Incumbent candidate  for Albany School Board  Ron Rosenbaum held a campaign sign at Solano Stroll parade. Rosenbaum is well-known in the community as a former principal of Albany High School and an Albany resident for more than three decades. He wrote the following message addressed to Albany voters:  

Experience. Responsiveness. Integrity

This is what I bring to the Albany Board of Education.

I have been an Albany resident for the past 34 years and a public educator in the East Bay for 37 years. As an educator, I have been a classroom teacher, a middle and high school counselor, a high school administrator, and continue to devote myself to public education as a current member of the Albany Board of Education.

I am particularly proud of the years I spent as Principal of Albany High School, working collaboratively with teachers, parents, and students to bring many new programs to the district, including high school block scheduling, writing coaches for students, freshman health curriculum, the Future Leaders Institute, the Drug and Alcohol Task Force, mental health counseling, expanded academic counseling, and expansion of the breadth and depth of the high school curriculum.

I bring a deep understanding of public education and of the Albany community to the board. My goal as a board member is to continue working with our educational community to create a school district that is second to none, with all students, pre-kindergarten to adult, achieving and thriving in our schools.

Click to read more about his educational background, his campaign goals, and the full list of his endorsements.

Contact him by call: (510) 525-1109   or e-mail: ronrosenbaum@ronrosenbaum.org

*This post is part of Meet Election Candidates, a special coverage on the local elections by Albany Today. Each candidate for this year’s local elections has been invited to write an article and record a video speech addressed to Albany voters, which will be published on Albany Today in the following days. Please read their articles, watch their speech, and feel free to write comments under the posts.

Patricia Low is running for Albany School Board against John Kindle and incumbent Ron Rosenbaum . The three candidates are competing for two seats at the school board. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Patricia Low traced her decision to run for Albany School Board back to her kindergarten year.  When she was a kindergartner in San Francisco Chinatown in the 1960s, boys and girls were separated in the school yard.

She didn’t have Caucasian classmates until her family moved across the Bay to Berkeley two years later. At her new school, there were few students of color. She was the only Asian student in her class.

“People often regarded me as an exchange student, ” Low said.

That experience changed drastically in her third-grade year, when the Berkeley School District desegregated elementary schools in 1968.

“The school became entirely different. It was fascinating to me, ” Low said. “It led me into a life-long interest in public education.”

She thrived in the new school system. She graduated from University of California at Berkeley as a English Literature major, got several teaching credentials at San Francisco State University, and went on to obtain a PhD in Education at Stanford.

“As an Asian American woman, I was very fortunate to grow up during this time in California, ” she said.

She taught at several public schools and lectured at community colleges in the Bay Area for about ten years. Now she works for a non-profit educational research organization based in Oakland.

“I could talk about school education for ever and bore other people, ” Low said during a recent interview in her house, which was two blocks away from Albany Middle School, where her son was attending school.

Low and her husband moved to Albany 13 years ago, when they were expecting the child. Similar to many young couples moving to the city, the quality of Albany schools was a major reason for their choice.

When her son was attending Cornell Elementary,  Low was always around. She used to be a board member of the PTA,  a member of the School Site Council, and the Chairman of the International Potluck, an annual event during which parents from diverse cultural backgrounds cooked and shared food.

After her son finished elementary this summer, Low decided that it was time for her to run for the school board.

“With my extensive background in education, it makes sense and it’s the best fit,” she said.

She has got endorsements from two current school board members, Miriam Walden and Jamie Calloway. (Click here to view the full endorsement list)

She doesn’t accept donations, and she plans to spend less than $1,000 for her campaign.

“Given the current economic times, it’s better to run a simple and effective campaign, ” she said.  “It’s my contribution to the community. “

***

A message from Patricia Low:

I have decided to run for the Board of Education in Albany upon the encouragement of Board member Miriam Walden and other members of the community for the following reasons. I believe that the board would benefit from my broad educational and work experience in education. I also believe the board would benefit from becoming more ethnically diverse. Finally, I choose to run because I have long held community service as a value in my life and work choices and serving on the board would allow me to continue this tradition.

Now one of the most important things a school board member has to do is make sound, ethical, fiscally responsible decisions that benefit the greatest number of students, teachers and community members as possible. I have training and experience evaluating data, facilitating groups and conducting evaluations. My daily work requires me to summarize and process data and information quickly and efficiently. I understand school finance from my work on the Cornell PTA Board and School Site Council, as well as my professional experience. I am a voracious reader. I am equipped to make responsible decisions that benefit the community.

More than that, I have thought carefully about the context in which decisions about schools have to be made. What is our vision for Albany schools? What is our hope for the future of our children? Sound responsible decisions must be made in the context of such a vision. As a board, it is our responsibility to be visionary as well as practical. I have proven work experience showing that I can work as a team member to develop goals and accomplish tasks based upon these goals.

When I think of preparing Albany students for productive and joyful futures, I have many ideas. For one, we need to prepare students to live in an increasingly global and information based society. For another, while giving students an excellent education in the basic academic areas has certainly been a strength in Albany, we also need to recognize the increasing importance of multiple intelligences, including social and emotional intelligences and skills.

On a practical level, then, I am very interested in curriculum and instruction as they address the goals I have described in the previous paragraph. I also care deeply about the lives of children and their families in and out of school and recognize that quality daycare and enrichment are very important to Albany families. Particularly in our present economy, American middle class families are stretched thin with school and work and other activities and responsibilities. I am interested in addressing the academic, daycare and enrichment needs of students while recognizing that some long term planning may be in order as the district is short on space and facilities. But, again, this is where having a vision is important. We need to listen to all sectors of the Albany community to learn about and plan how best to support families of all kinds. If we do so, we could enhance our already good reputation as a community and school district that supports families and young people.

Finally, I have always been a good listener and I plan to continue to do so. On the playground, on the soccer field, at the band concerts and everywhere in the community, I have heard many interesting, insightful thoughts on education and raising a family in today’s world from so many of you. I will continue to listen if you give me the opportunity to contribute to the Albany schools and community by becoming a member of the Board of Education. Thank you for your consideration.

Albany Today is trying to help you find out the answers by putting forward Meet the Candidates, a special coverage on the local elections. Each candidate has been invited to write an article and record a video speech addressed to Albany voters, which will be published on Albany Today in the following days. Please read their articles, watch their speech, and feel free to write comments under the posts.

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A preliminary hearing on Albany teacher Kay Sorg’s case will be held on Oct. 14, according to Greg Dolge, Deputy District Attorney of Alameda County.

Several hearings scheduled in recent months had been canceled. The Superior Court of Alameda County has not ruled on whether testimony of “sexually explicit” letters from the defendant to the alleged victim could be accepted as evidence.

Dolge’s colleague Danielle Hilton will replace him to be the prosecutor of the case at the upcoming hearing.

Sorg is a veteran teacher of Albany Middle School charged with sexual assault on a former student. She pleaded not guilty in March.

Click here to read earlier stories on the case.

Four cars collided on Dartmouth St. of Albany Sunday. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan

A black Prius ran into a Toyota 4Runner at the crossing of Dartmouth Street and Evelyn Avenue Sunday, crashing into two other cars parked near the intersection. No person suffered major injuries but the vehicles were heavily damaged.

The Prius was going southward along Evelyn Ave. and the 4Runner going eastward along Dartmouth St. when they collided, according to Officer Jose Lara of the Albany Police Department.

It was not clear whether the Prius driver had run the stop sign on Evelyn Ave. approaching Dartmouth St.. Lara said that the police department would conduct further investigation and finish a report on the accident by the end of this week.

Javon Wallace, driver of the 4Runner, said he was driving at about 20 miles per hour when he suddenly felt the crash.

“She (the Prius driver) ran a stop sign and hit me”, said Wallace.

Javon Wallace sat on the front stairs of a house near the collision scene while Lt. Mike Cesmat of the Albany Fire Department tested his blood pressure. None of the drivers got major injuries. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan

Wallace’s car then crashed into a Cherokee parked on the street, which was pushed to hit a Chevrolet Venture parked in its front.

Four cars had been badly damaged when the two drivers recovered from the shock of the chain collision.

“She was kind of scared as I was,” Wallace said.

After talking with police, the Prius driver, who declined interview, sat on the ground of a sidewalk watching her tattered car being towed away.

The shattered Prius. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

The accident happened around 3 p.m., Sunday, with three loud bangs disturbing the quiet neighborhood.

Nick Birnbaun, owner of the damaged Cherokee, was asleep in his house across the street then he heard the sound.

“I looked out of the window and saw this huge accident, and I found my car get totaled,” he said.

As you are reading this post, I am on my way to Beijing for my summer internship. I am excited at the trip because I will have a chance to report on the Olympic Games and also see my family.

It is a pity that I would not be able to cover Albany local news closely in the following three months. However, I will continue my news service to you when I am back in September.

If you have stories, opinions, and notices of events to share with the community, please continue sending them to me, since I could still post them while I am in Beijing.

I wish you a good summer!

Linda (Linjun) Fan

Parents and teachers lined up to speak on the staggered reading program of Albany Unified School District at a meeting last Tuesday. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Dozens of parents and teachers spoken passionately on the staggered reading program of Albany Unified School District at a recent board meeting. About half of them sharply challenged the program while the other half stoutly supported it.

Under the program, each class of Albany’s first, second and third graders is divided into two smaller groups and receive reading instructions separately. One group, the “early birds”, start school at 8:30 a.m. and finish at 1:35 p.m., while the other group, the “late birds” start and finish school an hour later.

The program was adopted by the Albany school district in the 1970s as a tool to reduce class sizes. A majority of parents used to support the program, because they thought that small group instruction benefited their kids.

But they are split over it now. While most of them still agree that small group instruction is valuable, many are concerned that the program has shortened school hours and added childcare burden.

“It is not clear to me that cutting short school hours is an appropriate price to pay (for small group instruction), ” said Zeph Landau, a parent of a first grader at Marin Elementary School.

Another parent Jon Meyers started to challenge the program when he had a difficult time getting morning childcare for his first grader who was assigned by his teacher to a late bird class.

Less than a half of the parents who need morning childcare could get a slot from district-runned programs. Only 30 slots are available for 121 enrolled 1-3 graders at Marin; only 15 are available for 126 students at Cornell Elementary.

“I believe childcare is a critical issue, ” Meyers said.

Many other parents still support the program.

“It has helped my son become a stronger reader, ” said Alesia Alonso, parent of a second grader at Marin. “I think it’s important for kids to have more uninstructed time of the day.”

A majority of teachers believe that the program helps them improve education quality.

“It would be a sad day for Albany if people sacrifice the quality of education for childcare needs, ” said Diane Meltzer, a teacher for second graders at Marin.

Tracy Signor, a teacher for second graders at Ocean View Elementary, said the staggered reading program enables her to meet specific needs of her students.

The Albany school district has been looking for ways to address the controversy since last fall. It has held a number of meetings and conducted a survey in April offering several options for parents and teachers to rank and comment.

More than 500 among 1,300 parents of Albany elementary school students participated in the survey — about half of the surveyed parents wanted to discard the program and extend current school hours for either an hour or eighty minutes; a fourth of them preferred to keep the current program; and 37.5 per cent wanted to keep staggered reading classes but extend school time for 20 minutes.

Among the nearly 60 teachers who took the survey, 60 per cent of them preferred to continue the program, a third would like to keep small group instruction but add 20 minutes in school time, and less than twenty percent wanted to abandon the program completely.

“The community is divided over the issue. We need to find a way to bring people together, ” said Marla Stephenson, Assistant Superintendent of the school district.

She said that it was possible for the district to both keep small group instruction and lengthen school hours.

“It takes a lot of thoughtful planning, ” Stephenson said. “We can try.”

Terry Georgeson, principal of Ocean View Elementary and parent of a third grader, said that she shared parents’ concerns over school hours and childcare, but she was also worried that a dramatic change to the program would stretch the school’s resources and bring in unexpected problems.

She said that it would be a good comprise to keep the staggered reading classes and add 20 minutes to the school day.

“It offers us more of what we need but brings less risks, ” Georgeson said.

Stephenson has recommended to the Board of Education that principals ask teachers if they wish to extent the school day for first to third grades by 20 minutes in the upcoming academic year.

The Board listened to parents and teachers’ opinions at its regular meeting last week, and will discuss the issue at a special meeting Wednesday, June 4. (click here for the agenda)

Board President Charles Blanchard said he would ask administrators more detailed questions at that time.

“If we were to make change, I would need to know how it fits in with the other teaching programs of the school day, ” Blanchard said.

Albany artist Karen Nierlich smiled at her photo show “Fragile and Resilient”at Albany Art Gallery. Nierlich wrote an article below about how her children helped her to enter the fascinating world of photography. Photo by Linda(Linjun) Fan.

As they say “kids change everything”. When I had my second child, one change I made was switching from painting to photography. I’d been a painter for 20 years, but now as a parent with two kids, I found I had little time for the solitary and intensive pursuit of painting.

Instead I spent a lot of time outdoors with my children or watching them make things. I found photography fit with the wandering and creative time I spent with my kids.

This was my initial artistic inspiration- That winter there was a great deal of rain. I noticed all this gorgeous moss that had sprung up thanks to the rain, and of course, it was the most captivating shade of green. I tracked down spots on the sidewalks where it was clinging to lines, bricks or grids or other interesting patterns on the sidewalks. Those became my first series of photographs.

Sometime after the moss left a most incredible thing happened. One morning my husband and I were reading the paper on a Sunday morning. I went out to see what the kids were doing in the backyard. They were playing with this doll house furniture a friend had dropped at the house. The furniture was very beautiful, detailed, precise, and also old and coming apart.

They’d filled buckets with water and used chalk to draw rivers of blue on the concrete. My son had taken a big blob like clay sculpture he’d made the week before and broken it into lots of small pieces and lined them up into undulating lines. I ran to get my camera to photograph the wet clay rocks, water, chalk, and miniature furniture. There were plastic bath toys like a big red octopus as well. I’ve called this scene “The Flood” ever since. It was a defining moment for exuberant, messy action art in our lives.

Nierlich’s son, Calder Abbott, created a meandering line of wet clay pieces.

*Karen Nierlich has a degree in fine art from the Chicago Art Institute. She and her family live in Albany.

Photo Show “Karen Nierlich: Fragile and Resilient” takes place at Albany Arts Gallery, 1251 Solano Avenue, Albany, with an artist’s reception on Sunday, June 7, 4-6 p.m.

Albany Softball Team celebrated its NCS title Saturday at Levine-Fricke Field. Photo by Ned Purdom. Article by Rashad Alaiyan.

Albany Softball Team was crowned NCS champion after winning a tight match against its opponent from Concord High School at Levine-Fricke Field Saturday.

The Cougars of Albany went down quietly in the top of the first inning, while the Minutemen of Concord stormed out to an early 1-0 lead. Going into the top of the third inning the Cougars looked a little vulnerable, allowing two more runners to score, giving Concord a 3-0 cushion.

The lead Concord had built didn’t last long, as Joan Cannon of Albany singled to left center, sending sophomore catcher Maddie Cousens to the plate. After a wild pitch in which Cannon advanced all the way to third, Cousens laced an RBI single to cut the deficit to 3-1. Laura Cannon came up to bat and ripped a double into the gap in left center, reducing the lead to 3-2.

After a pitching change, Nicole Presher came up to bat, and hit a shot off of the pitchers glove, sending runners to first and third. Senior star Amaya Fernandez tied the game at three for the Cougars with an RBI chopper to first base, and following another wild pitch, Presher moved to third base, setting up an outstanding at-bat by sophomore right fielder Sabina Kahn. After fouling away a dozen pitches, Kahn eventually hit the 13th pitch of the at bat up the middle to give the Cougars a 4-3 lead going into the bottom half of the inning.

However, Concord immediately tied it up with a leadoff homerun to tie the game at 4-4. It plated two more runs and took the lead at 6-4 by the end of the fifth inning.

Senior Laura Cannon stops a baserunner. Photo by Ned Purdom.

Neither team netted any runs in the sixth inning. Joan Cannon struck out to begin the top half of the seventh inning. But Cousens advanced to first base on a walk. Laura Cannon hit a blooper to the shortstop, but it was misplayed and the Cougars had runners at first and second with only one away. Presher hit an RBI single to center, and an untimely error by the centerfielder advanced the runners to second and third. Fernandez hit little dribbler back to the pitcher, who threw the ball home, trying to prevent the run from scoring. An overthrow to third by the catcher tied the game at six a piece.

The momentum shifted to the Cougar’s side. After a quick bottom of the seventh inning, the Cougars put runners on second and third, setting up some late-game heroics for Joan Cannon. Cannon hit a slow grounder to short, which scored the go ahead run, giving the Cougars the lead for good at 7-6.

By posting an outstanding 24-1 record, including a remarkable 16-0 in the BSAL, the Cougars impressed even their harshest critics.

*Ned Purdom is an instructor of the Journalism Program of Albany High School. Rashad Alaiyan is a reporter under his guidance.

Taylor Raphael, an Albany high schooler, had walked through a turbulent journey in the past year, battling against drug addiction and winning wrestling matches. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Taylor Raphael stood tall on the awarding podium of Newark Memorial High School Gym, smiling at flashing cameras and cheering audience. He had won fourth place in the North Coast Section Championship and would be the only Albany wrestler to compete in the state wrestling championship. Few in the the applauding crowd knew about the turbulent journey he had taken to be there.

***
It was an afternoon in springtime, 2001. School was over. Taylor and another boy at Albany Middle School crept into a deserted concrete tunnel near the school. The boy, a seventh grader, a year older than Taylor, asked Taylor whether he would like to try some weed.

Taylor seldom said no to something new and cool.

The older boy crammed a quarter gram of marijuana into a pipe, and lit it up.

Taylor inhaled. A few minutes later his mind seemed to be drifting in the air. He didn’t worry about his homework, or about teachers’ criticism, or anything. It was a weird feeling.

He liked it.

***

Taylor started to deal marijuana in his junior year. The profits provided him pocket money, and paid for his own daily consumption. He thought it might be a good business he could keep doing for the rest of his life.

But a parent found out that her child bought marijuana from Taylor and complained to school administrators.

A security guard grabbed Taylor out of his classroom one day. Evidence from surveillance cameras showed him dealing weed. Taylor shouted and cursed.

A counselor searched Taylor’s backpack, and found half an ounce of weed inside. He called Taylor’s parents and the Albany police.

The police handcuffed Taylor, and drove him to a holding cell of the Albany Police Department. Taylor collapsed into tears in the back of the police vehicle.

There were nothing but a chair and his thoughts in the cell. The world was so unfair to him. He saw himself as a smart kid, and a good kid. Why were they making such a fuss? It was just some weed.

A few days after the arrest, Taylor was expelled from Albany High School.

***

Three weeks later Taylor slowly walked up the concrete stairs of MacGregor High School, a continuation school in Albany. He felt his life was screwed up.

There were about forty students at MacGregor. Many of them had problems with regular school, and transferred from Albany High School because of failing grades.

MacGregor was located in a quiet neighborhood near Albany Hill. From the balcony of MacGregor, Taylor could see the red complex building of Albany High School, which was less than a mile away. All his friends were there.

Barry Shapiro, principal of MacGregor, welcomed Taylor with a firm handshake. Having taught at the school for years, Shapiro knew how to talk to kids who had a hard time concentrating in class.

A month later in Shapiro’s class, Taylor sat in his chair struggling to stay awake, after a night of smoking and drinking.

Shapiro came to his desk. “Why don’t you take a nap on the couch in the lobby?”

Taylor couldn’t believe what he heard. He looked at Shapiro and rubbed his eyes. “What, huh?”

Shapiro said it again.

Taylor went to the couch and had a good sleep. He seldom dozed off in class after that.

He started to like MacGregor. Everybody knew each other well at the school, partly due to its small size. Teachers gave students strict guidelines, but were not demanding on their academic achievements.

Taylor got confidence in school. He finished the last month of his junior year at MacGregor. When he returned in September, he got A’s in most of his classes and made many new friends.

Taylor signed in at MacGregor High School. Several copies of news stories about him were posted on the billboard in front of him.
.
***
Taylor had no desire to go back to Albany High School, but he still kept his blue and red wrestling uniform of its wrestling team.

He had been a wrestler for six years, and won a number of medals. Nothing feels better to him than winning a wrestling match.

For Taylor, wrestling was like nothing else in his life. On the wrestling mat he was in control. There were no distractions, no one telling him what to do, just him, his strength and his own wits.

In February, 2007, three months before his arrest, Taylor was disqualified from wrestling because of his falling grades.

It was in the middle of a wrestling season. Taylor wept alone at a corner of the school’s baseball field, when he realized there was no hope for him to continue wrestling in the season.

He wished he could blame somebody else. But it was clear that his teachers and parents had tried very hard to help him.

His friends picked him up afterwards. They went to smoke marijuana. Taylor smoked until he couldn’t remember what had happened.

***

MacGregor students can join sports teams of Albany High School as long as they have enough grades. The good grades Taylor got at MacGregor helped him return to the wrestling team of Albany High.

He practiced hard. He was eager to win. He wanted to prove to the world that he was still the prominent young athlete they had cheered for.

He won one tournament after another in the new season, until he was ranked No.1 in the North Coast Section Championship, the biggest wrestling event in Northern California, in the 130-pound weight class.
He smoked less weed, so he could concentrate on wrestling practice. A week before the championship, he stopped smoking completely.

It was a hard choice. He had to resist the temptation constantly, especially when his friends smoked.

Several days before the championship Taylor and his friends drove to a house in Richmond. He went inside with $15 cash from a friend and returned with a gram of marijuana.

Taylor gave it to the friend. They drove away from the house, playing loud rap music in the car with the windows open, rocking and shouting to the music.

After arriving at a street corner in Albany, the friend tore open a cigar, threw away the tobacco, and carefully wrapped the weed inside. Taylor offered to help. He took the cigar with both hands, licked wet the upper side of the wrap, and swiftly sealed it up.

When the friend lit up the newly-made blunt and started to puff, Taylor suddenly walked away from him, got into their car, and drove away from the familiar smell.

He didn’t come back to pick up the friend until 20 minutes later, after the smell was gone.

Taylor wore a pink goggle while he and his friends drove around town. He salvaged the goggle from a swimming pool near a friend’s apartment.  

**
The next night Taylor hung out at a friend’s house. Some boys were drinking alcohol.

Taylor sat there silently. I shouldn’t join them, he thought. Alcohol turns me into someone else, and the championship is just two days away.

They opened a forty-ounce. Everybody was making noise and having fun.

“Taylor, you want some?” a friend asked.

Taylor hesitated.

“If I just drink a little bit, it should be all right.”

He started to drink a bit. He felt good. He felt like drinking some more, and helped himself.

He couldn’t remember how he got home when he woke up in his bed the next day. Did he walk home by himself, or did his friends drop him off?

He called his friends. They told him that he was very drunk, cursed several people, and staggered home alone.

Taylor got scared. He could have been picked up by police and arrested again. He vowed to give up alcohol.

***
Taylor didn’t eat anything the day before the championship in order to make weight.

On the wrestling day he got up at 4:30 a.m., and put on a T-shirt he won from a previous tournament. He packed a red canteen, with a spiderman picture on it, and a new pair of white wrestling shoes in his bag.

Hundreds of young wrestlers from schools around Northern California crowded the Newark Memorial High School Gym. Six yellow wrestling mats glared under strong lights in the middle of the gym, surrounded by hundreds of rows of blue seats.

Six wrestling matches were going on at the same time. The gym was a beehive of sounds — referees blowing whistles, audience cheering, coaches shouting to their wrestlers, and constant announcements from loudspeakers, .

Taylor put on his new shoes, flexed his biceps, and walked to his assigned mat.

He pinned his first opponent a minute into the match, and pinned the second one within two minutes. He won the third match by an overwhelming score of 16:0.

The audience cheered. His coaches and teammates hugged him.

Taylor smiled after he won the first three wrestling matches at North Coast Section Championship.

Taylor talked to a newspaper reporter shortly after he finished a wrestling match.

He imagined himself winning the fourth match, competing in the final one, and heading to the state championship.

He might even become the state champion. He planned to do a back flip in the center of the gym when he won. He had taught himself how to do it while he was studying Chinese martial arts many years ago.

He could hardly hold back his excitement when he sat outside the gym after his matches.

“I am the No. 1 seed, baby, ” he said to a girl who walked by.

When he crossed a street on his way home, he repeated the statement to vehicles driving by.

“I am the No. 1 seed in NCS (North Coast Section), ” he said.

When he came back to the gym for the fourth match the next day, Taylor didn’t feel much pressure at his opponent, a boy named Aaron Westphal, who was much shorter than him.

After the referee blew a whistle, Taylor kept a distance from Aaron, and adjusted his stance according to Aaron’s movements. But Aaron suddenly squatted down and took Taylor’s right leg.

Taylor faced his opponent and adjusted his positions at the beginning of a match at Newark Memorial High School Gym.

Taylor was taken down before he could do anything. Shortly afterwards Aaron took him down again, and again. During the six-minute match, Taylor was taken down five times. He lost the match at 15:6.

He walked out of the stadium and sat on the ground outside. It was drizzling.

***

He used to cry every time he lost a match in the past. But he didn’t feel like crying anymore. It wouldn’t help him to win the next match.

He did a couple of stretches and warmed up his body. He had one more match. If he did well, he could still make it to the state championship. He wanted to win. He wanted to wrestle in the state meet.

At the fifth match, Taylor’s opponent was Erik Jameson from Clear Lake High School.

Erik touched Taylor’s neck and legs in the first few seconds, but failed to grab them. Taylor dashed over, and grabbed his left leg. Erik tried to keep his balance, but Taylor took his right leg, and slammed him down.

Taylor continued to fight hard in the second round, grasped the left side of Erik’s body and turned him over on the mat. With a second take-down and then a turn-over, Taylor won the match.

He got up from the mat, clenched his fists, and looked toward the audience like a victorious general. His muscles bulged. Sweat streamed down his face.

He walked to shake hands with his opponent’s coach, and then ran to his two coaches, Kermit Bankson and Tyrone Rose, who had been nervously standing by the mat.

Taylor’s father, who had taken a day off from his job at Stanford University, smiled in the audience and called back home on his cell phone to announce the good news.

At the awarding ceremony a few hours later, Taylor walked up red-carpeted steps to the winner’s platform. He had come a long way from the first day he walked up the concrete stairs of MacGregor.

He received his medal with both hands, and solemnly hung it in front of his chest. He stood straight and smiled towards flashing cameras.

After stepping down the platform, he caressed the medal, and gently rolled up a paper sheet, on which there was a bracket of all his opponents’ names and the scores of each of his matches at the championship.

At home that night, he hung the medal in his bedroom cabinet, and posted the bracket on the wall beside his bed.

He friends might call later. There would be many more choices for him to make and battles to fight. But he knew that he’d learned something he would hold dear for the rest of his life.

Taylor looked at the NCS bracket in his bedroom.

Watch the video below for Taylor Raphael’s performance at the North Coast Section Wrestling Championship:

*It took me several months to get to know Taylor and finish this story — the longest story I’ve ever written. I am thankful to Taylor for openning his life for me to do the reporting; to my two instructors, Joan Ryan and David Lewis of San Francisco Chronicle, who taught me a class on narrative writing and helped to shape the story along the way; to Mr. Barry Shapiro, who introduced Taylor to me and gave me opportunities to sit in Taylor’s classes; to Coach Kermit Bankson and Tyrone Rose, who gave me beginner lessons on wrestling . Thanks! — Linda (Linjun)

Freshman Meagan Tokunaga at Albany High School rips a pitch to left in a softball game Wednesday. Her team has won three games this week and will compete for NCS champion Saturday. Photo by Daryn Singh. Article by Rashad Alaiyan.

Led by an outstanding performance by sophomore pitcher Sara Muse, the Albany Cougars defeated the Las Lomas Knights in a close second-round NCS softball game Wednesday.

The Cougars bats came out on fire from early on. Senior twins Joan and Laura Cannon, two of the top players in the BSAL, led an early onslaught of runs, and the Cougars took an early 2-0 lead going into the top of the second.

The Knights were unable to get anything going offensively all night long, and their frustration was evident throughout the entire game. The Cougars began manufacturing runs for the last few innings of the ball game, and by the end of the 7th inning, the Cougars had built a 5-0 lead in a contest that was not as close as the scoreboard indicated.

The Lady Cougars marched on and beat the Heritage Patriots 12-3 in a NCS semifinal game Friday. They will take on the softball team of Concord High School to compete for NCS champion at Levine-Fricke Field Saturday, May 24.

Click here for more information about the team. Daryn Singh and Rashad Alaiyan are students at Albany High School and reporters for the Cougar.

Ian Allen, a senior at Albany High School, will be attending Columbia University in the fall. Several hundred students will soon graduate from the school and go to various colleges across the country. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Madeleine Miller-Bottome, another senior of the school, talked to Ian and several other students on their college application experiences and wrote the following story.

What seems to be the most prevalent piece of advice thrown about to students venturing into the college application and decision process is “Don’t stress about it too much. It will work out. ” Maybe it was just me, because probably, I did stress about college too much, and did not trust that it was going to work out. Now sitting somewhat comfortably in a position that allows for some retrospection, I was curious to hear how my peers found the experience.

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Ian Allen will be attending the Fu School of Engineering as an applied physics major at Columbia University in the fall. The role of his parents in the college process and decision was “pretty much nothing,” but he explained that what has largely contributed to his success as a student has been the fact that he “honestly really enjoys learning about all this stuff.”

Ian’s passion and skill at science was cultivated after joining the Science Bowl team during his freshman year.

“I think that was the number one thing that helped me out. It sparked a huge interest in science for me and it made me think that [science] would be something that I would want to spend my life doing,” he said.

He did the intensive study required for Science Bowl participants, took community classes, even did an internship at the Berkeley Lab, but he never did the activites with college in mind.

“I was more after learning about the stuff and being able to compete,” Ian said.

His advice for underclassmen approaching the application season, “Don’t stress out about it too much.”

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Jose Reyes Cuerto will be attending UC Berkeley next spring with a $32, 000 scholarship.

“It’s such huge relief,” he says about the scholarship. “My dad always told me, ‘ I don’t care what I have to do, you go to whatever college you want to, don’t worry about cost.’ But now that I got the scholarship, and now that he has four years he won’t have to pay tuition, he can build the hospital he’s always wanted to build for his community.”

The dreams that his father, who lives in Mexico, had for Jose were a big influence on his college aspirations.

“From the beginning, my father was always ‘These are the universities that are the best, and I want you to apply, because I want you to be the best.’”

But his Dad’s dreams were never a pressure for Jose, ” I think it’s more what I grew up with. He always told me, ‘If you don’t get in, it doesn’t matter, we’ll always have a second option.”

With his parents in Mexico, Jose was responsible for all the application materials, including the financial aid forms, “That I found pretty hard.”

“I did things I enjoyed more than to get into college. Something my parents always told me, that it’s better to be happy and do what you want to do instead of looking forward to something that might not even happen. My parents always taught me to be involved.”

So Jose participated in clubs like Model U.N., Amnesty International, and the Latino Student Union. Once he began taking AP classes, school was challenging, but he enjoyed his classes.

“I always work harder in things I enjoy doing,” he said.
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The best advice Jose could pass on from this college process is not to procrastinate. “That was a big thing. But also, don’ t think about it too much, don’t let college be your only focus. “

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Raha Mirabdal plans to enroll in Diablo Valley College for two years and then transfer to UC Davis.

“At first I didn’t want to go to DVC at all, because the reputation is really bad, not just for DVC, but for community college in general. But for me, it’s an easier path, it’s just simpler.”

It was her parents who in effect encouraged Raha to enroll at DVC, inspired by family friends who had had successful college and career experiences after attending community college.

Raha says she dreads when people ask her what her plans are for next year, “I have to tell them I’m going to DVC and I feel like I have to explain myself, my plan, they can’t just accept it.”

She excelled in Biology, took AP English and passed the exam. “I kind of just did whatever I thought was right for me, it wasn’t for college, it was for myself. “

The interest she cultivated in her Biology class she said has lead her to want to pursue a science major at Davis to someday be an oncologist. She plans on volunteering at the Children’s Hospital this year to reach this goal.

“If I was at a UC from the start, I think I’d be really stressed out figuring out a whole new place, new everything, but at DVC I can ease myself into it, and be able to do all the work and volunteering I need to get where I want to go.”

“If you work hard at what you want, even if you haven’t done perfectly in high school, you can always start fresh. Just go for it right there and then, ” she said.

What’s my advice? In all honesty, I would suggest taking a cue from Ian, Jose, and Raha. Live in the present. Do the activities you like, take the classes that interest you, and chances are you’ll do better in them.

One of the most important things I’ve learned from this whole journey is that there really doesn’t seem to be a wrong way to go. Whether your plans are to go to a UC, an Ivy League, or community college, trust this: Don’t stress about it too much. It will work out.