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In previous years, Cal High juniors enjoyed having a morning or two off while freshmen and sophomores took the STAR test.

That won’t be the case this year.

California is among the states in which juniors are taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) assessment, which is aligned with the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics.  The new common core standards were created to help students graduate high school better prepared for college.

Juniors stated taking the computer-based California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) tests in their English classes on Wednesday.  These tests, which last six days and run through Wednesday, cover the subjects of English and math, but scores will not be evaluated.

The tests, which are being taken in English 11 classes, have been implemented in replacement of the STAR and include a pencil and paper Early Assessment Program (EAP) tests. The EAP English language arts (ELA) tests will be April 21-24 during U.S. History classes.  There will be an adjusted schedule on April 28 for the EAP math test.

“The scores of the tests would help us determine whether or not students need to take remediation classes offered at Cal High their senior year to prepare them for college,” said English teacher Catie Hawkins, who is serving as the school’s common core teacher on special assignment this year.

The objective of the EAP’s English test is to determine if students are able to demonstrate college and career readiness in English language arts, according to smartbalanced.org. The test also will include a separate writing assignment with a typical essay prompt.

The EAP math test will evaluate students on high school summative math, which includes a combination of Algebra I and II and geometry, Principal Mark Corti said.

“The EAP tests have normally been taken and are not different from last year,” Corti said.  “They were just connected to the STAR test.”

Information from starsamplequestions.org indicates the test results will help identify a student’s individual academic abilities with grade-level requirements and other results of students in the same grade.

Some teachers say their lesson plans will remain unchanged in preparation for this test.

“I think we should teach what we already are teaching and that the results [of the tests] will fall as they may,” math teacher Gary Triebwasser said.

Although the results of these new CAASPP tests will not be recorded, students are asked to perform to the best of their ability in order to have an accurate assessment of its productiveness.

“Taking the [field] test will help with the design of it for next year,” said Corti. “The juniors this year will be sample students to see how it goes.”

As the computer based tests have never been utilized before, teachers and students are curious to see how it will work.

“I don’t know what to expect,” said English teacher Rachel Guerra. “I can’t say it takes more time [away from my schedule] because we’ve never had them before. There’s a lot of questions.”

Junior Ngoc Mai didn’t know much about the new tests.

“I wish more teachers would talk to us about the testing system instead of leaving us in the dark,” Ngoc said.

Teachers have had to make minor adjustments to their schedules to adapt to the new testing this year, but see the positive sides of the tests.

“It has been a challenge [to adjust my schedule] but it has changed the lens in how we work and keeps us on our toes to compromise [the material we teach] to be applicable for the test,” said AP Literature teacher Sean King.

But the students who will be testing are against the test because they believe it does not have any benefits.

“I think it’s unnecessary because [the school] should be able to tell by a students classes and grades whether they need additional classes,” said sophomore Caroline Zhou.

If the CASPP tests are adopted next year, students’ scores will actually count.

Today is the big day. You’ve trained for months, all the while looking forward to this competition.

Unfortunately, instead of taking home the gold, you napped in the parking lot because your teammates couldn’t wake up your sleep deprived body.

“On the day of competition, I ended up falling asleep in the car,” junior Samantha Liang said about the morning of one of her winter guard competitions last year. “I’m a heavy sleeper so it was a bit hard to wake me up.”

Liang is not alone.

Coming back to school after a long, carefree summer break tends to lead to many troublesome schedule changes for teens, and poor sleep is a major effect of these changes.

Students must adjust from going to bed at midnight and waking up at noon in the summer to cramming in homework, extracurricular activities, and chatting with friends all before going to sleep at midnight and waking up for school between six a.m. and seven a.m.

Though it may seem like a typical transition, this new sleep schedule results in drastic consequences to a student’s health.

“Being sleep deprived is like being drunk – you are impaired,” said Dr. Renu Deshpande, a family physician at Bay Valley Medical Center in Danville.  “[People] don’t seem to learn as quickly or efficiently.”

Without having the proper amount of sleep, students can still function, but not at their best.  To help understand this reasoning, students must realize that sleep is key for better short- and long-term memory, Deshpande said.

A person’s brain is like a hard-drive because new information must be entered and then stored away for the next use. With sleep, one will get the chance to register what they have recently learned and retain it for later, Deshpande said.

Teenagers should be getting eight and a half to nine hours of sleep a night to perform at their optimal potential, according to sleepfoundation.org.

Shockingly, about 80 percent of Cal High students might not be getting the sleep they need.

The Californian took a poll of 300 students asking them the average amount of hours of sleep they get on a school night.

The results show that only 19 percent, or  57 students, get eight or more hours of sleep, 56 percent or 168 students get six or seven.

Unfortunately, 75 students, or 25 percent, said they got six or less hours of sleep.

Sleep deprivation leads to well-known physically draining effects, but it may also lead to more serious problems such as depression, attention deficit disorders, acne growth, obesity, and more, Deshpande said.

“I usually get about five hours [of sleep],” said sophomore Sreenidhi Kotipalli. “My record for least amount of hours [on a school night] is two.”

Why are students straining so badly to get those essential hours of sleep?

The most commonly accepted explanations are overscheduling , excessive use of electronics, and the rise of social media.

Deshpande said blinding lights from phones, tablets, computers, or TV screens all “wake up” an individual’s brain and prevents it from shutting down and falling asleep.

To avoid this problem, she said electronics should be put away and lights should be dimmed about an hour before going to bed.

Society’s newfound concern with what others think about has also become an emerging problem for teens.

Teenagers constantly check social media just to get the chance to see everything that is going on, or to know what is new or “in” in their virtual world of ‘friends’, according to huffingtonpost.com.

This burning desire for social connection makes it harder to put away the electronics, as many teens fall victim to saying “just one more post” for hours.