Recently, the unspoken controversy between administration and students regarding the twenty-five parking spaces reserved for staff in the student parking lot has become an issue in the form of ticketing students’ cars parked in the staff spaces. However, when students were forced to stop parking there, the spaces were left almost completely empty. The students should not be penalized for parking in the staff spots, but instead given some of those spots to use.

In the morning, you see one car parked in the staff spaces. By lunch, you see two. Some days you will see spots filled up to ten with faculty who arrives later. But that leaves at least fifteen empty spaces students could park in. Meanwhile, the staff has at least three other parking lots on campus. The licensed population of the Arroyo student body is larger than that of the staff, and we already have less space to park. If the staff has three parking lots, the students deserve at least one.

Furthermore, students are held accountable for being late when in fact they do arrive on time, but are forced to park farther away and then hustle to their classrooms. If the administrations want us to be on time, give the students a chance and don’t penalize those who cannot get their early, but do show up on time.

This is a ridiculous situation. In the last year we have lost our block schedule, teachers, funding, and several opportunities. Give us our parking lot.

-Assistant Editor Vincent Martellacci

The concept of the Small Learning Community at Arroyo seemed innovative and exciting a few years ago, and it was. Academies at Arroyo thrive with extra money, with united teacher leadership, and a large amount of structure throughout. This is great for the kids at Arroyo claiming they want to go into the medical field, those inclined to computers, or those looking to be “future leaders for social change.” But what about those who are looking to be journalists, artists, or at least Chabot graduates? The rest of Arroyo High School deserves a fair deal. 

Small Learning Communities at Arroyo have been given more opportunities than General Studies. In recent years, the academies at Arroyo have been working together within themselves to organize field trips to visit colleges, while it is apparently being assumed that General Studies students aren’t intending to go to college, because there have been no opportunities offered for the rest of the school for two years. Small Learning Communities also get community service hours offered to them, which helps them get in to the colleges they visit.

But that’s not all. Small Learning Communities also get more money than the rest of the school. This year they received a 1.7 million dollar Federal grant over the next five years, while the school as a whole lost eleven teachers and reverted back to the cost-cutting period schedule. Meanwhile, the Health and Medicine Academy could afford to purchase  (and subsequently get stolen) thirty new laptops. If General Studies received equal attention as the rest of the academies, perhaps some of that money (which for the academies went to paying teachers extra for things such as teaching zero periods) would have gone to saving teachers.

This is not to say the students in academies do not deserve every opportunity awarded to them, but rather that the rest of Arroyo’s students deserve equal opportunity. The academies receive an equal amount of funding, while those in General Studies are the children left behind. There is a desperate need for education reform and restructuring of priorities at Arroyo High School, and an entire group of students cannot be ignored any longer.

-Assistant Editor Vincent Martellacci

The 2009-2010 school year has seen a plethora of changes due to California’s budget crisis, among other things. It has led the district to a change from the innovative and acclaimed block schedule back to the traditional six period day. If this was not a lateral move, it certainly was a step backwards, and a great setback for the entire district. The schedule should be reconsidered immediately, and those responsible for the rushed decision need to take responsibility their mistake.

Teachers and students alike at Arroyo are feeling the pressure. Ms. Jodi Soares, who teaches both regular and AP US History has gone from having 100 students to 170. It is affecting her AP class because she “can’t give assignments where I have to grade writing. We have more classes and less prep time. Students are missing out.” She adds that this new schedule is exhausting and reducing more than jut class time, but also morale. “Right now I feel the way I do right before Christmas break. I’m tired, I’m exhausted, and so are the kids.”  Photography teacher Mr. Jeff Baughman only has thirty cameras to lend to his students, which is a problem when he has 60 more students than he used to. Also, his classes are overcrowded, making it impossible for students to get much accomplished in the small amount of time they have.

Students, meanwhile, don’t have much positive to say either. Senior Carmen Ren, who is taking several AP and honors classes says there isn’t enough time in the day to finish all her work. “With four blocks. I could handle it, but six periods just seems like too much.” Fellow senior Elizabeth Rafalaf simply states, “I can’t believe I have to be in these classes all year.” Except she does not just state it, she repeats it while banging her head against her desk over and over again. Talk about disenfranchising your youth.

Furthermore, conflicts and time issues abound. We now are only afforded five minutes between each of our last four classes of the day for passing. We have lost teachers, such as Ms. Bruneau, an art teacher. Classes are overflowing with up to forty students, which have to be legally redistributed to meet the requirement of teachers teaching no more than thirty-six kids at a time, meaning schedules have to consistently be changing. Counselors are also working harder than ever to try to accommodate everyone, and have been since the news came about in June.

This six period schedule has done nothing good for Arroyo High School, but instead caused students to dread coming to school and teachers to be flooded with way more work than they are getting paid for. It was a rushed decision given no thought and should be changed back as soon as possible, and those responsible should be held accountable.

-Assistant Editor Vincent Martellacci

Currently in this country we have health insurance that is run for profit by private insurance companies. This should be changed to a universal health care system that will save money and provide for the general welfare of the people.

Many people say that a single-payer system would be too expensive, but it would actually cut costs. According to the Denver Post, Canada, which has universal health care, spends 10% of its GDP on health care, and covers all of its citizens. The United States spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare, but 45 million people are uninsured. Also, economist Paul Krugman said, “The great advantage of universal government provided [health care] is lower costs.”

Universal health care would also do a better job of letting people live than our current system. According to a study done by the Institutes of Medicine, more than 18,000 Americans die every year because they are uninsured. Also, the World Health Organization reports that although the United States spends more per person on health insurance, we only rank 28^th in the world for life expectancy.

We desperately need universal health care in this country. Health care is not something that should be run for profit. It should be something that should be run to take good care of people. We should allow the nine million children who have no insurance to be able to see the doctor whenever they need to. We should be able to get a necessary operation without the fear of going bankrupt. Healthcare is something badly needed in this country. An admitting nurse shouldn’t check your credit card, she should check your pulse.

- Staff Reporter Luiz DeGuzman