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THE
November 2025 VOLUME XLII ISSUE II
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STUDENT VOICE OF MILPITAS HIGH SCHOOL
Author Randy Ribay visits school campus, holds assembly, student meet-and-greet By Shivani Arun
Award-winning FilipinoAmerican author Randy Ribay visited MHS on Oct. 20 for an assembly and a meet-and-greet with students and staff. Numerous students and English classes attended the theater during third period to hear Ribay speak about his novels, his writing process, and how he became an author. After the assembly, Ribay attended a student meet-and-greet during fourth period in the library, where students and teachers had the chance to speak to Ribay and get their books signed. Librarian Mia Gittlen introduced Ribay on stage at the assembly, and the crowd applauded as he walked onto the stage. Ribay addressed the crowd, as students snapped pictures of the author. “Everywhere I go, my name gets mispronounced, but I figure if it’s going to be pronounced correctly, it’s going to be here in Milpitas, so
thank you for that,” Ribay said in the assembly. Ribay went over his literary body of work, which includes “Patron Saints of Nothing”, “Avatar, the Last Airbender: The Reckoning of Roku”, and his latest novel, “Everything We Never Had.” Growing up in a half-Filipino, half-American family, Ribay grew up loving stories, but was encouraged by his family to pursue engineering and join Air Force ROTC, he said during the assembly. “I did the engineering thing for about a year, and I was pretty miserable,” Ribay said. “I was like, “This is not what I want to do with my life.’” Later, in college, he switched his major to English, much to his parents’ horror, Ribay said. Growing up in the Midwest, he was one of the few Filipino students in his community, he said. He was exposed to Filipino and Filipino-American writers in college, along with numerous other
writers who were people of color, including Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison, he added. “As I read these authors, these Filipino and Filipino-American authors, I saw that books could do so much more than just be entertaining,” Ribay said. “I saw that they could be beautiful.” After college, he went on to be an English teacher for 16 years before choosing to become an author himself, Ribay said. Some books that get banned include topics like grief and death, Ribay said. He added that “Patron Saints of Nothing” has been challenged in different parts of the U.S. “These are the kinds of books that are getting disproportionately banned by these organizations, these individuals who are going to their school boards and complaining these books should be taken off shelves,” Ribay said. SEE PAGE 16
Shivani Arun | THE UNION
The Inclusive P.E. Practices class has played softball, pickleball, and soccer this year.
Inclusive P.E. Practices creates collaborative class for Community Based Instruction students By Rain Bacungan
Uyen Vu | THE UNION
Randy Ribay signs his novel, “Patron Saints of Nothing,” for sophomore Amber Elacion at the student meet-and-greet.
Early special election results suggest Measure A will be passed with 57% approval, NBC says By Uyen Vu
Results show that Measure A is on track to pass with 57% approval, according to NBC’s election results. The MUSD Board of Education unanimously passed the resolution to support Measure A during a board meeting on Oct. 28, 2025. Santa Clara County’s Measure A proposes a temporary, county-wide general sales tax increase of five-eighths of a cent, estimated to generate approximately $330 million annually in locally controlled revenue, according to the board’s resolution shown at the board meeting. The purpose of Measure A is to fill the gap in funding for health
and mental health care, and keep Santa Clara County’s hospitals open, Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said. While some people may think that some services that Measure A will support won’t affect them, the funding the county is losing comes from the federal government, which helps keep hospitals open, she added. “Even if we have our own private insurance, if one of us has an accident on the highway, for example, like 280 or 680, the closest hospital, and also the closest hospital that many of our own families here in Milpitas go to in an emergency is Valley Medical,” Jordan said. “That has a potential of being closed without those funds.”
School boards can only endorse measures, so the MUSD school board takes its ability to endorse measures seriously and rarely supports any kind of measures, Jordan added. But in Measure A’s case, it is a measure that directly impacts the families in Milpitas because there are potential cuts to medical and healthcare support for those in need, she added. “Because the business of the school district has to do with student learning and circumstances for learning, they wanted to make sure that our residents, who are voters, understand what Measure A is because, indirectly, it will support our students in MilpiSEE PAGE 16
The new Inclusive P.E. Practices (IPP) class aims to give special education students the opportunity to interact with general education students while also enabling them to be physically active, Physical Education (P.E.) department lead Kristina Giles said. General education students have the opportunity to work with the Community Based Instruction (CBI) program by socializing and assisting the special education students in the class, she said. Last year, the P.E. department had around thirty CBI students in one class period, Giles said. This situation caused an overall dangerous environment for neurotypical students, as the large number of CBI students was difficult for a single teacher to manage, she added. “I called for a meeting and had several people involved from the district to our MHS site to talk about ways that we could have a better P.E. program that was safer, as well as giving the kids a better P.E. experience,” Giles said. “One of the options I came up with was to have the CBI classes come separately – one class, third period; one, fourth; one, fifth; and then for us to recruit student helpers to assist in running the class.” The IPP class does not focus on just physical education, Giles said. “We work on socialization and we try to get our students to communicate,” Giles said. “(The IPP class) is about giving them time to work with students outside of their classroom. We want them to be physical, but it’s more important that they are interacting with students and just having a regular high school experience, since they don’t always get (to be) in their classroom five periods a day.” The P.E. teachers are mainly looking for seniors and juniors to be volunteers, Giles said. Stu-
dents have to be at a certain level of maturity in order to be a part of the IPP class, she added. “Most of the CBI students are autistic and nonverbal,” Giles said. “I feel that by junior-senior year, you’re a little bit older, you have a little bit more patience, you’re just more mature. You have to pay attention to your buddy 100% of the time...Your attention is on your buddy and making sure you’re helping them.” Senior Elizabeth Ashley is a part of the IPP class, she said. The class features simpler versions of different sports, and there are some occasions where the class focuses on other activities instead, she added. “We focus on P.E., so we do regular sports just like P.E., but we modify them so that it accommodates their needs,” Ashley said. “A lot of them (CBI students) can’t stay in the sun, or they can’t play regularly, so we just accommodate that. It’s just modified versions of P.E.; we also sometimes SEE PAGE 16
NEWS IN BRIEF Jack Emery will bring Talent Show and Winter Glow Dance The talent show will take place on Dec. 5. First-place winner will get a grand prize of $300, and second place will get $150. The Winter Glow Dance will be on Dec. 12 at 7-10pm in the Gym. Graphic Novelist duo Kiara Brinkman and Sean Chiki visit The library will host Graphic Novelists Kiara Brinkman and Sean Chiki on Nov. 18 at 2:30 pm for National Novel Writing Month participants. Community service: Christmas in the Park Volunteering begins Nov. 22 to Jan. 1 2026. You must be at least 16 years old to be a “Santa’s Helper”.