled the Wellness Center being only briefly mentioned during the freshmen orientation.

“It wasn’t enough information for me to be like, ‘Oh, I can go there. That’s a safe place,’” she said. “If we invest more into wellness and mental health, I think that people will definitely start to consider going there in general.”

Although the center originally had a 15-minute time limit placed as an agreement by stakeholders when the center was first established, the mandate was lifted after a student’s death. It is planned toÌę remain lifted for the rest of the school year and transition back in the fall of the 2024-25 school year.Ìę

“We knew that some students were in grief or just upset, and we wanted to make sure that they didn’t feel rushed to go back to class,” Ramos said.Ìę

With varying usage of the center, Freshman Tim Landt prefers to use the center for a quiet study space and finds these rules beneficial for self-control.Ìę

“The no-electronics rule helps me stay on task without being distracted on my phone,” he said.Ìę

According to freshman Isabella Cruz, many teachers have been supportive toward students visiting the Wellness Center during class to take a break. Students can ask their teachers to write them a pass during class or ask a wellness staff member to notify their teacher through email.ÌęÌę

“(Teachers) are always saying, ‘Feel free to go to the Wellness Center whenever you need to,’” she said.

Growth and future development of the Wellness Center

Moving forward, the Wellness team wishes to continue to promote student mental health and well-being, with an emphasis on normalizing mental illnesses and reducing stigma around the discussion of mental health.Ìę

“As students go through their high school career, maybe the juniors and seniors are finally opening up to us since we are familiar with them,” Ramos said. “But then, (the issue is), as the next group comes in, we have to kind of start all over.”

The wellness team has also been working closely with the Parent Teacher Student Association to set goals for the upcoming years and plan mental health education workshops.Ìę

“We also want to have parents share their concerns with us, since not all students come to us,” Ramos said. “But if we can impart some guidance and tools to parents, maybe they can take it home for their students.”Ìę

Since the death of a student, the wellness team has made efforts to become more visible and promote their resources. Recently, the team has made an Instagram account, @gunnwellnesscenter, with information on how to sign in for a drop-in session and how to make the most out of the Wellness Center space. The team has also set up tables in the senior quad during lunch with activities promoting mental health and designed a logo for the wellness team.Ìę

“We want shirts with our logo sign so that everybody knows, ‘Oh, this is the wellness team and these are the people that we are going to talk to when we are in distress or upset,’” Ramos said.

The team also wants to work more closely with other departments, including the admin and the counseling team, to communicate about students’ concerns and ways to implement more help.Ìę

The wellness team has seen growth in the number of students in the center, with over 1500 visits in the past two months. Castillo shares that she has come across more people addressing mental health issues and helping their peers.Ìę

“We have more occurrences of people coming up to the Wellness Center and being like, ‘Hey, I don’t know this person but they posted this on social media and I’m concerned about them. It seems kind of serious,’ or even (helping) their friends (by saying), ‘Hey, my friend sent this text message yesterday and I’m worried about them. Could you please check in on them?’” she said. “I feel like this represents how you guys are just so insightful, aware and have really good instincts when to seek out support for your friends. As a student population, you guys are so resilient, and I think it speaks out about what you guys are involved in and push through.”Ìę

To reach out to the wellness team, email gunnwellnessteam@pausd.org or fill out .

Gallery • 4 Photos

Vin Bhat

Students leave Gunn following the shelter-in-place mandate.

At 1:58 p.m. today, a message on the intercom instructed students to begin sheltering in place. This mandate lasted for one hour and 48 minutes, eventually lifted by an intercom announcement at 3:46 p.m.Ìę

According to the , 1:51 p.m. calls reported a man with a gun and a 1:53 p.m. call reported a bomb threat, both near Georgia Avenue and Miranda Avenue. The City of Palo Alto has now that these calls were hoaxes — the first two, at 1:51 p.m., stated they had seen a teen boy carrying a rifle and two pipe bombs walking toward Gunn, and that a man in his twenties wearing body armor and carrying a rifle was approaching the school. The 1:53 p.m. call came from a man who said he was approaching Gunn with a bomb.Ìę

This initial shelter-in-place announcement was reiterated at 2:01 p.m., emphasizing that the situation was not a drill. Two more announcements at 2:31 p.m. and 3:06 p.m. reminded students to keep sheltering.

At 2:15 p.m., Principal Dr. Wendy Stratton posted a Schoology update detailing that there was an unconfirmed threat on campus, and that the Palo Alto Police Department was present and partnering with admin to provide more updates.Ìę

A , formerly known as Twitter, posted at 2:35 p.m. said that school officials had also instructed students to shelter in place at Fletcher Middle School as a precautionary measure. Police also confirmed that all students and staff on Gunn’s campus were safe.

At 2:48 p.m., staff members received an email from Stratton stating that students would be released from school at 3:50 p.m. and would be permitted to transport themselves home or be picked up by a parent. All after-school events, including athletics, were canceled. Parents received the same information via ParentSquare at 2:54 p.m., and students were notified via Schoology soon after.

At 3:09 p.m., PAPD noted in the same X thread that they had “uncovered no evidence to corroborate that any actual threat exists,” but that they would continue the shelter-in-place while investigating. Half an hour later, they announced the end of their search.

Police were still present on campus as students were dismissed. According to an officer who wished to remain anonymous due to the pending investigation, the lockdown and search went according to police and PAUSD protocol. However, there is still an open, criminal investigation. According to a 4:46 p.m. Schoology post from Stratton, a police presence will remain on campus throughout the week, and there will be additional staff members available at the Wellness Center.Ìę

Police that Orinda’s Miramonte High School, located just east of Oakland, was also in lockdown as of 3 p.m., but police at Gunn stated that there was no known connection between the two incidents.

According to Gunn Safety Committee member Vin Bhat, Gunn’s safety committee will be convening after school on April 23, and the districtwide committee will be meeting on Wednesday, April 24. Gunn administrators said they could not comment until Tuesday, April 23.

According to Senior Construction Project Manager Mohammed Sedqi, workers were connecting the overflow for bioswales, or runoff channels, with a storm drain when they hit the main water line. To fix the leak, workers had to first drain out the water in the pipes and then put a patch over the break. After the pipes were “purged” of air bubbles, the line was functional again.Ìę

Junior Hannah Kim realized the water supply had been shut off following a trip to the restroom during her Advanced Placement Statistics class.Ìę

“Me and my friend went to the bathroom and we realized that some of the water in the toilets looked a little unclear, so we tried flushing them and they didn’t flush,” she said.Ìę

By 12 p.m., three portable toilets had been placed near Spangenberg Theater and water bottles had been placed in the lunch lines in front of the Student Activities Center. According to PAUSD Director of Facilities and Construction Eric Holm, district officials picked up hand sinks from Fletcher Middle School and water from Costco for students to use. Thirty more portable toilets were ordered, but only arrived once the water had been turned on again.Ìę

Around 1:30 p.m., water spouts on building walls turned on, and toilets around campus were flushed. According to PAUSD Maintenance Supervisor Ken Culp, this preliminary reopening of the water supply “purged” the emptied water lines of air, preventing the formation of air bubbles when students and staff finally used the facilities. Following this “purge,” the water lines were fully operational, and an announcement at 1:37 p.m. notified students that the water was back on.Ìę

The restoration process took a little over two hours in total, occurring much more rapidly than in September 2021, when the main water line was hit during parking-lot construction. Holm noted that this project’s contractors, Sausal Corporation, were more prepared to deal with the situation than Redgwick Corporation, the contractor used for the parking-lot project: In 2021, students were sent home from school early while the construction team attempted to address the issue.Ìę

Nevertheless, students —Ìęincluding sophomore Rayla Chen — found the line break frustrating.Ìę

“I just walked into the building bathroom during second period, and then all of a sudden, it said ‘out of order,’ and I didn’t know where else to go to go use the bathroom or fill up my water bottle, so that was a bit of a hassle,” she said.Ìę

Moving forward, construction will continue as planned. According to PAUSD Operations Supervisor Brett Larson, preventative action is not necessary.Ìę

“This is unforeseen, and that happens from time to time, and you can’t control the unforeseen,” he said.

—Written by Amann Mahajan. Additional reporting by Kaylee Cheng

According to Principal Dr. Wendy Stratton, the new evidence-based grading system will be based on that of Adlai Stevenson High School in Illinois, which focuses on students’ ability to improve skills over time. In the new four-point grading system, a student’s teacher determines a final course grade by reviewing the student’s assessments and considering any clear patterns of growth. Getting a score of four means that a student has exceeded mastery. Three is mastery, two is approaching mastery and one is having a fundamental understanding.

“It’s (about whether you can do) the skills to the level that we are asking,” Stratton said. “I think it’s a more transparent and straightforward system.”

The Gunn administration has formed an ad hoc committee with staff from various subjects to discuss the upcoming changes, which will occur over multiple years. According to Planning Team Lead Kathryn Catalano, Gunn will prioritize quality over speed and do everything possible to make the transition seamless. Catalano’s conservative projection is that, after a transition period, the final form will be launched in the next seven years. Specifics of the plan have yet to be discussed within the planning team.

For a smooth transition, Catalano says that support resources will be available for both teachers and students. Currently, multiple teachers are participating in a pilot program involving a few teachers from all departments to analyze the practicality of this new system.

“We’re encouraging teachers to jump into this with a teaching team rather than doing this by themselves because having a team anytime you’re trying to learn something new helps a lot,” she said.

According to Adlai Stevenson High School Principal Troy Gobble, the shift to evidence-based grading is necessary due to fundamental flaws in the status quo.

“There’s a problem with the way that we have graded for 100 years,” Gobble said in a video published by the school. “What we’ve done is forced students into a conversation that’s around collecting points. What we want to do is identify the essential learnings of the class — the fundamental standards that exist for the course.”

Catalano noted that the change at Gunn will place an emphasis on developing student autonomy and competence.

“It’s more of a philosophy shift,” Catalano said. “One of the big things with evidence-based grading and teaching is the focus on helping to develop student agency and spending time developing skills that are going to be meaningful and transcend just the high school experience. (It’s about) moving away from content retention and memorization and more towards actual skills applications.”

Computer science teacher Joshua Paley, who gave a TEDx talk in 2023 about the flaws of the current grading system, sees potential in the plan but also has some worries.

“I worry about class sizes being an issue because the teachers will have to get to know the students better, and it’s hard to do that with the class sizes as large as they are,” he said. “With that said, the concept is as promising as anything related to grades that I’ve seen in a long time … But, as long as the word ‘grades’ is involved, I’ll always be skeptical.”

Still, Catalano added that the adjustment will be a collaborative process.

“We don’t want anybody to jump into this without feeling ready to do it,” Catalano said. “(Administrators) want to make sure that we are supporting both teachers and students so that we have a transition that feel smooth and that everybody feels supported.”

The Ethnic Studies Committee includes Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dr. Gulliermo Lopez, Gunn Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick, Paly Social Studies Instructional Lead Mary Sano and other Gunn and Paly teachers. The group was founded during the 2022-23 school year in response to A.B. 101, which mandates that all California high schools make ethnic studies a graduation requirement for the Class of 2030 — current sixth graders — or earlier.

During the meeting, Lopez, Patrick and Sano presented on the course’s new curriculum. Ethnic studies at PAUSD will be segmented into five units, starting with unit zero, Why Ethnic Studies, and continuing with Identity; Power, Privilege and Systems of Opression; Resilience and Resistance; and Action and Civic Engagement, a capstone project. Units one through three will include case studies centered around different primary sources from four ethnic groups: African Americans, Chicanx and Latinx Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Next year, Gunn and Paly will each pilot one ethnic studies class of 20 ninth graders, who will be selected through lottery at each site. According to Sano, one of the main goals of these classes is to garner feedback from students and teachers.

In response to the presentation, Paly Student School Board Representative junior Karthi Gottipati said that students should play a bigger role in the course design process, and warned that if unable to give input, students might feel less interested in to the finished course.

“It is entirely pointless to have an ethnic studies course that is designed for adults and by adults if students don’t know and don’t care what’s being taught,” he said during the meeting.

Gunn Student School Board Representative senior Chris Lee (who is also managing editor for Âé¶č·ĆÓłĂâ·Ń) also emphasized the importance of considering the intended recipients of the new course.

“The (students) who I talked to felt like the conversation surrounding ethnic studies — especially at these Board meetings — was getting further and further away from them and their priorities,” he said during the meeting. “It’s important for parents and other community members to understand that the course is ultimately for students.”

After the ethnic studies presentation, the AI ad hoc committees from Gunn, Paly and PAUSD — composed of mostly high school students, staff and technology experts at the district level — shared generative AI goals for the district. These goals included furthering equity and inclusion by using generative AI to summarize texts for English Language Learners and neurodiverse students, as well as developing alternate lesson plans that prevent — or render ineffective — the use of AI by covering topics that software such as ChatGPT hasn’t learned about.

Gunn committee member sophomore Sujay Dorai presented his hopes for AI’s future in the district.

“I think it’ll be a positive change because it’s really a really powerful technology,” he said. “I hope that the district can use this to get rid of busy work.”

Board member Shounak Dharap was appreciative of the AI committee’s work and saw it as an important focus point for the district.

“(The AI committee) is the most important thing the district is doing,” Dharap said during the meeting. “It touches every single other thing we’re doing. I’m really interested in what we’re doing and really supportive of everything.”

The Idaho regional competition comprised practice matches, qualifications and playoffs. During the qualifications, robots accrued ranking points for a chance to compete in the playoffs, which determined the event winners.
After the first round of qualifications,
GRT — registered under the team number
192 — was in 43rd place of 43 teams due to
repeated control failures. After all rounds
of qualifications, however, GRT was in 20th
place, and was selected to join Alliance 7 by

the alliance captain, team 2122.
In the final best-of-three rounds, GRT’s
alliance and the opposing alliance each won
one match, leading to a final tiebreaker that
ended with a score of 103 for Alliance 7 and
97 for Alliance 1.
Learning from past mistakes allowed the
team to be successful this year, according to
Safety Captain junior Amelia Perry.
“We have a system to pass information to
future years, which is why we have lasted so
long as a team,” she said.
As the regional winners, GRT and their
alliance captain team 2122 from Boise, Idaho,
will continue to the April 17 to 20 FIRST world
championship in Houston, Texas.

This year’s election marked a shift from approval voting, in which students can select multiple candidates, to ranked-choice voting, in which students can still select multiple choices, but ranked in order of preference. SEC also implemented a new vote-tallying system, changed the location and time of the assembly and altered the candidate speech format.

Six current SEC officers, all seniors, planned and coordinated the elections process: Associated Student Body President Nathan Levy, ASB Vice President Jazmin Rodrigo, School Board Representative Chris Lee (who is also a managing editor for Âé¶č·ĆÓłĂâ·Ń), ASB Treasurer Leo Yao, Green Commissioner Angelina Rosh and Wellness Commissioner Daniel van Schewick.

According to Levy, the ranked-choice voting system is more representative because it selects the most universally liked candidate. When tabulating votes for contests with more than two candidates, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their second-choice votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates based on the ballot rankings until one candidate reaches a majority. As such, the election winner may be most people’s second choice if no candidate has a majority of first-choice votes. Levy noted that this voting method encourages candidates to reach out to more people: They can still benefit from convincing students to place them in a higher position, even if it is not first.

Sophomore Asha Iyer-Schulz, however, pointed out some flaws of the new system.

“In some ways, it’s good that there’s more choice, but it’s a lot easier and takes less time to just choose one candidate,” she said. “I don’t think it mattered much on the results because there weren’t many candidates for each race and it felt like it was just popularity.”

Alongside the new voting system was a new vote-tallying system. In the past, SEC paid for TallySpace, an online vote-tallying service. This year, however, they began using Google Forms and a free online tally counter. According to Student Activities Director Lisa Hall, Schewick and Web/Tech Commissioner senior Dylan Lu also wrote code to eliminate those who voted multiple times or voted for a different class’s officers.

Unlike last year, in which the assembly was held during study hall/SELF in Titan Gym, this year’s election was held twice during a double second period in Spangenberg Theater. Seniors, who were not eligible to vote, had study hall.

During the assembly, rather than giving a speech, each candidate introduced themselves briefly before SEC officers asked them one to three questions specific to the position they were running for. Candidates running unopposed only gave speeches.

According to Levy, all answers were timed strictly so that the assembly would not run over time. Candidates rotated the order that they answered in order to ensure fairness.

Current Freshman Class Vice President and Sophomore Class Vice President-elect Sara Su appreciated this year’s friendly competition.

“It was a lot smaller and there were less materials last year,” she said. “It’s cool to see everyone go all out this year like making posters, giving out handouts or making silly campaign videos.”

According to Hall, around 50% of eligible students participate in schoolwide elections every year. She encourages students to exercise their right to vote, especially for classwide elections, which have lower voter participation rates.

“These people put themselves forward, and it’s important for the student body to get to know the candidates, find out what they really stand for and what they think that they can accomplish in the role — understanding that it’s a job,” she said. “Your vote does count, and sometimes these races do come down to just a few votes. Even though we don’t reveal those exact counts, I can assure you that they do matter.”

At the beginning of each school year, the Student Activities Center sells parking permits, which are required for students to park their cars in the parking lot. Only juniors and seniors with driver’s licenses are able to purchase one, and those living beyond El Camino Real, Foothill Expressway, Page Mill Road or Adobe Creek are eligible to purchase permits a week earlier than other students. Students must provide their name, parents’ names, grade, driver’s license number, license plate number and car model. This identifying information is then linked to each pass. According to Assistant Principal of Facilities Dr. Mycal Hixon, as of April 8, all of the passes are sold out, but there is a waiting list for interested students.

The Palo Alto Police Department is responsible for ticketing cars without permits in the parking lot, which they try to do on a daily basis. Administrators first discovered a fake pass when ticketing officers called a student to move their car from a handicapped parking spot and found that the person who answered the phone was not the person whose information was linked to the parking pass.

One senior, who requested anonymity to protect themselves from disciplinary action, was unable to purchase a parking pass and decided to create a counterfeit.

“I was willing to buy one, and I even went and talked with them multiple times to try to get one,” they said. “(The school said they needed) to count the number of available spaces. I was like, okay, and that took them like three months to figure out. In the meantime, I figured out how to trace one to make a copy.”

The anonymous senior made a few passes for other students, and is also aware of other students who are making replicas. At first, the senior made the fake passes with polyvinyl chloride sublimation, before starting to order directly from the company that manufactures Gunn’s permits.

Administrators believe that there are currently 20 or more fake permits in circulation. Each legitimate pass has a unique ID number. Most counterfeit passes are identifiable because they repeat ID numbers, but most times they go unnoticed because ticketing officers aren’t able to closely check each pass’s ID.

According to Hixon, administrators have started looking into harder-to-fake permits for next school year, such as ones that use more laser-perforated holes or ultraviolet images for identification. Those with counterfeit permits this year may receive a parking citation or a ban from purchasing a permit in the future.

“(The security) started checking a bit, and there’s some people who had poorly made replicas,” the anonymous senior said. “For the people who I’ve seen get their fakes taken, the campus supervisor came up to them while they were in their car and asked to see it up close. Then they would ask for your name, and if the name didn’t match the one that was on the list, they would take it and not give it back.”

Senior Indira Raja, who has been on the parking pass waitlist for nine months, resorted to parking without a permit because driving is her only way to get to school.

“I know that the construction takes up a lot of the parking lot spaces, and there have been fake parking passes some of the students have been getting, so it’s been super difficult for the admin to give enough spaces for the students,” she said. “But I also just don’t want to be scared to get a parking ticket while I’m sitting in my sixth-period class.”

World Terakoya Program, based in Tokyo, was founded by Stanford post-graduate student Masaki Nakamura in 2022. This year’s exchange was the second one they have organized.Ìę

Japanese teacher Matt Hall invited all students in his Japanese classes to host exchange students at their homes, but prioritized his Japanese 3 and AP Japanese classes due to students’ higher proficiency with Japanese and the time commitment of hosting. In the end, 10 Gunn families who volunteered to be hosts were connected with exchange students’ families in Japan.

Ìę“It’s a tough ask,” Hall said. “You’re asking for a week of the family’s time and all of this week at school. (They have to) bring a Japanese homestay with them to everywhere, every class. And if they’ve got a sports team meeting after school practice, they’ve got to bring them to that. So it’s a lot of work because everybody’s busy.”Ìę

Many of the Japanese exchange students came to the U.S. to research one topic of their choice through creating various surveys and questionnaires. For example, junior Mitsuki Hamasaki, who attends Osaka Business Frontier High School, was most interested in entrepreneurship. Beyond gauging Gunn students’ interest in business and learning more about the U.S. economy, Hamaski also wanted to use this opportunity to improve his English.

“When they’re teaching English in Japan, they mainly teach reading and writing, but they don’t really teach speaking and listening that much,” Hamasaki said in a conversation translated from Japanese by his host, senior Yahya Mirza. “So (I) can do perfectly well on an English test, but when it comes to an actual conversation, it’s a lot more difficult.”

Hall shares this goal of mutual language integration for his students.Ìę

“My goals were twofold: one certainly was for my students to help the Japanese guests,” Hall said. “It’s up to us to be good ambassadors of our culture, and anthropologists of their culture. The secondary goal is of course for my students to also get some practice with our Japanese. There really is a back-and-forth and give-and-take because my kids are learning a lot from them too.”

Host junior Nikki DeVincentis finds it rewarding to both help his exchange student learn more about Japanese culture, as well as practice Japanese in a more casual context.

“I’d say my favorite experience so far is probably just learning the colloquial language,” he said. “I can always learn more grammar patterns and learn more vocab, but (what I’ve learned from this experience) isn’t exactly something that can be taught, like all the slang and casual language. It’s just been really exciting to be able to converse with them in a natural tone, different from the Japanese that I’ve been taught in class.”

Exchange student sophomore Minori Ohishi, who is interested in studying animal welfare, expresses gratitude for her host’s — and Gunn’s —Ìęwelcoming attitude.Ìę

“I can’t speak English well and I am only here for a week, but everyone accepted me warmly, talked and ate with me as a member of their family or their friend,” Ohishi said. “I (just) want to say thank you.”

Ohishi found the Palo Alto community’s inclusivity pleasantly surprising.

“I’m surprised the most at the warmth of people,” she said. “People from many different countries live here, and everyone accepts each other without denying everyone else. I think this is a wonderful thing.”

ÌęThose involved in the exchange —Ìęstudents and staff alike —Ìęhave appreciated the Gunn community’s flexibility and openness. According to Hall, teachers from every department have been cooperative with the extra students and Japanese staff members coming in to observe their classes.

“People talk a lot about teachers being very solo or very, ‘I just want to teach my classes and nobody bother me,’ but that’s certainly not been the case,” Hall said. “I’ve received tremendous support from the overall staff and their willingness to show what they’re all about. And these Japanese staff members, they’ve never seen Americans teach, (but) they’re seeing the best of the best here at Gunn.”

Exchange students are seeking survey responses from Gunn students. Below are surveys created by junior Mitsuki Hamasaki and sophomore Minori Ohishi.

Mitsuki Hamasaki: Ìę

Minori Ohishi: