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THE
APRIL 2025 VOLUME XXXX ISSUE IV
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STUDENT VOICE OF MILPITAS HIGH SCHOOL
Accelerated math students not ready for college By Uyen Vu
There has been a decrease in students in the class of 2025 who are meeting or exceeding the standard for the math California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP), especially from sixth grade to eleventh grade, Director of Secondary Education Maurissa Koide said at a board meeting on Oct. 8, 2024. Only about half of the class either met or exceeded the standard, according to a bar graph shown during the meeting. When the high school principal and some of the district board members met with the dean of the School of Engineering and Com-
puter Science at the University of Pacific (UOP), the dean shared that for the last few years, many college freshmen, who had taken accelerated math courses in high school, were not testing into the expected math level for college. , Koide said in an interview. Many of the college freshmen are placed into the pre-calculus level, Koide added. “It has come up also with our math high school teachers that they’re seeing students struggle the more and more they accelerate,” Koide said. “The retention for the content is not always there, and so we have been having conversations around, ‘Is it helpful? Is acceleration actually ben-
Courtesy of Maurissa Koide
The class of 2025’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) scores from grade to grade show gradual decrease in students who meet or exceed the standard for math.
efiting students, or are we putting them on a backward path?’, inadvertently, being that we’re also hearing that now from a college partner.” Koide would like to see, if possible, specifics on how the high school students are doing when they are entering math as freshmen in college, Koide said. Then, the district can see how they performed as seniors in high school, what math they completed, and then what math course they entered as freshmen in college, Koide said. “That data, instead of just anecdotal statements, is important to have,” Koide said. “I also had shared that with the board, that’s kind of our next step. We’d like to hear from other colleges and see specifically how it’s impacting our students.” Currently, the district has not found a definite correlation between college freshmen not testing into the appropriate math levels to how MHS students are performing, Koide said. “The other thing we (the district) are looking at is our summer programming and our summer Acceleration Program, seeing, also, longitudinal data on if students are accelerating, how they (are) then faring in their high school courses once they do that,” Koide said. There are fewer students who pass the acceleration test that self-study than those that took an actual course over the summer, Koide said. Oftentimes, the district sees that students who are self-studying are not as successful, Koide said. “It’s hard to replace a teacher, self-studying when they have a tutor, or maybe something like Khanmigo, where they can get some tutoring support,” Koide SEE PAGE 16
District maintains policies in face of Trump’s executive order on race and gender in schools By Prisha Jain
Among the executive orders issued by President Donald Trump within the last few weeks is one titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which sets protocols for how schools should handle topics like racism and gender identity and the consequences for failure to comply, according to The White House. The executive order plans to penalize teachers for “unlawfully facilitating the social transition of a minor student” and prohibits teaching that “an individual’s moral character or status as privileged, oppressing, or oppressed is primarily determined by the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin,” according to the White House. Social transition refers to actions such as teachers using preferred student names or pronouns upon request, according to the execu-
tive order. The district is not obligated to change any of its current policies on the basis of this executive order, Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said. “Our California Attorney General has been issuing lawsuits against the executive orders, and this is one of them,” Jordan said. “So, for the time being, we are perfectly within our rights to continue following our board policies in California.” The executive order has caused concern and disrupted public education, according to Board President Chris Norwood. “Good education is continuous, and anytime there is a disruption in education something is lost,” Norwood said. Norwood finds it difficult to see any benefits to this executive order, he said. “There is an effort to change the direction of modern society,” Norwood said. “That is concern-
ing. We have got to be global citizens. We have got to be international thinkers.” The executive order upset social studies teacher Rylie Zea personally due to how it unfairly targets transgender students, she said. “It is basically like making the whole issue again about gender identity and about teachers somehow indoctrinating children,” Zea said. “When really we’re just trying to show students that transgender people exist. It kind of demonizes teachers.” As a citizen of the United States, Zea is not happy with the direction this executive order is pushing the nation towards, she said. “We’ve seen other governments take this step, and it’s usually a negative direction,” Zea said. “It’s usually for erasure. It’s SEE PAGE 16
TO: Seniors sail to victory
Courtesy of Sanjit Roy
The senior TO team form a pyramid during Trojan Olympics on March 28, 2025, to show off their class theme. This team won first place. By Ian Choi
The senior class of 2025 won the 26th annual Trojan Olympics event on March 28. Seniors won with a score of 765, Activities Director Deana Querubin said. The sophomores came in second at 605, the juniors came in 3rd with 590, and the freshman got 4th with 470, Querubin said. Trojan Olympics is one of the biggest annual events of the school year, Querubin said. It is organized by ASB officers and the leadership class, she said. This year’s Trojan Olympics competition featured dances, games, and the pyramid. Each class had a different theme: “Rio” for the freshmen, “The Incredibles” for the sophomores, “Scooby Doo” for the juniors, and “Pirates of the Caribbean” for the seniors. The games included balloon popping, musical chairs, tricycles, tug of war, and many more. Senior class president Jerry Zhong was concerned about the “purple curse,” Zhong said. “Every single class that’s had the class color purple – they’ve always lost, so we’re the first ever class (to win),” Zhong said. Senior Vee Nguyen was part of the senior TO team and helped with decorations and was part of the dance, she said. Nguyen had a lot of fun participating, she said. “I’ve been a part of the TO team since freshman year, so it was like all my hard work finally made it,” Nguyen said. Nguyen was initially worried
that the seniors wouldn’t be able to pull off the win, she said. Nguyen was worried about the infamous “purple curse,” she said. “That part was the part that made me scared because I was confident we were going to win,” Nguyen said. “But then that was in the back of my mind, and I was like, what if it’s for real?” The energy of the audience was crazy, sophomore class president Kavish Shah said. “The audience that knew what their role was and what they had to do and overall, everyone was so loud,” Shah said. “We even came second in crowd, which really helped us out for our total score,” Shah said. Zhong was very nervous about Trojan Olympics, he said. “We could have prepped better, but it’s really hard trying to get all 46 people of your team to all show up in one spot at the same time,” Zhong said. Despite the struggles and setbacks they faced, he thought Trojan Olympics went the best it could have gone, Zhong said. “The fact that we were able to get a clean sweep and win everything, honestly, showed that we put in all our effort into getting first place,” Zhong said. Trojan Olympics is an amazing event that students should not miss, Querubin said. “It’s an amazing show, and it’s just a good time,” Querubin said. “Even if you’re not on a team, it’s a good time with your class,” she said.
Majority of AP exams go digital in May By Akshaj Kashyap
The majority of AP exams that will be conducted this May at the high school will either be fully online or hybrid, except for some language exams, Vice Principal and AP coordinator Jennifer Hutchison said. Hutchison believes that there are a multitude of reasons why College Board is choosing to switch to online exam formats, chief among them security and convenience, she said. “The paper process is quite
lengthy and detailed and lends itself to missing AP exams, errors on AP exams, and so on,” Hutchison said. “By having a digital capture, it’s all right there and easily scanned for them. The shipping of everything is very minimal with these changes.” College Board and all the AP teachers have been aware of the change and are planning for a transition for essentially all AP exams to move either fully online or, at the very least, hybrid, SEE PAGE 16