Volume 50 Number 4
Menlo School, Atherton, California
Friday, March 15, 2024
The Coat of Arms serving Menlo’s upper school since 1973
Menlo Community Reacts to Israel-Hamas War Five months on, mixed feelings about Menlo's environment remain by GEOFFREY FRANC & JACOB REICH
“I wanna go.” Junior Ari Kaufman heard her older brother’s words through the phone on her drive home and was confused. She pulled over and turned on her phone. “I have texts from my camp friends; I’m on Instagram, and I look and I’m just like, ‘What the hell?’” As Kaufman began to grasp what was going on, her brother kept talking. He felt guilty, Kaufman said, for being in the U.S. when his friends were in Israel. He told her he wanted to enlist in the Israeli military. “I was terrified,” Kaufman said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, is my brother gonna go to war?’” Menlo Community Reels from Shock of War
When Hamas — the Palestinian militant organization that governs the Gaza Strip and that is considered a terrorist group by many Western governments — launched an attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, it caught the world by surprise and rocked the lives of many in the Menlo community with ties to the region. While Hamas wasn’t quiet about its vehement opposition to the State of Israel, Israel’s strong military advantage and extensive security apparatus were believed to rule out the possibility of an attack. That morning, senior Yasin Abdulkariem woke up around 11:30 a.m. and was overwhelmed by the news. “It was all in my face,” he said. “I think we had three different TVs on — all playing the same thing.” Like Abdulkariem, junior Melanie Goldberg was going about her daily life, doing work for her debate team, when her mother came into her room “shaking” with the news. “I was kind of in
shock,” she said. “Like, ‘how is this possible?’” For some, the outbreak of war meant imminent danger to friends and loved ones. “I was more so worried for my family back home at first before I actually knew what was going on,” Abdulkariem, whose Palestinian family lives in the West Bank, said in an interview in January. More than 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ initial attack on Oct. 7, including 364 civilians at a music festival near the Gaza Strip. “My uncle’s family friend’s son was at the [Re’im music festival], and there’s a video of his arm being blown off and being taken as a hostage by Hamas,” Goldberg said. Freshman Noa Levav said her brother also knew many of those killed at the festival. She, too, knows people in Israel who are grieving the loss of their friends. “Every one of my friends [in Israel] knows somebody who was either taken or killed or beat or something like that,” Levav said. Kaufman said she had been counseling her friends whose loved ones were among the kidnapped. “I have friends who are like, ‘Yeah, dude, my cousin is held hostage. I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Thinking about that when I’m in, like, math is not great.” As the world was still reeling from the shock of the attack by Hamas, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was “at war.” It has since been the goal of the Israeli government to completely destroy Hamas and rescue the hundreds of hostages taken on Oct. 7. Israel’s ambitions have manifested in a brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip: air strikes and a ground invasion have so far left over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead and millions more displaced. The Israeli military says over 10,000 of these were Hamas fighters.
Israel-Hamas War, pg. 3 Staff illustration: Amber More
And Then There Was One: Menlo’s APs Are Almost Gone
by ASHER DARLING
After getting rid of AP Biology decades ago, the school has nearly completed its phasing out of Advanced Placement classes in the course catalog: beginning in the 2024-25 school year, all AP course offerings at Menlo will be discontinued with the sole exception of AP Physics. Former AP classes will be turned into Advanced Topics or honors courses while maintaining the rigor of an AP class as well as the associated 0.5 GPA boost.
What’s Inside?
Upper School Director John Schafer cites the school’s autonomy as a reason for pivoting away from the College Board program. “We are asserting our independence over the College Board, having more control over our curriculum and the choices available to our students,” Schafer said in an interview with The Coat of Arms. According to Schafer, the degree to which new AT curricula will deviate from those of the associated AP classes is at the discretion of individual departments on campus. “Some of our classes will
prepare students to take the AP test and others will not,” he said. During the process of reconsidering the school’s relationships with APs, the administration consulted with college admissions officers who concluded dropping the AP label would not harm Menlo students. In fact, according to Schafer, Ivy League admissions officers pointed out that the AP label undersells Menlo’s curriculum because Menlo offers so many other interesting and distinctive classes beyond APs. Although a handful of colleges
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OPINIONS
Examining the Evolving College Process
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have become more restrictive about granting credit or placement for AP tests, taking AP tests is particularly helpful for students interested in applying internationally. Still, the usefulness of taking AP tests varies for each student. “For some students, [taking an AP test] may make a lot of sense, but for others, it could be a waste of time and money,” Schafer said Teachers like Science Department Chair Jamie Formato say taking the AP
APs, pg. 2 Check out The Coat of Arms website!