Month: October 2018

When McClatchy’s AP Biology teacher, Mr. Warren, retired after 30 years last summer, C.K.M. welcomed a new teacher to our campus. Ms. Shannon was not informed that she would be teaching AP Biology until the week before school began in August, but she eagerly began planning her course and curriculum and is very excited for what her first year will bring.

Ms. Shannon graduated from San Francisco State University, majoring in Environmental Science, and became involved in indoor air quality investigations and, later, groundwater and soil remediation. She found this field of work to be quite dull, but soon discovered her love for teaching while working as a salsa instructor at Del Campo Dance Studio. After that, Ms. Shannon “decided to combine my teaching interest with my education!”

She has now been a full time teacher for three years, most recently teaching chemistry and physics at Rosemont High School. Due to her last minute assignment to AP Biology, she was quite rushed to come up with her course plan, because Mr. Warren did not leave his curriculum for her to use. She has collaborated with other AP Bio teachers in the area to come up with a “mix-and-match” course of her favorite recommendations and activities from each teacher she contacts.

Ms. Shannon said that “I feel like I’m still trying to get my sea-legs […] but things are coming together.”

As she troubleshoots with her self-made curriculum, she said that her students are “probably pretty stressed out and nervous about what the expectations are,” but that they are understanding the content for the most part, so she is hopeful about her approach. She also stressed her appreciation for student feedback. She wants students to let her know when they need additional guidance or explanation on certain concepts to help her adjust her plans to best accommodate for their learning.

Overall, she has loved working at McClatchy so far, loves her students, and is especially thankful for the help and support of the other teachers in the science department as she makes her adjustment into the C.K.M. community.

Daisy Lewis is the new leading lady lion at McClatchy. With all the tasks and activities she has at hand including ASB, multiple AP classes, and tennis, some may wonder: “How does she balance it all?”

Daisy starts every day with ASB, where she leads meetings. During ASB’s zero period she discusses future events, dances, and all other ASB responsibilities amongst her delegates. During second period, she delivers daily announcements to all students in the school She always ends her daily announcements with the quote, “Make the rest of your life, the best of your life” and she states that she chose this quote because she believes with positivity, great things could happen… and she also wanted something catchy.

Besides running meetings every morning and daily announcements, Daisy has many other presidential duties as well. Every once and awhile, she plans and sets up spirit events and host guests at CKM. Once a week she may attend meetings for the California Association of Student Councils or 4-H On the Wild Side. She even sat on an interview panel to help chose the new vice principals, which she describes as a unique experience. According to Daisy, one of her most important jobs is to talk to the students of Mcclatchy, she says, “I make an effort to try and talk to many people I wouldn’t typically talk to, in order to get a better sense of the school and the needs of the students.”

Daisy’s school schedule includes 6 AP classes daily. She does many other extracurricular activities outside of class including clubs, tennis, and even work. On Mondays, she attends CSF, Tuesdays is Eco Club, Wednesday is French Club, Thursdays is Garden Club, and Friday she attends Fashion club. When not at clubs, she helps the tennis team sell chocolates for their recent fundraiser. After school, Daisy either participates in a tennis match or goes to tennis practice from Monday to Friday, and Friday’s she works at a local tennis club. After a long day she goes home and does chores like every other teenager. Her hobbies include tennis, traveling, fitness, baking, and painting, which she mentions she’s not very good at. One word she uses to describe herself is Motivated.

Daisy has high hopes for this year, “This year, I hope to finally create some campaigns to make the school more environmentally aware.” With that thought, ASB is hosting the biggest canned food drive yet starting Monday, October 15th. She has many things lined up for the year including an upcoming Harvest Festival and other spirit events. She hopes to make everyone at CKM feel more included and increase student involvement making everyone feel as they are a part of the McClatchy family.

So how does she balance everything? According to Daisy, it is all is pretty easy. The biggest thing she learned is time management. She stresses the importance of time management and emphasizes prioritizing academics over many things that aren’t as crucial. Another thing she finds helpful is putting down her phone when doing work. It helps her work faster and get to bed sooner and, as she puts it, “better mornings lead to better days.” She also found that delegation is important: she says, “I realize that I can’t do everything, so the students of ASB really do make a huge difference.” Even with everything in order, some days can be stressful like every other person.

“I believe that your attitude and mentality will truly manifest. When we believe in good things, good things happen. When we believe bad things, bad things happen.” And with that, “Make the rest of your life, the best of your life.”

At the start of the school  year, it hasn’t been uncommon to walk through the halls and hear frequent discussions of “Fatboi Cookn” or even see Fatboi himself, walking around and advertising his channel. Some students excitedly shout his name across the hallway, or turn to their friends to repeat the iconic title, but others just shake their heads in dumbfounded curiosity.

David Padilla is a ninth grader at McClatchy and, unknown to some but famously to others, an amateur Youtuber. His alter-ego, cleverly named “Fatboi Cookn”, started out as an Instagram gag, and eventually turned into a Youtube channel when, after a few months, he felt inclined to get his content onto a more widely viewed platform.

As for his very unique and standout handle, he explained that, “I spelled [Fatboi] differently because I felt it added more to the comedic effect.” Many McClatchy students apparently agree, as a variety of students from all four classes know who he is.

“He is definitely very confident,” says Josie Powell (‘19) when asked her first impressions. “He’s legitimately funny, in a real way.”

Fatboi associates the big day of his commencement into internet entertainment as being the day before his birthday, mid September. It was then that he created a YouTube channel with his friend and cameraman, Cameraman Jones, who doesn’t like his name to be public because he doesn’t like being the cameraman.

When walking around school, Fatboi can frequently be seen with his signature oversized black sunglasses, decorated on each side with the words “Fat” and “Boi” respectively. He also wears a large hoodie that he designed himself, and can be heard shouting “Peep my merch!”, while eagerly sharing the link to his merch store.  

Although he has had the account for only a month, he has gained 168 subscribers, and has nearly six hundred views on his most watched video, “Fat boi cookn (gone right)”. His sporadic yet laughable content is composed entirely of cooking videos, featuring his own creative recipes that require canned chili, Hot Pockets, pizza rolls, and other freezer foods of the like.

When asked specifically about his channel and the audience he creates his content for, he claimed, “I wouldn’t recommend it to children. It’s got dogs, cussing in Spanish, it’s just my stupidity that I turned into something I can be proud of.” Which, in the end, isn’t that what life’s all about?

Correction: Fat Boi Cookn currently has 200 subscribers on YouTube.

McClatchy students may have noticed some new faces on our campus this year, since two of our former assistant principals left McClatchy. Assistant Principal Schlager, who is now the principal of Earl Warren Elementary school, was replaced by Assistant Principal Jessica Martin. Leise Martinez, who was transferred to the District’s Hearing and Placement Center, was replaced by Assistant Principal Ilesha Graham.