Schools

Courtesy of Jason Kneebone
Mountain View High School’s marching band is heading to London this week to perform in the city’s New Year’s Day Parade.

With more than 10,000 performers, a street audience of more than 650,000 and a television audience exceeding 600 million, the annual London New Year’s Day Parade is a dream event to perform in for many musicians. That dream will became a reality for Mountain View High School’s marching band in January.

“The New Year’s Day Parade is just one of the events you know exists but never imagine that you will be performing in,” drum major Stephanie Evanson said. “I’m excited to share our music with a different part of the world and play with my friends in a different country.”

The Mountain View Whisman School District Board of Trustees Dec. 21 grudgingly approved a petition to charter a new school in the district proposed by members of the Bullis Charter School community. The new school, Bullis Mountain View, is set to open in the 2019-2020 school year.

In the first week of December, thousands of schools across the country participated in the Hour of Code, a coding initiative designed to expose students to computer science.

Courtesy of Devik Schreiner

Devik Schreiner signs copies of “The Oregon Story,” his latest novel, at his book launch at Gardner Bullis School Dec. 1.

Gardner Bullis School teacher Devik Schreiner’s penchant for making up stories has led to a second career as an author.

Schreiner started telling stories to students in his social studies and language arts classes early in his career, prompted by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

While most local teens stayed around town over the summer – perhaps working a summer job or taking a class – one ventured halfway across the globe to Morocco to learn her sixth language.

Courtesy of Anjali Ramanathan

Anjali Ramanathan spent two months in Morocco learning Arabic.

Los Altos Hills resident Anjali Ramanathan received a selective scholarship from the National Security Language Initiative for Youth to travel to Morocco and learn Arabic last June and July. The program encourages applicants from all walks of life and language ability but focuses solely on learning languages to increase international conversation.

Courtesy of Brian Wilcove
Members of the DeepVision robotics team fix the lift of their robot between matches at the Oct. 5 competition.

Before last year, 17-year-old Reilly Dennedy had never held a drill. Within the year, she not only held a drill, but also helped her team put together a working robot, complete with computer vision and an autonomous mode, that won two awards at its second competition.

“I had no idea what I was doing, at all, but people helped me out,” Dennedy said.