#cal high

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Monday schools are like magistrate-run courts. They try to make it seem serious, but in reality everyone just walks away with some form of discipline that’s enough to irk you, but not enough to actually change your behavior in any way.

The similarities between high school correctional programs and facets of the US justice system, however, do not end there.

Here at Cal High, we too can observe skewed incarceration rates that misrepresent our society’s demographics as a whole. The mainstream news outlets may have you believing that, nationwide, law enforcement predicates criminality primarily on race, but a peek inside Mondays’ after-school detentions tells an entirely different narrative.

Upon one’s first analysis of the unfortunate detainees, no particular generalizations based upon race, gender, or much else can be made. But, much like an offensively niche joke, you get what’s happening after a few seconds.

At a closer look, one sees that a majority of the students held here (when I visited, it was at least over 1/2) are seniors.

Is this an incorrect cross section of the entire student population of Cal High, or do members of the graduating class really file for moral bankruptcy as often as all the other classes combined? Should a handful of tardies, a few counts of leaving class early, or “allegedly” accessing “illegally downloaded” content really carry the sentence of 3 hours of deadpan silence, or is our real crime our age and desire to leave high school to bigger and better prospects?

The conditions in these rooms of supposed academic discipline are so deplorable, they seem to come out of Horace Mann’s and Dorothea Dix’s collective nightmare. For around 3 hours, students are forced to sit in total silence, like they were stuck in some sort of single-sensory deprivation chamber.

“ ,” said one student about being unfairly locked in a room with no method of communicating with others.

At least prisoners in Alcatraz could talk.

Next, students are prohibited from doing really anything aside from reading, studying, or working on homework. One wonders, do equal parts silence and math homework really stop students from making bad decisions in the future, or are they just characteristic of a too literal definition of “concentration camps”.

Conservative critics will be quick to lay the blame on the students here, saying that they should be more focused on our schoolwork, that they shouldn’t be running over to our cars to dip out at every possible opportunity, or that how should we know you really have “allergies”?

But one can conclude the blame is to lie not on the systematically disenfranchised, but on the system itself. Rules that seem fair on paper end up becoming forms of de facto discrimination in practice.

For one example, all students are to be kept from going off-campus or leaving school early, but only upperclassmen would own cars and have the ability to do so in the first place.

Similarly, students are frowned upon coming to school late, but the seniors, the ones most commonly accused of causing such infractions, are the ones who should be encouraged to practice for late-starting college classes.

All in all, disciplinary measures such as Monday school seem to be less effective than having class on Senior Ditch Day, more targeting than those weirdly specific Facebook ads, and just about as passive-aggressive, half baked of a method of telling us we messed up as all of that one girl’s subtweets.

Forty years ago, California High School first opened with about 1,050 students and 25 teachers.

Math teacher Gary Triebwasser said students started Cal as sixth graders and stayed until they graduated.

All of the teachers comprised a new, young faculty and included some familiar faces still on campus, including anatomy teacher Steve Armstrong and math teacher Fred Albano.

The school was built in pods with each section corresponding to the geographical areas of California: deserts, valleys, mountains, and the coast.

Pods, lead by deans, were big rooms, creating an open concept plan where teachers would be able to collaborate and work with one another through lesson plans.

“[The pods] were designed so that kids could easily get help from other teachers,” said Triebwasser. “But pie shaped rooms without walls weren’t practical.”

Teachers and students alike complained about the noise that this open concept created.

Cal High graduate and history teacher Chris Doherty still remembers what those classrooms were like.

“You couldn’t hear a thing,” he said. “It was a disaster on a hill with cement ramp ways leading up to the rooms.”

Collapsible walls were installed to solve the noise problem, but Triebwasser and Doherty both agree that the design of the building wasn’t functional.

“Kids were sliding notes under and through the cracks in the walls,” said Triebwasser.

Doherty said the district tried to sue the architect who designed the building.

“I think he committed suicide or something,” Doherty said.

To update this outdated model, the school began undergoing renovations in 1999 with the construction of the world language building.

The main building, library, theater, event center, and fine arts building, designed and built by Akol & Yoshii Inc. Architects, followed and were all completed by mid-2008.

The original pod structure stayed standing while the construction progressed and after taking it down, the result was an open area that was converted into the current quad.

The old gym was remodeled and the half-basketball court on the second floor was changed into a dance room.

The solar panels over the parking lot were completed three years ago and ended a decade-plus campus renovation.

“They were the last piece to the puzzle,” said Principal Mark Corti.

But because of the ever-expanding student body, facilities will have to be updated to meet the students’ growing demands. Corti said there are plans to renovate the science building.

“We passed a bond two years ago to expand the science building,” he said. “We have so many students that we had to put a science class in the art building.”

Technology has also evolved over the years, at first to prepare students for the technology in work settings and later to keep up with the exponential growth of technology in the world.

Substitute teacher and former Cal history teacher Robert Sloan remembers when Cal had only one Xerox machine for the entire school. Teachers had to use mimeographs to make copies for the students.

“[The teachers] had to use this messy, blue-ink machine to crank out each individual paper for every student in their class,” said Sloan.

Later on, computers were brought to the school, making this printing process much easier and making Cal one of the district’s first digital high schools.  Corti said Cal received a grant for computers in every classroom through a California technology assistance project.

“The district put in $500,000 and the state matched it,” said Corti. “It helped fund the computer labs.”

Back when the school first opened in 1973, before a law was passed that banned the behavior for minors, select students could smoke on campus in a designated area.

“Due to the ignorance of the time, juniors and seniors could [...] smoke on campus,” recalled Sloan. “They had to have a bona fide letter on file for this.”

But in the 1980s, a law was passed that banned smoking in the workplace and the school stopped allowing students to smoke on campus.

In the 16 years that Corti has been at Cal, he has seen it grow and change technologically, in sports, and in various new programs.

“Cal High has garnered tremendous respect across the district because high level academic programs have gained district-wide and statewide recognition,” said Corti.

Corti, Doherty, and Sloan all are excited to see what else Cal has in store for the future.

It was January of 1987.  As editor in chief of the first school paper, senior Christine Lew (then Christine Martin) eagerly watched as the Cal High Newspaper was distributed on campus.

For the first time in the history of the school, an after-school club had been established in order to create a newspaper on campus.

Lew’s 11th grade English teacher Biff Barnes, a former newspaper reporter, organized and advised the club.  He asked Lew if she wanted to be the editor in chief.

Lew eagerly accepted his offer and began working because she liked to write, was inspired to start something new and wanted to contribute something to the school and gain leadership skills.

“I don’t remember exactly how many times the club met per month,” said Lew.  “It was at least twice a month, with one [meeting] for planning and the other for editing.”

The club, which was open to any student interested, amounted to about 25 students and published one issue per month.

“I think the paper was a success,” said Lew.  “Teachers and students appreciated the news about the school.”

But the club had to face many challenges before finding success.

“We didn’t know what we were doing,” laughed Lew.  “There were no authors in the first edition.  It was just a paper of anonymous articles.  The next six papers were better, though.  We learned as we went.”

Lew co-authored an article in the first issue that announced a contest for the best name for the new newspaper.  After the first issue, Cal High Newspaper was dubbed The Paw Print.

Besides being editor in chief, Lew wrote a few other articles, including one that introduced the newspaper to Cal High.

Lew has read all of the current issues of The  Californian and believes the school paper is now more professional than the ones back then because of the limited technological resources of her time.  For example, Lew recalls there being only one computer in the newspaper classroom.

The reporters first had to hand-write their stories and then type them later.  Basic computer software allowed the club to make a two-column newspaper.

Empty spaces for photographs were maintained so, after printing the written sections, editors could place pictures onto them.  The whole thing was then photocopied into a finished product by the school graphics department.  All copies of the paper were printed on campus.

Cal High Newspaper and The Paw Print contained articles limited only to school subjects, such as current school events and school sports.  It also contained an advice column and a comics section.

On a monthly basis, the comic section featured a character named Twinkie, a high school boy, and his antics.  Twinkie was drawn by one of the staff artists.

Meanwhile, the advice column, which remains in the school paper to this day, was more serious than it is now,  but it was still humorous, Lew said.

After the first couple of issues, advertisements from local businesses appeared in The Paw Print in order to pay for paper and copying costs.

Up to this day, Lew has no regrets about being the first newspaper editor in chief.  She kept all the newspaper issues from her school days, including the first one which students can  read online at www.thecalifornianpaper.com.

“It’s neat to think we started something that lasted,” said Lew.

Although Lew did not pursue journalism after high school, she believes being editor in chief was a valuable experience, helping her tackle writing skills and giving her an opportunity to be in a leadership position.

Lew’s daughter, sophomore Kathryn Lew, is a first-year reporter for The Californian.

“My mother told me about being the first editor before my freshman registration,” said Kathryn. “At the time, I said, ‘Wow, I’m never joining newspaper then.”

“I guess I felt a lot of pressure in that regard and I wanted to distance myself from my mother’s accomplishments.”

But Kathryn changed her mind after having Brian Barr, present newspaper adviser, as her ninth grade English teacher.

Contrary to her fears, Kathryn has not felt any pressure since joining the newspaper staff.

“I did not force her to take the class,” said Lew.  “I encouraged her after she expressed interest.  It is a good experience to write for the paper.”

Advice Lew has for the current newspaper staff is to take pride in one’s work, have fun, and remember writing for the paper is a great contribution to the school.