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THE
February 2026 VOLUME XLII ISSUE IV
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STUDENT VOICE OF MILPITAS HIGH SCHOOL
District ‘gives opportunities’ for students, faculty to use Artificial Intelligence in classrooms, learning By Uyen Vu, Jerry Yong, Alice Nguyen
In 2024, the MUSD board requested the superintendent put together an Artificial Intelligence (AI) “task force” composed of students, parents, educators, and administrators who discussed the challenges and opportunities that came with AI, and proceeded accordingly based on those findings, Board President Chris Norwood said. Those findings came with the conclusion that teachers are responsible for how they will want to use AI; teachers in their individual classrooms are responsible for determining how they will or will not use AI, Norwood said. “The district staff and teachers are being introduced to how to responsibly use AI in their work, and kids in clubs and other things are utilizing AI to, one, be more proficient learners,” Norwood said. The district first started AI exploration over three years ago, MUSD Director of Technology Chin Song said. This exploration was similar to when the district started putting chromebooks in classrooms and in the hands of students, he added. “There were many questions around, ‘Is this valid? Is this a better way to go?’” Song said. “Our observations at that time were around looking at venture capital, what companies were doing, and then where that arc of technology may go.” AI is a tool that the district as a whole needs to recognize, and it also needs to determine and learn about its use for work and learning, Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said. It is incumbent upon the district as a learning organization to make sure that they are fully understanding and integrat-
ing AI — if it doesn’t, it is greatly disadvantaging their learners as they graduate and into their career pathways, Jordan said. “If we were to stick our heads in the sand and think that AI can’t support us in carrying out those commitments, our mission, and vision, then we’re no longer learning,” Jordan said. “So AI is something that we all need to figure
out how to use. We shouldn’t be afraid of it — it’s all around us. It’s something all of us have been using, indirectly, as we embarked on the age of social media and online access to services.” The district is trying to keep the scope of AI implementation as narrow as possible, Song said. “Khan Academy is now partnering with Google and Gemini,” Song said. “A chunk of the stuff in Khanmigo will be Gemini-based, so that’ll be the underlying technology that supplies some of the AI help for students.” MUSD teachers currently have academic freedom to teach their classes in the way that they best see fit, Song said. The only thing the district can do is help nudge AI, he added. “Hopefully, they’ll see over a period of time that accessibility (from AI), especially for content that has traditionally been challenging, matters,” Song said. “Imagine a student who barely passed a class, and just needs to finish senior year. They’ve struggled mightily. I have a hard time believing that a teacher over time will deny a student the opportunity to understand the material better using tools that may help them learn.”
The district’s encouragement is for teachers to use AI and be on the arc of technology that will help students learn better, Song said. There will be a shift in opinion over AI over time, like how teachers have changed their opinion over using the internet or using Wikipedia, but some people will have an argument against it, Song said. “For students who do not possess the natural ability to understand Shakespearean sonnets, what would be a greater harm – to have students suffer through it and never like Shakespearean sonnets?” Song said. “(Would we rather) have a small percentage of students love Shakespearean sonnets because they have a natural connection to it, or have the majority of your students better connect to the Shakespearean sonnets through the help of AI?” The role of a teacher is not purely to create content for their class, as they are building relationships and connections with students while adjusting in response to where their students are, Senior Manager of Advanced Tech and Innovation Anh Pham said. “You still need the context that human teachers provide,” Pham said. “Mr. Song says this, like ‘What’s the benefit of having an in-person school?’ It’s the people and the relationships. AI is certainly a huge gamechanger for teachers in curriculum development, but that also allows them to be freed up to do more of that human connection work.” In terms of change in hardware, the immediate change is greater hardware acceleration, like in the computer’s central processing unit and graphics processing unit, Song said. What is new is the neural processing unit in the Chromebook Pluses, so browsers will now have Gemini incorporatSEE PAGE 16
Theater department plans travel to New York City, preform Broadway production ‘Jane Eyre’ By Natalie Chen
A group of students from the theater department will be traveling to New York City on Feb. 15 to perform in a Broadway production of “Jane Eyre,” theater director Kaila Schwartz said. The musical — an annual event organized by the arts group Manhattan Concert Productions (MCP) — will take place in the world-renowned Lincoln Center, Schwartz said. The MHS theater department received the invitation from MCP to audition for “Jane Eyre” early last year, Schwartz said. “I brought this opportunity to my ‘Hadestown’ cast,” Schwartz said. “They were all for it and said, ‘Hey, what’s the worst that
could happen? We don’t get in.’ So I recorded a couple choreography rehearsals where they were actually singing, and I submitted those. And a couple weeks later, I got an email saying, ‘Congratulations! You’ve been accepted.’” The opportunity will give participating theater students the chance to watch real industry professionals at work, Schwartz said. “We are going to be undergoing a professional tech rehearsal,” Schwartz said. “They’re going to watch what it’s like to be a member of an ensemble and a musical from a really unique perspective that they wouldn’t get otherwise.” Some opportunities have al-
Ryan Truong | THE UNION
Two trays of food cooked on-site, Teriyaki and Tacos, lay on a table in the school cafeteria. These are food items that are made through on-site scratch cooking.
Real Food, Healthy Kids Act bans ‘harmful additives’ from Californian school food By Ryan Truong
California’s AB 1264, the Real Food, Healthy Kids Act, which bans ultraprocessed foods and harmful additives from being served in the state’s public schools as part of a push to make school meals healthier, recently went into effect at the start of the year, according to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Press Office. The legislation is expected to have only a modest impact on district cafeterias, mainly because many restricted ingredients are already excluded from menus, according to Director of Nutrition Services Sandy Huynh.
The ultraprocessed food ban mainly focuses on ingredients already avoided in district meals, especially artificial dyes commonly found in snacks or junk
California has very strict compliance requirements for district kitchens, according to Central Kitchen Lead Peter Neddersen. With thousands of meals being prepared every day, all food must be compliant with necessary quotas, regulations, and quality standards given by the state, he added. “Compliance is enforced, especially since the state does an audit,” Neddersen said. “If a district is found to be non-compliant with the food that they’re offering the kids, that entire year’s grant money for the food will be revoked, which can be a couple million dollars. Additionally, it is currently an audit year for us.” When procuring and sourcing food from vendors, the district also has to differentiate between retail grocery products generally available for the public and specialized versions of food made just for K-12 schools, Neddersen said. These formulations are specifically designed to meet the school’s nutrition guidelines, he said. “A good example would be the Smucker’s PB&J sandwiches that we have,” Neddersen said. “The
foods and candy, rather than
NEWS IN BRIEF ‘We are going to be regulated school entrees, Diworking with Broadrector of Nutrition Services Check out our online stories! way music directors Sandy Huynh said. --> Block Scheduling and Broadway direc--> School ID Requirego through a very strenutors,” theater director ous“We process to look at our nutri- ment for meals tion products to make sure it’s Kaila Schwartz said. high quality,” Huynh said. “In ready presented themselves. Junior Harshini Balamurugan will be the first out of only four soloists to perform in the 400-person ensemble, Schwartz said. SEE PAGE 16
our menu, we do a combination of freshly prepared items that we cook on site, as well as pre-packaged meals that we purchase from vendors. But, whatever we bring into our program, we try to make sure that it doesn’t have those ultra-processed ingredients in it.”
Winter Senior Nights: 2/13 - Boys Soccer @ 6pm 2/16 - Girls B-ball @ 7pm 2/17 - Boys B-ball @ 7pm 2/18 - Girls Soccer @ 6pm
Voting for “SENIOR MOSTS” ends Friday, 2/13!