We are happy to announce Leah Worthington and Misha Schwartz as our Associated Student Body Co-Presidents for next year.   These are very important positions, as they are the student leaders for the entire school.  We are all proud of the powerful and dynamic group of students who stepped up to lead M-A. We hope you get to know each of them.  Below is a short bio on each of our student officers.

Student participation in this election was not what we hoped it would be, and we encourage more students to participate in the future.   The next election will move to the Live Bear News format to encourage more people to vote.  We believe that we have the right students in the right positions to be effective and to encourage all of our M-A Bears to get involved! We are your representatives and we are dedicated to serving the M-A community!

Leah Worthington has been working on developing M-A’s club scene and serves as a representative on Congresswoman Ann Eshoo’s youth board. She is brilliant, awesome, and open to new ideas.

Misha Schwartz has taken another route to the presidency. She has worked hard in developing community service opportunities for M-A students. She has been key in developing sustainable community service programs. She is also a top-notch student and a great listener.

Treasurers:

Wendy Wang has improved the Student Store and plans to expand the store even more next year.

Tyler Finn is a rising star at M-A. Tyler is the first-ever freshman to join a leadership class. He is passionate, driven and ready to lead.

ASB Secretary:

Nina Loshkajian has assisted with the development and management of M-A’s thriving club scene. She has helped build a new website to disseminate information to club leaders and members.  Nina takes notes and records votes at all ASB Student Council meetings.

Senior class president Evan Weiner is a phenomenal student, leader who was instrumental in the organization and success of M-A’s award-winning Canned Food Drive. He also represents all Sequoia Union High School District students on the Board of Trustees.

Senior class vice president Lusiana Wainguola, or Lucy, as she is known, is a brilliant AVID student and is working hard on her leadership journey. Lusi joined student activities as a sophomore, took a year off, and now is ready to lead the 4th period leadership class and the class of 2011.

Junior class president Sara Orton is a highly effective leader. She has worked hard on staff appreciation projects and has worked closely with the environmental committee to develop and teach climate-change curriculum in the Integrated Science classes.

Junior class co-vice president Kari Newman is a talented and highly effective leader; she also participates in swimming.

Co-vice president Zachary Lipps has been a great leader. He knows how to work in a team at home and at school, since he has 10 brothers and sisters.

Committee Chairs: Leadership is divided into committees. The leaders of these committees act as project managers to accomplish projects, tasks, and events.

Community Service Chair

Shivana Khatod will be in her third year leading the community service committee. This committee started a tutoring program in the Ravenswood School District that has been highly successful. She has also organized fundraisers for the Student Support Fund and AVID.

Julia Sommer is a passionate environmental leader. She is a member of the environmental committee on  Anna Eshoo’s Student Board. She is also a member of M-A’s environmental committee and has been instrumental in teaching climate-change curriculum in the Integrated Science courses.  Julia dreams of building a sustainable garden at M-A and improving composting and recycling programs.

Jenny Chute has been a leader in the Green Movement at M-A. She has also taught climate-change curriculum in the Integrated Science classes. She now wants to use her energy to  educate M-A about the need to conserve and build sustainable projects on campus.

Unity/Academic Support Committee:

Julia Vitale is a dynamic leader. She has spent endless hours tutoring students from the Built to Last program.

Junior Sakalia has proven to be a leader at M-A in the classroom, on the football field, in the hallways, in clubs, and in leadership class.

Presidents:

Paige Solomon has been a successful organizer of middle school visits and assemblies. Page has been the main organizer of the Integrate the 8 event and is also working on organizing Freshman Orientation.

Spencer Gump has assisted in organizing a successful program at the Boys and Girls Club in East Palo Alto.  He has connected our class with future M-A students and helped put together a How to Do High School series for this group.

Committee Chairs:

Briana McGee will be working on cultural events and programs for M-A. She has goals for bringing a cultural leader’s series into the PAC for next semester.

Freshman Transition Committee Chairs are responsible for running the logistics and providing the materials for Freshman Transition.

Meredith Edwards is a great student who is committed to service. She will be working with Freshman Transition trainings and communication with leaders.

Amy Rosenthall is a hard-working sophomore who will be in charge of organizing Freshman Transition materials and information boards in the 9th grade World Studies I classes.

Anna Mayerson is a dynamic leader who will be working on events for the class of 2014.  This includes academic support programs and the Freshman Family Tapas.

Corrinne Nelson will be working on freshman recognition programs and feeder school outreach.

* Includes 3 minutes for announcements

** Includes 5 minutes for announcements

While this is not the final schedule, it is very likely, though, that this is what it will resemble:

“I only voted because I’m running for something,” says Julia Sommer, a junior and member of leadership’s environmental committee.

Still others did not vote at all. The polling booths were strikingly empty, despite being on the green- an extremely popular lunch spot.

Sam Sexton asked confusedly: “Wait, there was an election?”

One of the suggestions to have more participation in the elections is to have the voting take place in classrooms, with ballots passed out during SSR or Live Bear News. Many students believe that this would increase awareness of both student issues and candidate positions. However, according to leadership students, there were actually more people who voted this year than in past years. Chad Brock, a junior, was one of the students who voted.

“I just wanted to make sure people I knew would do a good job would be in the place to do it,” he says.

Results of the elections will be posted outside B-21 sometime next week.

Check out the ballot here.

To order pizza, students and teachers must have notified the Administration Office ahead of time and have it cleared prior to ordering.  Pizza must also be picked up at the Administration Office

An avid lover of ordering pizza during class, M-A Junior Louis McCabe exclaimed, “That’s totally unfair.  The M-A Administration just takes things way too seriously.”

In a recent e-mail sent out to the entire M-A staff, AVP secretary Aubrey Orcutt announced, “Tony’s Pizza has been notified that they may not deliver pizza to the school without administrative approval.”

While the administration has specifically stated that Tony’s Pizza will not be delivering to M-A without prior consent, it is unclear whether or not the M-A administration has notified other Pizza restaurants, especially local ones such as Amici’s, Round Table or Avanti’s.

Organized with the help of National Charity League and the Teen Advocacy Council, a youth division of My New Red Shoes, the event ran smoothly.  Luckily, the weather was perfect—the walkers were blessed with a beautiful sunny day. Monika Fowle, a sophomore at M-A who helped plan the event and participated in the walk, thought that it was a fun and rewarding way to spend her Sunday.

“I enjoyed being a part of something that really makes an impact on people’s lives in the Bay Area.” She says. “it’s surprising how unaware people are of how many homeless children there are currently in our own community [5,000 in the Bay Area alone] and it made me so happy just to know that all of our hard work was going towards clothing these kids.”

When asked about how she felt after receiving her award, Gillian replied, “I was actually really surprised, there are so many amazing players in this league and the county that I had no expectation of getting such an award.”

According to Mr. Snow, Gillian’s M-A soccer coach, Gillian was 1 of 11 players selected for this honor. The pool from which she was selected included very skilled players– some have already agreed to play for major colleges such as UCLA, Stanford and Cal. Junior defender, Tess Cain, was awarded an honorable mention.

As a junior, Gillian is excited to continue playing soccer for the rest of high school and hopefully in college. Her passion for soccer has faced her with demanding challenges, which she strives to overcome everyday. Menlo Atherton congratulates Gillian and admires the hard work she has accomplished.

He explained to me that the music room was from 1954 and was completely redone to provide the ultimate musical experience.  After gutting the inside and replacing the old walls    new soundproof ones, the inside of the music rooms are now, unlike their 1954 predecessor, top notch. They even have sound resistant rooms for practicing an instrument, as well as a recording studio that holds up to twelve people for ensembles.  Once an ensemble or song is finished recording, students can edit their recording at one of nine new computer workstations.

A former music student, Nicole Barnes, feels an attachment to the music program and often still spends her lunch times practicing for recitals.  She said, “It’s definitely a step up from the practice rooms last year, which were used mostly for storage.”  She went on to exclaim, “The rooms are so soundproof that you can’t even hear the bell ring at lunch!”