Exploring Tech teacher Robert Scialanga will retire after teaching at Burlingame for three years. In addition to teaching Exploring Tech, Scialanga serves as the Robotics Club supervisor after school once a week.

The English Learning Development (ELD) Bridge Program—A San Mateo Union High School District’s English program for non-native speakers--is growing. The program is designed to serve ELD level I students entering the SMUHSD as juniors and seniors with few to no credits who would be better served in an alternative program. 

Fifty-two Italian students from Carpi, Italy arrived in Burlingame on March 19. They stayed for a week, during which time, they explored Sausalito, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Google campus. 

After the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas and two unexpected fire alarms on our own campus, BHS staff and students have been discussing safety on our campus. There are cameras on campus, a campus security guard, and a school safety officer; but compared to Aragon high school, which has a total of 60 cameras on campus, the BHS campus is lacking in terms of an up-to-date security system.

March 23 was declared “The Day of Student Registration to Vote” by the San Mateo Union High School District Board of Trustees. In accordance with the resolution, in all senior government and/or economics classes, students were given the option to register or pre register to vote.

In the most recent “AP Report to the Nation,” data released by the College Board revealed that many Advanced Placement courses across the country are dominated by one particular gender. Although this report analyzed AP tests taken by the Class of 2013, data from Burlingame High School’s 2018 spring semester shows that some AP courses on campus are still overwhelmingly taken by one gender.

In its third year, the district Jumpstart program continues to offer an alternative path to students who have struggled in a traditional school environment. Jumpstart intends to guide students to graduation and assists them in receiving college credits from community college and possibly a four year institution.

Of the many cryptocurrencies, currencies that are based on computer generated encryption, Bitcoin is the quickest growing and most popular, leaving some wondering about the function and legitimacy of it.Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 by a mysterious computer programmer with the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. Since then, the currency has seen an explosive but volatile exponential growth, from one bitcoin valued at $0.06 in 2009 to one bitcoin costing $9,000 in 2018.

One hundred and one year-old Carroll Schmidt remembers a time in Burlingame when fire engines were horse-drawn, the town had dirt roads and William H. Crocker would ride down Floribunda Avenue on a horse and throw toffee candies down to the town’s children.“It was like a chicken feed,” Schmidt said. “It was really something to see.”

As part of a multi-year initiative to combat student stress, the San Mateo Union High School District Board of Trustees has established a committee with the primary goal of reviewing the district’s homework policies with the possibility of recommending district-wide guidelines. The committee is comprised of administrators, teachers, parents and students who will come together four to six times over the 2017/2018 school year while continually updating the Trustees on their findings.