Months after some people thought Media Academy would shut down because of low test scores, the spotlight has hit the academy for a better reason – the school had the biggest improvement on the Academic Performance Index (API) of all high schools in Oakland.

On the API, the state ranks all public high schools based mostly on performance on the California Standards Tests (CST) and the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).

Media Academy climbed the ranking 79 points, from 521 to 600. The highest score is 1,000.

On Sept. 16, the day after the

Media Academy earns most improved on API

Students are fighting back against a Discovery Chan-nel program on Oakland gangs by creating their own documentary based on what they think the city is really like.

“Gang Wars: Oakland” aired Monday, Sept. 14 and Sept. 21 in two parts. The documentary empha-sized the violence, murder rate, and the amount of drug consumption in Oakland.

"Gang Wars" also stated that there are 10,000 gang members in the city, but police and Oakland residents dispute this number. They say it is much lower.

Fremont Federation's Raza History Through Film Club watched the documentry as a group and members were angry and disappointed at the Discovery Channel.

"It's irresponsible reporting," said Cesar Cruz, the club director. "How can they get away with yellow journalism."

"Yellow journalism" is a term for sensational or exaggerated reporting.

The Raza Club plans to give 12 cameras to students who live in different neighborhoods in Oakland to record their environ-ment.

The club, which is part of the YMCA after school program, is designed to give youth a space to learn, share and talk about culture and discuss issues affecting their community.

Members of the Raza Club also want a written apology from

October 15, 2009 Volume 49, Issue 1

'Gang Wars' prompts club to make own documentary

inside

see GANGS page 2

OBAMA Mind GAMes?Find out what the Green & Gold thinks of Obama's 'brainwashing' of students

– page 6

COAChinG TurnOverThree fall sports get three new head coaches; find out how they're doing with their teams

BOTTLes OF FATResearchers say soda and other sweetened drinks are making America fat. See how Fremont responds

– page 8 – page 5

Students at Mandela High School will soon be going to court.

They also will be getting lec-tured daily by a lawyer. Mandela students will likely talk to police officers, judges and lawyers.

They’re not in trouble – they’re part of the new law academy. Many are excited.

“I get to learn about my rights and to learn about how to debate to get my point’s across,” said junior Dionicio Espinoza.

In addition to studying the criminal justice system, Man-dela Academy students will also learn how bills get made into laws.

They will take a new course

Mandela classroomsfocus on courtrooms

reALiTy CheCK Cesar Cruz, director of Raza History Through Film, leads a discussion about culture. The group is working on a documentary in response to "Gang Wars: Oakland."

photo by Juan Ramos

see API page 2

see LAW page 2

Paulina rodriguez & Jose Alvarenga

Staff Writers

Juan ramosStaff Writer

Cesar sanchez& sergio Alvarado

Fighting Backcalled "Development of Ameri-can Justice.:

In that class, students will take a field trip to the State Capitol in Sacramento. Students will be educated on laws with hands-on internships, explained school officials.

“Students who participate in the Law Academy will get a head start learning about law issues in the court system, if they choose to follow that career path,” said Academy Director Patricia Arabia.

Arabia, who is also lawyer, said she teaches her students the same material that is taught in law school, including investiga-tion, writing, reading and socials skills.

Simon Zimmerman, the com-puter technician for Mandela, will be helping student interns learn how to use media equip-ment so they can film what goes on in a courtroom.

API came out, students in one journalism class wrote newspa-per leads about the test increases and then students wrote their own opinions for the "how" of the story.

"The API score went up because we had great academic teachers," wrote sophomore Shi-ma Kaid. She specifically named Merritt Edlind, Candice Valen-zuela and Richard Staniland as those who had helped her.

Some of the biggest increases on the CST for Media Academy were English and science.

“Students worked really hard,” said science teacher Mer-ritt Edlind.

Senior Makender Jean-Philippe was the most improved student at Media. He improved 101.5 points overall.

“The teachers took actually the time to help me,” he said,

Students will film justice system as part of academy

school jumps 79 points to relief of staff, students"The

documentry tried to make cops of Oakland look like heroes."

– Kimberly Guzmanraza Club

Media College Preparatory High School

KICKIN' IT IN STYLETop 10 Fashions at Fremont Federation

– page 4

Tiger Talk

2 news October 15, 2009Green & Gold

Media Academy struggled to be "Media" in its first 30 days of school.

Many projects and class assignments were delayed for six weeks because the district had shut the Internet down to upgrade it the week before school started and the contractor did not finish by its Sept. 30 deadline.

Paul Hoy, the district's director of Enterprise Network Services, said the district upgraded the Internet to make it faster.

When asked why the district did not start the project earlier in the summer, Hoy said,"We would have liked to start this work earlier, but it took longer than we would have liked to have all the paperwork in place so that work could begin."

Media Academy Director Michael Jackson reacted to Hoy's explanation with two words.

"Excuses, excuses," he said.Jackson teaches Cyber High, an online course that

helps students make up credits. Because there was no In-ternet, the class did not start until this week, the seventh week of the semester.

Seniors who are down credits are especially worried."I'm scared that I might not graduate because of the

lack of Internet," said senior Sarah Chavez, who said she planned on making up several classes through Cyber High.

Students in other grades were also upset.“I feel mad because we can’t do the regular things

we usually do in class, and we need the Internet in this school,” said sophomore Gabriela Rodriguez.

Howard Ruffner, who teaches yearbook and jour-nalism, has been especially frustrated by the lack of Internet. Even though he now has Internet connections, he said the contractors doing the work left him without some switches that had allowed him to spread the Inter-net through the entire classroom.

"It's a sad disservice to the students that the district caused," said Ruffner.

Some classes had the Internet restored in the first few weeks of school, including the newspaper computer lab in portable B-3.

"I am lucky to have had the Internet back before other classrooms," said Green & Gold adviser Lisa Shafer. "My biggest worries, however, are that seniors could not research colleges, register for the SAT and do their College Summit work for weeks. For seniors, every day is critical."

Hoy explained that the district used $185,000 to upgrade the wiring at Media and that most of that money came from the federal E-Rate program. He said the new wiring would be more reliable than the old network.

"We would have preferred that this work be done over the summer so that it would not have affected classroom work," Hoy wrote in an e-mail to the Green & Gold. "We are always concerned about how what we do affects the learning process."

However, he said the money for the upgrades would have been lost if the work had not been completed now.

OUSD leaves Media without Internet

OLd SCHOOL Senior Enrique Mendoza and junior Jose Rodriguez work from books in their Web design Class because the Internet was not working at the start of school. A month later, the school still was waiting to be fully connected.

Students will be able to even go film a courtroom to see what it is really like in court and to take pictures for a monthly newsletter.

Mandela Academy is getting funds through the California Partnership Acad-emy program for the new law classes, much like Media Academy receives extra funding for its media classes.

Academies are open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. Therefore, the school is still called Mandela College Preparatory High School, but it also has a school-with-in-a-school called Media Academy.

"Mandela became an academy because it was the only school in the Fremont Federation of High Schools that wasn’t already an academy," said Principal Robin Glover.

Mandela was awarded a California State Partnership grant worth about $70,000 to design and implement a law and public service academy during a No-vember 2008 conference in San Diego.

They will receive about $81,000 each school year to run the academy.

Some Mandela students find some of the new programs especially exciting.

“I’m looking forward to going to Sacramento because I believe that it is important to learn how a bill gets passed.'' said Eunice Medina, a 17-year-old junior. "So we the students can get more educated about our rights.”

from page 1

LAW: Mandela gets $70K

API: School celebratesfrom page 1

GANGS: Club fights backfrom page 1

NEW SCHOOLPatricia Arabia, a lawyer and the director of Mandela's new law academy, passes out papers during her development of American Justice class.

Lyna Tran& Lester Finney

photo by Fuey Saechao

the Discovery Channel, demanding it to air the video that the club is creating for free.

The Discovery Channel did not re-spond to e-mail requests for an interview with the Green & Gold.

Raza Club members say “Gang Wars: Oakland” depicted the city as a place with nothing but gang violence and drug trafficking.

"The documentry tried to make cops of Oakland look like heroes," said Kimberly Guzman, a Mandela Academy junior.

"Gang Wars" emphasized that there

adding also that he tried his best on the three-day tests and looked over answers.

In 2009, 20 percent of Media Academy students scored “Proficient” or “Ad-vanced” in English. This year before only 10 percent did.

The percentage of students who were in “Far Below Basic” and “Below Basic” categories was reduced. In 2009, 40 percent of the students got these scores compared to 62 percent the year before.

However, Media students did not im-prove on the math part of the CST. About 90 percent of students continued to score “Below Basic” or “Far Below Basic." All over Oakland, math scores were far lower than English scores.

Media students were told last spring that if they didn’t take the CST seriously,

then their school might close, similar to what the district decided to do to another Federation school, Robeson School of Visual & Performing Arts.

When registering for their senior year classes, juniors were asked to choose another Oakland high school in case they had to transfer. That caused the impor-tance of test scores to sink in for many.

Teachers at Media are congratulating their students by posting pictures and cer-tificates of the students who improved the most on the CST on the school walls.

While the test score improvement may help keep the school board from shutting the school down next year, staff members aren’t resting.

“I’m keeping my head down,” said Principal Benjamin Schmookler. “We have to keep improving.”

are only eight policemen in the gang unit, but according to the Oakland Tribune, there are actually 100 officers who make up the gang unit.

Marisol Rodriguez, site coordinator for the YMCA, was not pleased with the way Oakland was portrayed in the film.

"We can't hide behind the murder, but the documentry only adds fuel to stero-types about what an urban community looks like," she said.

Students interested in joining Raza Club or working on the documentary can contact the Eastlake YMCA at (510) 534-2441 or stop by the Fremont Federation of High Schools library.

photo by Cesar Sanchez

" i believe that it is important to learn how a bill gets passed so we, the students. can get more educated about our rights."

– eunice Medina, Junior

News Editor

3 news October 15, 2009Green & Gold

We may know President Obama made a speech to the American students about the expectations of students at school, but little did we know Media Academy has one of its very own students on the path of success that Obama was talking about.

Jazmin Garcia of Media Academy joined the Bay Area Urban Debate League (BAUDL) last year and won a scholarship to attend debate camp in Austin, Texas, for free this summer. She said the experience at the prestigious camp helped her to improve her skills

“They [the camp coaches] taught me how to make better arguments,” said Garcia.

At camp, Garcia attended workshops, participated in, and watched debates and received great tips from some of the greatest debaters in the country.

When she returned to Oakland, she took part in the BAUDL summer debate institute

and won first place speaker as well as first place team with her debate partner, Media Academy junior Juan Ramos.

"She is very insightful; she never backs down, which makes our team stronger," said Ramos.

Garcia is surprised at her growth in debate in just seven months.

"I kind of couldn’t believe I won first place; I didn’t think I was going to win," Garcia said.

Lisa Shafer, who was one of Fremont's debate coaches last year, said she is impressed with Garcia.

"Jazmin sort of throws her competitors off by having such a soft voice," said Shafer. "You'd never know she could be so aggressive in her cross examina-tions."

Garcia influenced her young-er brother, Diego, a Media Acad-emy freshman, to join Fremont’s debate team. After one week of summer debate, he received first place speaker for beginners.

“At first he thought that it was boring," said Garcia about her brother. "But after he at-

tended the summer workshop, he got interested."

Garcia has a lot of support from her family.

“They are really proud of me; they think I'm smart and [they] are happy that I have joined

debate," said Garcia.Obama probably also would

be proud of Garcia. He men-tioned specifically in his speech that students benefit from getting involved with their debate team or student government.

Thanks to 40 students enroll-ing after the start of school, Media College Preparatory High School appears to have escaped the forced transfer of teachers and the elimination of almost all new supplies and textbooks.

Three weeks ago, it looked like Media Academy would have to cut $250,000 from its budget of $2.18 million. It only had 305 students when school started on Aug. 31.

But the extra 40 students who registered late are expected to generate about $455,000 for Me-dia Academy because schools get money based on enrollment and attendance.

As of Oct. 12, the school had 345 students, which should bring in about $1,725,000, ac-

cording to Principal Benjamin Schmookler. The school last year budgeted for 355 students and $2.18 million.

Schmookler said that he should have heard from the dis-trict by Thursday, Oct. 9, if the school was going to be forced to transfer teachers in the middle of the semester.

At a staff meeting last Friday, he said the district did not in-form him of the need to change his teaching staff.

"Maybe with our good API scores, they're going to leave us alone," he told teachers.

Media Academy had the biggest improvement of all high schools in Oakland on the Aca-demic Performance Index that was released on Sept. 15.

At the start of the school year, Media Academy had no shortage of returning students, but the freshman class was

smaller than usual. Michael Jackson, who has

been at Media Academy since 1988, said the school has never had a problem getting freshmen to come to the school.

“I heard someone [in charge of placing freshmen at Media Academy] went on a vacation, and somebody else didn’t follow the procedure,” said Jackson.

Principal Benjamin Schmookler pointed to another possibility.

“Charter schools are partly the reason,” said Schmookler, "That’s why we’re 50 students

down. A lot of our students transfer to those schools.”

Nearby charter schools include Unity High on Brann Street and Arise on East 12th Street.

A report released by the California Charter Schools As-sociation in February stated that Oakland has 33 charter schools that serve 8,000 students.

Charter schools run with public money but do not have to follow the same rules as regular public schools. They can fire teachers and expel students more easily.

Starting the year fresh, many second-year teachers also refreshed their policies.

“I wanted to give more rewards to stu-dents who are meeting the expectations,” said Erin Stuckey, a Spanish teacher at Mandela High School.

Stuckey’s expectation for her sec-ond year of teaching is to have students participate more in class so she added “group points” competition between students of different cultures.

Some of the changes that Stuckey added to her policies were “No Food, No Electronics.”

Students who do not follow Stuckey's procedures first receive a warning, then get a detention and finally are sent to the office.

In his first year teaching, William David Williams of Media Academy would put students' names on the board if they chewed gum, talked or used their cell phones. Three checks and they would get a detention. He would kick them out of class if he thought they had a bad at-titude.

But this year, Williams is like many other second-year teachers in the Fremont Federation of High Schools who have adjusted their policies.

Students now have the privilege to chew gum and bring healthy snacks to

Williams' class. He doesn’t put names on the board or give students checks.

Instead of detentions, he requires stu-dents who break rules to write two-page essays about what they did wrong in class and counts it as a quiz grade.

Williams made these changes because he said he wants students to feel comfort-able in his class.

“Students have a lot of potential,” said Williams.

Some students say they appreciate it when teachers make changes.

"They were smart to change their poli-cies because they help them to get better at teaching and develop new skills," said senior Deisy Garcia, who had Williams last year.

Principals are also glad to see that teachers are making changes.

"Reflecting on policies helps teachers create new (and) better policies," said Mandela Principal Robin Glover.

On the other hand, some second year teachers said they are sticking with their policies.

“There wasn’t a really big change on policies because we are a small school” said Eric Hall, a math teacher at Paul Robeson. “I became more comfortable with the ones I had."

Mikel Calderon, a second-year teacher at Architecture Academy, also kept rules the same. He says he didn't need to adjust his policies because his students are very responsible and follow his instructions.

Garcia one step ahead of Obama

Second-year teachers change it up with new policies, attitudes

Enrollment drop gives Media a scare"Maybe with our good API scores, they're going to leave us alone." – Principal Benjamin schmookler

toP sPeAker Jazmin Garcia, a sophomore at Media Academy, practices for the year's first debate tournament. She won the summer debate tournament sponsored by Bay Area Urban Debate League.

photo by Jose Alvarenga

Brooklyn Payton& Monisha Payton

Multi-Media Editors

Christian olivares& Juan Grimaldo

Paulina rodriguez& Jose Alvarenga

NEWS IN BRIEF

Staff Writers

Staff Writers

JORDAN TAKES THIRD IN DEBATE

Danyuana Jordan of Media Academy took third place out of 34 teams in the Bay Area Urban Debate League's first tournament of the year.

The tournament, which was hosted by Fremont Fed-eration of High Schools, drew 80 debaters from high schools in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco.

Jordan teamed up with a student from San Francisco's Balboa High School to cap-ture third place in the novice division. They argued both the affirmative and negative sides of the national debate topic: Should the United States federal government substantially increase social services to reduce poverty in the United States.

Media Academy sopho-more Jazmin Garcia and junior Juan Ramos won sixth place in the varsity division. Both won individual awards as well. Besides Jordan, sophomore Jack Mejia and freshman Diego Garcia, both of Media Academy, also won a team award in novice. Both Mejia and her sister Kim Me-jia place in the top 20 speak-ers in the novice division.

GREEN & GOLD GOES ONLINE

The Green & Gold has a new Web site at www.medi-agreenandgold.com.

The new Web site allows people to check out stories that are not in the regular Green & Gold and short bi-ographies of the newspaper's staff members. It also has a poll and slideshows. The cur-rent poll asks which college students prefer.

"This Web site is a work in progress," said adviser Lisa Shafer. "We will reduce the number of (regular) is-sues from eight to six and put more work online."

The Green & Gold will soon add video and audio with the help of students in Richard Yacco's Web Design class.

– Leo Jerald

4 Features October 15, 2009

Green & Gold

Top 10 fashion

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years and don’t know what "Twilight" is, it’s part of a saga coming from the mind of the New York Times best-

selling author, Stephanie Meyer. The saga is about a teenage girl, Bella Swan, who falls in love with a vampire, the mysteri-ous Edward Cullen and the complica-tions that present themselves due to their forbidden love.

After the 2005 release of the book, "Twilight," and its follow-ups "New Moon," "Eclipse," and "Breaking Dawn" and the wildly successful 2008 movie, magazines, fan Web sites, clothes and now an SAT practice book have emerged.

The author of "Defining Twilight," Brian Leaf, came up with the ingenious idea of creating an SAT book based on the first "Twilight" novel, especially designed for big Twilight fans, also called "Twi-hards."

I took a test run of the book myself for a week, defining vocabulary words and doing the drills that came along with them. I was particularly excited about the whole concept of Leaf’s book, as he tried to get young adults to practice for the SATs and other tests alike by combining

photo by Jose Alvarenga

fiTTed AT fremOnTFremont is full of fashion. For example, Jennifer Truong wears Vans. Cory Henry rocks in the business look. Toineisha Hicks show off her skinny jeans. D'Amontae Warfield stands next to Thany Ouk, who sports open-toe sandals and Kalah Johnson dons the professional look with a casual twist – skinny jeans, sneakers and an Argyle cardigan sweater.

must have items

1. indian headbands

2. Open-toe sandals

3. Cowboy Boots

4. Collard shirts

5. Pencil Skirts

6. Skinny Jeans

7. Vans

8. Touch Screen Phones

9. Tattoos/Piercings

10. foundation/mascara

'Defining Twilight' SAT vocab book – A bummer?

back-to-school

Jack mejiamedia Studies

with my trial.Leaf’s book was consisted of a page

of vocabulary words (or, as they were re-ferred to in the book, "groups") and gave you the page number where you could find the sentence containing the word in your "Twilight" book. You were to read it and guess the meaning of the word, jotting down your guess in the workbook. Then you were to flip to the back of the page to see the correct definitions of the words and check your answers.

I think it’s great that "Defining Twi-light" incorporated the use of context clues, a very valuable skill to students that will help them when taking vocabu-lary tests. But, unfortunately, a lot of the example sentences were awfully vague and imprecise, making it very hard to guess the definition of the vocabulary word. A lot of them were too easily phrased, such as “He was very [insert vo-cabulary word]” or “I felt [insert vocabu-lary word]” and so on.

A great deal of vocabulary words were much too easy and simple, like "noble," "detested," "hyperventilation," "gawked" and "hostile." I only guessed them cor-rectly because I’d known their definition beforehand.

During the drills, which were like mini-quizzes, the author had the reader practice the newly learned words utiliz-ing synonyms, analogies and sentence-completion exercises, which wasn’t very helpful and sometimes not very well

phrased. For some reason, the author mentioned a large quantity of words that hadn’t been addressed or even mentioned during the course of the book. This con-fused me greatly, and sometimes my low quiz scores were due to not knowing the definition of these unmentioned words.

I was disappointed, however, for the book itself, as it was insufficient

Taking Quiz 1, which was a quiz in-cluding taking 21 of the 49 words you’d been taught in the first couple of groups, I was disappointed to find I’d only scored an 85.71 percent. It was a good score, I suppose, but was below my expectations. I expected to do better.

Overall, I support Leaf’s efforts, but I think that the book could have been improved as to not require a copy of the novel, but offer excerpts instead. This guide only increased vocabulary by a small fraction, and proved itself to be useless at times. I appreciate Leaf’s attempt, but it’s a letdown, I’m afraid for a lot of readers who purchased it. I wouldn’t recommend it.

topics that piqued their interests and mak-ing it educational.

I was disappointed, however, for the book itself, as it was insufficient. It required the reader to have her own copy of Twilight available to work with side by side. I thought this was incon-venient, considering that a lot of people who picked this book up had probably assumed they could do with the book alone, and maybe didn’t own a copy of the book, like myself.

I did end up borrowing a copy from the local library, however, and went on

BOOK REVIEW

5HealtHOctober 15, 2009Green & Gold

Soda may mean obesity later

Sex, drugs & good choices will be focus for freshmen

New UCLA study shows strong link, as Fremont teens keep guzzling the sweets

Fuey Saechao & Carolyn Saephan

Staff Writers

CALORIES by thE tRuCkLOAd Students buy sodas from this truck just yards away from the Ygnacio Street gate. Oakland Unified School District banned on-campus soda sales in 2001.

Photo by Jose Alvarenga

Fremont Federation freshmen will learn more about sex and drugs by the end of the year.

For the first time, every freshman at Fremont Federation of High Schools will take courses from the Peer Health Ex-change (PHE), a program about making positive health decisions.

The 12-14 session program ran at Mandela Academy last year, but this fall it will be brought to Media Academy and Architecture Academy for the first time. Paul Robeson will not have the program because it does not have freshmen this year.

“I’m really excited about the pro-gram,” said Merritt Edlind, a science teacher who is the site coordinator for Peer Health Exchange at Media Acad-emy. “It will be amazing for ninth graders to learn about this information from cur-rent college students.”

Under the Peer Health Exchange sys-tem, college students who are specially trained come into advisories or other classes to talk to freshmen about health topics. Workshop titles include “Sexual Decision-Making Communication,” “Healthy Relationships” and “Nutrition & Physical Activity.”

“It’s a nice way to give good, cor-rect information,” said Ana Vasquez, the counselor at Mandela.

Vasquez recommended the program to other schools.

Three Mandela sophomores who took Peer Health Exchange last year said they are glad they had the experience.

“People are doing wrong things,” said sophomore Jayla Tower to explain why she thinks the program should have been started across campus earlier.

Towers and sophomores Erica Win-ston and Christian Mendoza said the pro-gram helps students think twice in mak-ing important decisions. They explained that the program taught them about the types of drugs that “mess up your body” and how they damage the body.

The Mandela sophomores said they also learned that the one of the most com-mon diseases at Fremont Federation is gonorrhea.

The program will start at Fremont at the end of October.

Students will receive informational pamphlets and cards, which provide information on special health clinics that students can visit for testing and resourc-es. There are also hotline numbers on the cards to help students who need help.

Eve Fine, program associate for Peer Health Exchange, said she is "thrilled" that Fremont Federation is expanding.

"Last year, our program reached 1,100 teens in Oakland and San Francisco. This year, we are aiming to reach 1,700 teens in the Bay Area," she said. "It is a privi-lege to be working at Mandela, Architec-ture and Media to achieve this goal."

Violet SouksavathEditor-in-Chief

Federation saves lives in community blood drive

Carolyn Saephan & Fuey Saechao

Students saved lives by donating their blood to the Bay Area community.

Blood Centers of the Pacific came to Fremont Federation on Friday, Sept. 17 to have its community blood drive hosted by Media Academy. The other three schools at Fremont were invited for this event as well.

The blood drive was held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the school’s auditorium. This was the second year and third semester that the blood center held a drive at Fre-mont Federation.

Wendy Theisen, account representa-tive for Blood Center of the Pacific, said that the blood drive was hosted last year

by Paul Robeson.This year, more than 30 students and

teachers registered to give blood, but only 16 were approved. Each approved person gave one unit of blood.

The reason for the difference is that many of those who registered to give blood were unable to donate because they had low amounts of iron. The required amount of iron needed in the bloodstream is at least 38 miligrams; anyone whose level is below that is rejected.

“It's common for high school girls to have low iron due to menstruation,” said one of the phlebotomist technicians.

Fremont Federation plans to host a follow-up blood drive in the spring.

dRAwIng bLOOD Workers known as phlebotomists struggle to find Media Academy Director Michael Jackson's vein as senior Nick Valmores films the action for his drama class. Jackson was one of 16 people who successfully donated a unit of blood on Sept. 17.

Photo by Violet Souksavath

The Arizona, Coca-Cola and 7-Up that Fremont Federation students love to drink are also making them gain weight, along with other Americans.

In a study released in September, UCLA researchers reported that ado-lescents represent the biggest consum-ers of soda, with 62 percent (over 2 million youths) drinking one or more sodas every day – the equivalent of consuming 39 pounds of sugar each year in soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages.

Drinking just one 20-ounce bottle of soda each day for a year can result in gaining 25 extra pounds, according to the website sodafreesummer.org.

At Fremont Federation, 80 percent of students surveyed said they drink more than one soda a day. The average was 2.5 sodas, but some students said they drink six cans a day. But some students have already quit.

"I don't drink soda anymore because I found out that's how I got fat," said Media Academy junior Keyanna Scott, who said she gave up soda last month.

The Oakland Unified School Dis-

trict banned all soda sales in schools in 2001, but that doesn’t stop students from buying it from nearby stores, gas stations, restaurants and lunch trucks. Some clubs even sell the soda as fund-raisers on campus, although it is against the district's Wellness Policy.

Many staff and students at Fremont Federation drink soda like it's water without knowing what it’s doing to their bodies.

Soda drinker and security officer Noil Angelo read the UCLA report.

“I was unaware of a lot of stuff I read on the paper,” said Angelo. “It could be unhealthy for you because it could hurt your kidneys.”

Soda is the number one source of sugar in the American diet, according to the website sodafreesummer.org.

Katie Riemer, health educator for the Tiger Clinic, said she is working on a campaign with the clinic to try to improve what students eat and drink both on campus and off campus.

“Healthy alternative needs to be offered,” said Riemer. “There’s not much to choose from.”

Riemer said that even diet soda is bad because it lacks nutrients.

Students at Fremont High have their own opinion about sodas.

“Drinking a lot of soda is bad because it gets you dehydrated fast,” said Frank Den-ard, a junior at Mandela Academy.

While researchers are blaming soda for America’s obesity, some drinks are even worse.

When asked if he drinks soda, Robert Allen, a junior at Paul Robeson, said " No, I drink Kool-Aid."

It turns out Kool-Aid is not good either."It could be worse," said Riemer. "It has

more artificial colors and flavors."

Staff Writers

6 OpiniOns October 15, 2009Green & Gold

President Barrack Obama gave a na-tionally televised “Back to School” speech on Sept. 8

at a school in Arlington, Vir-ginia, where he told students that they need to get serious with their schoolwork.

Many Americans who disliked Obama’s decision to give a speech directly to students, kept their children home, because they believed Obama would try to brain-wash them.

The Green & Gold staff believes that those Americans were wrong. The speech was brainwashing only in a good way. It was very positive and inspirational, because it had good intentions and gave stu-dents ideas of how they could get ready for possible career paths by getting involved in

"it's stupid because he should respect the judges' decisions."

"i think it was kind of dumb of him, but he was drunk."

"Yes, it was because it was the first award she won."

"He really didn't act like a upper(class) gentleman."

Carlos Vera Media, Freshman

El presidente Barrack Obama ofreció una en-trevista a toda la nación sobre

“La vuelta a la escuela” en Sept. 8 en Arlington, Virgin-ia, dondé el se dirigió a los estudiantes para que fueran serios con el año escolar.

Algunos americanos que no estaban de acuerdo con que Obama hablara directa-mente a los niños dejaron a sus hijos en su casa, porque ellos pensaban que Obama queria lavar el cerebro a los estudiantes.

El equipo del periódico “Green& Gold” cree que los americanos que dejaron a sus hijos en casa estuvieron equivocados.

El discurso fue un lavado de cerebro pero fue positiva-mente, porque tenia buenas intenciones y aportó posibili-dades de abrir nuevas puertas en el futuro de los estudi-antes.

Nosotros creemos que los estudiantes con experiencias del pasado dificiles, deben escucharlo.

El equipo de “Green & Gold” platicó como Obama fue criado por una madre soltera sin padre.

Muchos de nuestros jóvenes se ven en esta misma situación en la que son criados por madres/padres solteros.

“Donde tú estás ahora, no determina donde vas a termi-nar, porque nadie ha escrito tu destino,” dijo Obama, referiendose a las adversi-

dades que algunos estudiantes enfrentan en su vida.

A nosotros nos gustó como Obama explico que no todo es fácil, aunque a ti no te guste pero al final las situaciones dificiles en tu vida te pueden ayudar para mejorar.

Obama les dijo a los estu-diantes que se propusieran metas reales, porque en “la vida real,” las oportunidades de todos de convertirse en una celebridad son muy pocas.

Nosotros pensamos que lo que dijo Obama es cierto, porque en la realidad todo el mundo no cabe en Hollywood.

Los padres que no estuvi-eron de acuerdo con el discur-so se perdieron la idea general porque el discurso motivaba a triunfar verdaderamente expresando esperanza en el futuro. Si el discurso hubiese

sido un fracaso, entonces no-sotros hubieramos estado de acuerdo con los padres que dejaron a sus hijos en casa.

Los estudiantes de todas partes deberian ver en dis-curso porque les puede cam-biar la vida. Nosotros vimos el discurso y no podiamos creer que algunas personas no estuvieran de acuerdo,o que iba a tener un efecto negativo para los estudiantes.

Nosotros como estudiantes debemos seguir cada una de las palabras de Obama y tratar de alcanzar nuestras metas para el futuro. Si nos proponemos buenas metas y las seguimos con dedicacion, las posibilidades de alcanzar lo que nosotros podemos hacer en nuestras vidas son infinitas!

Nosotros somos el futuro!

extracurricular activities at school.

More students probably listened to him because of his difficult background. Obama was able to relate to students with struggles because his own father left him when he was younger.

He talked about how he was raised by a single mother. Many of us relate to children being raised in single-parent families.

“Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up," Obama said. "No one’s written your destiny for you."

We liked how Obama explained that not everything is easy; you may not like a situation, but in the end it is the hard situations that often work out for the best.

Obama told students to set real goals, because in “real life,” the chances of everyone

becoming a celebrity are slim.We thought that what

Obama said was true, because in reality, the whole world can’t fit into Hollywood.

Parents who disliked the speech must have missed the big picture because a speech encouraging success truly ex-presses hope for the future. If the speech was about failing, then we would agree with the parents who kept their chil-dren home.

Students everywhere should see the speech. We saw the speech and couldn’t believe that some people dis-liked it or believed it would negatively affect children.

We as students should follow Obama’s words and try to really meet great goals for the future. If we set good goals and follow through with them, the possibilities for us are endless.

We are our future.

ShOUT OUT Was Kanye West's outburst over Beyonce at the MTV Video Music Awards out of line?

Obama's speech inspired peopleEDiTORiAL

EDiTORiAL

El discurso de Obama fue inspiración para todos

ILLUSTRATION BY LEO JERALD AND BRANDON SNEED

green & goldthe

The Green & Gold is a vehicle of student freedom of expression and a public forum for the Fremont Federation of High schools community.

it is produced monthly dur-ing the academic year by the Media Academy newspaper class.

We welcome feedback about our content and would also like to hear ideas you have for future coverage. signed letters on topics of concern to the Fremont com-munity are welcomed.

staff reserve the right to edit for language and space. Letters or guest opinion col-umns may be dropped off to B-3 or to Lisa shafer's mailbox in the Media Academy office.

signed articles or opinion pieces reflect the viewpoints of the author only. Unsigned edi-torials represent the consensus opinion of the newspaper staff.

EDiTOR-in-CHiEFViolet souksavath

MULTiMEDiA EDiTORsBrooklyn paytonMonisha Campbell

nEWs EDiTORsLyna TranLester Finney, asst.

FEATUREs EDiTORsBrooklyn paytonCarolyn saephan, asst.

OpiniOn EDiTORMakender Jean-philippe

spORTs EDiTORFuey saechao

pHOTO EDiTORsJose AlvarengaJuan Ramos, asst.

WRiTERsJuan GrimaldoLeo JeraldChristian Olivaressusana Ramirezpaulina RodriguezBrandon sneednairisha Wright

ADVisERLisa shafer

"i think that's messed upbecause it was her mo-ment and he took it away from her."

Rene DeleonMandela, Junior

Cherish Balagot Media, Senior

Chiem SaeteurnArchitecture, Junior

Damy Duperval Paul Robeson, Senior

"Don't spenD every waking hour in front of the tv or the X BoX!"

Every single one of you has something to offer

"you CouLD Be a gooD writer: MayBe gooD enough to write a Book or artiCLes in the newspaper"

DANGER: OBAMA 'BRAINWASHING'

7October 15, 2009

Green & Gold

If you walk into Media Academy this fall, you will see that the teachers are really happy.

The reason for this happiness is that last year Media students increased their

California Standards Test scores and Academic Performance Index more than any other high school in Oakland. And that has helped the school's image and future, especially because we’d heard threats that the school would be closed down like our neighbor, Paul Robeson

School of Visual and Performing Arts if test scores did not improve.

Media as a school achieved some really goods scores. It improved its API score by 79 points, up from 521 to 600.

Besides Media, Mandela also had a raise in its API score also. Their API went from 529, to 557, which is a massive 28 point gain.

It is a good feeling to know that the school environment that I attend is improving on test taking skills, and that students are increasing their knowledge.

We improved because teachers did a great job last year. A lot of the teachers made sure students understood the material and subjects they were taught.

This year because of the scores, teach-ers know exactly what to teach to make sure students get the necessary knowledge that the tests require. Students are now knowing exactly what to do when tests seem difficult or too extensive.

I was impressed by my own scores. The year before, I had done badly, but last year I im-proved by more than 100 points. That's a huge improvement for myself.

I was completely shocked when my adviser, Lisa Shafer, told me that my scores the previ-ous year had dropped by 70 points, more than any other student in the school. I felt the need for change.

Then, weeks before the test, students were told they needed to choose a transfer school if the school closed. The idea of changing schools was just too much for me to bear. Then I knew I had to care about the tests. Even my peers seemed to start caring.

I want to stay together with my friends and walk the stage with each other at the end of the school year, with the teachers I've had for all four years.

I think another good reason why I did as well as I had, was that I had breakfast regularly throughout the entire week of testing.

I also feel more school pride, and I believe that’s the same feeling the teachers have.

It would be nice to hear next year that Media did well again, and it would be great to see and know that students will continue to care about taking test seriously.

Whatever students did last year, they need to continue or “double up” on what they did, because it definitely seems like students took initiative to get better scores.

Students are continuing to learn good test taking skills that will help them do better on tests like the CST.

Some Media teachers awarded students with food and treats, and it’s that type of encourage-ment our school needs to continue to do well.

Hello Green & Gold readers! Welcome to the 2009-2010 school year, you've made it. I just want to let all you readers know a little 4-1-1 about the Green & Gold staff this year.

If you guys didn't already know, I'm Violet Souksavath, editor-in-chief of the Green & Gold, and this is my second year being with the G&G. Some other returning staff are: Makender Jean-Philippe, our opin-ion editor, Brandon Sneed, staff writer, and Lyna Tran, news editor.

We also have fantastic new staff writers who are super-ambitious about informing their peers and do it quite well. This year, we have a more di-verse staff with an even number of females and males. Our new reporters are getting the hang of our deadline sched-ules and routine. They've done well for their first paper.

We also have stories posted on our new Web site: www.mediagreenandgold.com.

You can check out other stories that may haven't been published in our paper and leave your comments. Our read-

ers' opinions are very important to us, and we would love constructive criticism.

There are also new features on our Web site that we'll be trying this school year, like keeping up with a weekly or monthly video broadcast and having interesting polls for you all to take.

It's kind of hard keeping up with a newspaper that last year won sixth place at a national convention, but I believe with a little oil grease, we can achieve success.

We do have a new element this school year, and that is being able to translate our editorials or news stories. Although we are limited with a few languages, we will

try our best to translate in multiple languages.I hope you readers are informed and enjoy our work.

Don't forget you can submit your work to be published.

New beginnings for G&GSeveral staff members of the 2009-10 Green & Gold are new

Pay off is clear after taking CST seriously

Makender Jean-Philippe

Four Corners

“There should be no students texting during class." Principal Benjamin Schmookler, Media Academy

“There should be no use of cell phones in any capacity during class time; neither written or verbal

communication should be acceptable."

Principal Betsye Steele, Paul Robeson

“There should be absolutely no texting in school. This needs to be adopted as a school board policy."

Principal Robin Glover, Mandela Academy

“Although texting is a wonderful addition to communication devices we have, in the modern world, students texting during class erodes the

quality of their education."

Principal Daniel Hurst, CPAA

We asked all four principals at Fremont Federation to comment on a study that shows that American teens text an aver-age of 120 times in class each week.

Seniors from Robeson, Media speak their minds

Violet Souksavath

LETTERS

oPinionS

Dear Editor:

Paul Robe hasn't been the same lately – there have been many changes.

We have lost good teach-ers like Mr. Kane and Mr. Bronson. We have also lost classes like art and dance. We also lost our former principal, Ms. Rasheed, and our case manager, Mr. Foster.

As you can see, all the changes have not been for our benefit. I personally feel that since the district has given up, students have given up as well.

I used to have a friend named Johnny who used to come to school in the ninth and tenth grade, but now he does not come.

This year we don't have many students because in two or three years our

school will be closing down.

We even lost our only AP class. But there was one teacher who wouldn’t let the bullying go unnoticed. His name is Mr. Gordon. In 2008-09, Gordan would al-ways try to set up meetings for the parents, teachers and students to make them alert of the situation.

One time, Mr. Gordon set up a meeting with the district and one person from the district was supposed to come to Paul Robe during school hours.

The school set up the meeting as an assembly, but that person from the district never came. It showed me that the district was afraid to face the students and that they knew what they were doing was wrong.

It's still three years from

Paul Robe being shut down, maybe we can change the district's mind.

George Parker Paul Robeson, Senior

Dear Editor:

The Oakland Unified School District should be responsible and take action already.

It’s the end of the mark-ing period and the Internet still is not working properly. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. A district decision to upgrade the wiring has led to many rooms going six weeks without access

Additionally, there seem to be many Web sites that are blocked this year. In some classes, you need those blocked sites.

At times, we have specif-ic work to do but are unable because we can't access the information.

We have the right to have Internet without it being problematic. This problem has affected many people who need to take Cyber High. In the past six weeks, students could have been working in Cyber High and made up one class. Now, those students remain behind in credits and if they are seniors, that could affect their graduation.

Internet in Media Acad-emy is a must have. The Media Academy needs the Internet to be working in all rooms and students need sites the district insists on blocking.

:Tanya Castro

Media Academy, Senior

8SportSOctober 15, 2009Green & Gold

Ten Tigers are running across Oakland getting ready for the cross coun-

try season.The team was scheduled to

have its first meet on Wednesday against Oakland Athletic League teams at Joaquin Miller park.

The team is coached by first-year P.E. teacher Paul Coover, who ran four years of track and three years of cross country in high school.

The top Tiger runner right now is Tien Tran, a senior from Architecture Academy, said Coover. The cross country team runs multiple miles every day after school. Coover has been in-creasing the running miles daily so that the runners can improve on distance and stamina.

So far he thinks that his most improved runner is Jerrick Casa-clang of Architecture Academy.

Soccer player Danny Lopez, a junior from Mandela, was able to join cross country for the first time this year because boys soccer was switched from fall to winter. He said he is glad for the opportunity to use cross country to get conditioned for soccer.

"I feel more energetic," said Lopez. "There's lots of running in soccer, so cross country will help you get motivated and not be lazy."

He said even if it weren't in soccer, he would still join.

"It would help you with any sport," he said.

Back-to-school without beloved Coach B. B.

Football playerS Face oFF-Field battleS

After a rough start, the Fremont Federation Tigers hope things turn around Friday when they start Oakland Athletic League play.

The team actually only has lost three games on the field -- they had to forfeit

two of them. The first game against Logan High School was cancelled by Fremont because some players didn’t have their physicals and the second game was forfeited because some players weren’t eligible due to grades. The Tigers had tied the St. Elizabeth Mustangs before the second forfeit was declared.

Nevertheless, new head coach Isamu Falevai still has many positive things to say about his players.

“Regardless of what we (have) been through so far, they are very dedicated and determined to do whatever it takes to be a better person because the kids in the past would have quit,” said Falevai.

Even with five losses; the football players still have faith in themselves and their coach.

“We lost (five) games, but we can improve, and our

tigersStart off 0-5

but new coach, players remain positive

photo by Fuey Saechao

tacKliN' tiGerS Devante Denard and the rest of the Tigers defense try to keep the Claremont Wolfpack from scoring during a Sept. 19 game at Kurt Flood Recreation Center. The Tigers lost the non-league game 29-6. The team had to forfeit two games of its first five.

Violet SouksavathEditor in Chief

Many students are missing a teacher, coach and a friend.

At the end of the school year, Emma Batten-Bowman quit her job teaching at Mandela and her job coaching the Fremont Lady Tigers volleyball team. It came as a shock to many players and students who did not know about the resignations until this fall.

During her five years at Mandela, Batten-Bowman taught English, Creative Writing, Jour-nalism and Yearbook.

Cross country gets lift from new coach and soccer switch

She also helped start the Gay Straight Alliance and led the Lady Tigers to four second place finishes in the Oakland Athletic League.

“I haven’t given up on my students,” said Batten-Bowman.

She said she just wanted to find a better way to affect the change that she thinks is neces-sary to create a more fair and just society.

“I can’t be a part of an insti-tution that re-creates values and norms that I don’t believe in,” she said.

After five years of trying to please others while staying true to herself, Batten-Bowman found that she was getting bitter and angry over time.

“That’s just not me,” she said. "Or who I want to be.”

Batten-Bowman is taking classes at Laney College and coaching Laney’s volleyball team. She’s also doing other odd jobs and plans to travel as much as possible including a trip to Argentina in November.

Batten-Bowman stated she would love to continue coaching

lester FinneyAssistant News Editor

New coach, new trainer, new team, but same goal: to win the Oakland

Athletic League.The Lady Tigers volley-

ball team has more than 20 players who plan to win it all.

Returners are Violet Souk-savath, Meagan Maile and Am-Phil Ollero, Bria Lan-drum and Monserrat Chavez

Athletic Director Dar-lene Miller, who previously coached junior varsity vol-leyball, is now coaching both varsity and junior varsity.

The Lady Tigers also have a new volleyball trainer, Lisi Faagata.

“Hard work, team player attitude and good sportsman-ship and reinforce academ-ics” is what Faagata said she expects from the team.

The team played the Sky-line Lady Titans on Tuesday, but the results were not avail-able in time to be included in this issue of Green & Gold.

Lady Tigers set to dominate OAL with new coach, team

christian olivaresStaff Writer

coaches never gave up on us and they won’t give up on us," said Pope Foketi, middle linebacker, offensive line and fullback. “I believe in them like they believe in us.”

The players had different reasons for being upset about the forfeits.

“I felt like an opportunity was being taken from us," said Foketi. "It hurt us bad and it set a bad tone for the season ... but just wait and see (us), the OAL Silver Bowl champs.”

Another player, Sinilau Tauteoli, left tackle and defen-sive end said, “I feel bad because, it’s my senior year and I can’t get it back.”

Even though the season didn’t start off too well, the players believe that it will be better later in the season.

“The forfeits weren’t a good thing, but with more prac-tice, we can get better,” said Robert Allen, running back and cornerback.

Running back and defensive back Jonathan Atchan also was upbeat.

“It really don’t affect the team because it was only two games,” said Atchan, a senior. “It’s not going to stop us from winning the championship.”

The football players feel that they have a good coach and that he could potentially set them up for a good future.

“I feel like he is going to take us somewhere, to get us out of Oakland and to a good college,” said Foketi.

Tauteoli agreed.“He’s a good coach,” he said. “He sacrifices a lot for

us.”The next game is away against Skyline High School

on Friday.

at Fremont if she didn’t have so much on her plate.

“It’s just not the right thing for me at the moment,” she said. “Even though I wish I could.”

Batten-Bowman is not the only one who wishes she could coach at Fremont. Some students and volleyball play-ers were devastated when they heard about "B.B" quitting.

"When I found out, I didn't want to do volleyball anymore," said Meagan Maile. "Ms. B.B was our second mom."

Fuey SaechaoSports Editor