The Oracle

HONORABLE MENTIONS! Congrats to Jessica Wang from The Oracle at Henry M. Gunn H.S. (Kristy Blackburn, adviser) and Claire Stanton from Carlmont Highlander at Carlmont H.S. (Justin Raisner, adviser) for these festive shots in the JEANC Monthly Photo Contest.

The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) school board voted unanimously to approve the secondary schools reopening plan on Tuesday evening, despite vocal opposition from community members. Both student school board representatives voted against the plan. Read the full story: https://gunnoracle.com//pausd-school-board-unanimously-vo/

#youthvoice Great to discover this Election Guide from Gunn High School’s The Oracle in our mail. Election polls open for voting. Issues and candidates that will impact #youthwellbeing is on the ballot. #YourVoteYourVoice

Forum Editor Jessica Wang writes, in her cover story for this next issue, that "2020 is undoubtedly a year for the history books." I couldn't agree with Jessica more. As busy as the Oracle has been with covering contentious school reopening decisions and featuring students' quarantine projects, the 2020 electionnow only five days awayhas served as a backdrop against which every other event in 2020 has unfolded. At the beginning of this school year, it was clear we couldn't... pass up the opportunity to chronicle the course of this electionyet much was unclear. How could we provide fair, nuanced coverage of such a partisan, divisive election? In our articles, how could we balance national politics with equally important local politics? Which issues mattered most to the Palo Alto community? These questions ran through our minds as we debated and brainstormed the best method of reporting on the electionand this is what we've come up with. Without further ado, it's my honor to present the Gunn Oracle's Election 2020 special edition magazine issue. In the coming days, stay tuned for more updates on our Instagram (tomorrow, we'll be previewing our table of contents!) To our subscribers: the magazine will be arriving in your mailboxes soon. To everyone else: we're working on dropping off magazine copies at places around town, where they can be picked up for free. And to all of our readers: enjoy. Joshua Yang, EIC '20-21

Subscriptions close today! Order a subscription to get the special edition election magazine + additional issues delivered straight to your doorstep. Subscribe here: https://tinyurl.com/oraclesubs

On Tuesday nightfollowing hours of discussion among board members and over 60 mostly critical comments from community membersthe PAUSD school board unanimously voted to approve the district’s reopening plan, allowing elementary schools to begin hybrid instruction starting on Oct. 12. The vote came on the heels of a significant number of concerns voiced by teachers and parents. One Palo Alto Educators Association (PAEA) questionnaire completed by over 80% of all elementary ...school teachers reported that 90% of the teachers surveyed felt uncomfortable returning to in-person instruction, according to PAEA President Teri Baldwin. However, by the end of the night, Board Member Todd Collins noted that 443 of the 1283 kindergarten through first grade families in the district had already voted to go towards hybrid learning. Read the full article here: https://gunnoracle.com//update-despite-community-comments/

Given both the disproportionately large number of elementary school teachers reluctant to return to campus and the safety concerns surrounding reopening campuses, The Oracle urges the school board to vote tomorrow against reopening all school campuses until it is safe. This editorial comes in response to the school board meeting on Sept. 22, when board members discussed plans to reopen elementary school campuses for in-person learning on Oct. 12. The current reopening plan is... designed to have kindergarten and first grade classes resume in-person learning on Oct. 12, second and third grade classes return on Oct. 26, followed by fourth and fifth grade classes returning on Nov. 9. During the board meeting, over 100 community members, the majority of whom opposed the plan, publicly offered comments deriding the plan as unsafe and ill-conceived; one speaker went as far as to say that board members would have blood on [their] hands if schools were to reopen. The Oracle shares community members’ views over reopening. Read the full article here: https://gunnoracle.com//editorial-we-can-do-better-the-s/

Last week, a survey sent out by Gunn School Board Rep asked students about their thoughts on the Monday schedule. The results, which were shared with The Oracle, show 62% of the 668 PAUSD students surveyed rated their satisfaction with Monday’s seven half-hour periods as a 1 or 2 on a rating scale of five and 61% of students strongly favored eliminating synchronous Monday classes. Shifting Monday to asynchronous instruction is undoubtedly the right movehalf-hour periods offer fewer opportunities for substantial instruction, and removing them from the schedule would reduce Zoom fatigue and stress on students. Read the story here: https://gunnoracle.com//editorial-monday-schedules-should/

As of Sept. 8, Santa Clara County has moved from a purple to red status on the California COVID-19 monitoring system, a status that, if maintained for 14 days, could allow schools to reopen in the fall. However, district guidelines guarantee that schools will stay closed until Oct. 12at the earliest. Read our full story here: https://gunnoracle.com//update-santa-clara-county-one-ste/

It’s here! In case you weren’t able to grab a physical copy of our First Week issue, read it digitally on Issuu: https://issuu.com/gunnoracle/docs/oraclefdosaugust2020

The Oracle's First Week of School Issue is out and is being mailed home to all students! Be sure to check your mailboxes within the next few days to see what we've been up to

On Saturday, a crowd of community members gathered at City Hall in a protest to affirm the value of black lives and oppose systemic racism. The event began with speeches by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, author and activist Julie Lythcott-Haims, East Palo Alto Mayor Regina Wallace Jones, Palo Alto Mayor Adrian Fine and other community members before the crowd proceeded with an 8 mile march through the city. Protesters demanded justice for the black individuals who have faced police brutality, calling for defunding of police and implementation of new de-escalation measures. : Mia Knezevic

The senior issue is digitally published on Issuu! Read it now at tinyurl.com/seniorissue2020.

A group of peaceful protesters gathered yesterday to march down Oregon Expressway toward City Hall. The protesters, holding signs to attract the attention of passing drivers and pedestrians, voiced their support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s death, on May 25. In anticipation of criminal activity increasing in association with protests, city officials established a curfew between 8:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. each night, starting tonight and ending on the morning of June 11. : Anna Toksvig

Seniors! Check your mailboxes! In the coming days, the senior issue of The Oracle will be coming your way. The 14 members of our senior staff have worked tirelessly throughout the past few weeks to bring this 40 page issue to you, and we hope flipping through it will remind you just how amazing the class of 2020 really is. The senior issue is our way of celebrating our class--as you flip through the issue, we hope you'll stop to read staffers' reflections on their time in hig...h school, marvel at the accomplishments of your fellow seniors in features and reminisce over your fond high school memories along with your peers. For us senior staffers, it is also our way of saying good bye to The Oracle after several years of hard work to bring you monthly news and stories. We've always been grateful for your readership, and we hope you will find joy in reading this last issue of our senior year. Congratulations, 2020 grads! We couldn't be prouder to be sharing this issue with this class. See more

The May issue of the Gunn Oracle has always been a special occasion; for the first time, staffers move into brand-new editor positions, run new sections and adjust themselves into a new Oracle without staffers from the class of 2020 present. In normal years, this production of this issue would have been a tough, challenging learning experience, but this year has been anything but normal. As such, staffers have had to contend with not being able to hold face-to-face intervie...ws with sources; with not being able to help each other learn Adobe InDesign (our extremely finnicky layout software) in-person; with balancing the duties of being a journalist with their personal lives during this pandemic. The smallest actionsyelling across the room to say, "Hey, what's the status on this article"are gone. The computers containing all our servers, files and software are gone. Those valuable moments of staff bonding and camaraderie are gone, only to be replaced by lonely evenings working on layout edits well past midnight. Right now, journalism is needed more than ever. We're not asking for your money or your donations; we're asking for your time and attentionfor you to flip through (virtual) pages; to consider the ramifications presented by Nikki Suzani and Jessica Zang's news article (page 1); to laugh at Angela Wong's adventures in wandering outside (page 12); to take in Jessica Wang's deeply moving personal column (page 5). I'd be lying if I said this issue of the Oracle was easy to producein fact, all staff members faced an entire host of challenges in making sure our content could reach your screens and devices. Still, we persevered and won small victories each and every day, one article, page layout and exported PDF at a time. I couldn't be prouder of the near-miracle we've achieved in pulling this off. So take this time to read, reflect and enjoy. We'll see you in the fall. Joshua Yang, EIC '20-21