The Drake Jolly Roger

Wise, caring, joyful, and motherly. All these words were used to describe Barbara McCune, the College and Career Specialist who had dedicated her time and energy to students here for 18 years.

“I think she was a gift to this community,” said McCune’s long time friend and Internship Liaison Roberta Dossick.

McCune, at age 63, died from a heart attack during the night of November 21, 2010, shocking family and community members.

There is no denying that McCune was a treasured person, always knowing the right thing to say to bring calm and a smile to anyone who approached her. “She taught me to trust that things would work out,” said Dossick. “She had a lot of wisdom.”

McCune was a fierce friend and supportive adviser to her students and colleagues. “I think a lot now, ‘what would Barbara do?’ She’s my guide because she handled things so well,” Dossick said.

Sheila Souder also looked to Barbara for advice. “She just had that way of sharing herself.” Whether it was guidance about work or a second opinion on what to bring on a summer vacation, Souder always knew McCune would give her good advice..

“She cared so much about doing the right thing for each individual person,” said Souder. “She made everyone feel like they were the most important person in her life.” Souder truly loved the childlike joyfulness that McCune seemed to exude.

She described McCune’s joy and her impact on the community in her monthly newsletter. She wrote, “To me, Barb [was] a guide, a shining beacon of what is humanly possible if we take time to be present with others and to open our hearts to the joy and wisdom in every interaction.”

The counseling office feels the loss left by McCune’s warm presence. “I remember [everything about Barbara], her presence, her little dance,” said Brian Lynch. “I hope that I can make a fraction of the impact that Barb made at this school.”

McCune was always ready to help anyone who needed a helping hand. She was a knowledgeable and compassionate woman who dedicated so much of her time to the needs of others. Although she’s gone, she’s there in spirit, Lynch said, “Some days it’s like she’s on a college visit and we’re waiting for her to come back.”

English teacher Patchen Homitz rides a stationary bike in the weight room.

Everything from the origin of his name to the professions of his parents pointed to working in the field of language arts.

But despite a variety of careers, new English teacher Patchen Homitz would not be able to escape the path set forth for him by his parents.

When he was around seven, Homitz came home from school wondering why his name, Patchen, was different compared to the names of his peers. His mother told him the name came to her in an elaborate dream involving fairies, and that the name had Shakespearean references. But Homitz says it’s more likely that the name had significant connections to poet Kenneth Patchen.
Homitz’s mother was a poet, who as a teen would often sneak out of the house to read poetry at clubs in Venice Beach, California. His father was an English teacher, who became a professor and worked at San Diego State University, among other colleges. Homitz jokes that both of his parents, whom he describes as “always wanting to be the center of attention,” fell back into their respective careers after failing as actors. But it was more than just acting that preceded Homitz’s teaching career.

From journalism to working as a manager at REI, Homitz experimented with charting his own course. But the teacher realized that his job at REI was “superficial” and that he “wasn’t really helping anybody.”

Homitz said of his time at REI, “What would it have really mattered at the end of the day? No one says [at REI] you changed my life by hiring me to sell backpacks.”

Homitz says he was inspired by a girlfriend he traveled around the world with. She challenged him to find meaning in his work. When he returned from the trip, Homitz pursued a career in teaching.

Homitz has taught English for three years at Redwood and for nearly nine years with Tamiscal. In addition to teaching AP Language and Composition, he worked with the Team program, an outdoor educational experience for juniors within Tamiscal. At Team, Homitz was responsible for approximately thirty students. Now, filling the hole left by English teacher Ellen Strempek, he’s become responsible for three sections of AP Literature and Composition in addition to one section of freshman English.

“When I heard this job was opening up, I was intimidated by the schedule. It’s the hardest English schedule I’ve ever heard of,” Homitz said, “but at the same time, I get to read the best literature ever written; I get to work with the most motivated kids, and I get to work with some of my old friends [Vice Principal Eric Saibel, and teachers Dan Freeman and Rod Milstead].”

Aside from the fact that Homitz considers himself to be “really curious” and “not shy at all,” a defining aspect of his character is his love for biking and mountain biking. One of our mountain biking team’s captains last year and again this year, Homitz owns six bikes (and 11 total between he and his girlfriend), has a tattoo of bike gears on his left arm, and took a bicycle trip around the Pacific Rim.

Homitz also loves traveling. He’s been to nearly 40 countries and has set foot on every continent except Antarctica and Africa.

“I’m very much a born-again traveler. I did it late, but now I want to see everything. That’s my only problem. There aren’t enough hours in the day and there’s not enough money,” Homitz said, who wants to visit Mount Everest and Mongolia.

Students may not be able to relate to seeing the world on the same scale as Homitz, but he does share many familiar passions. He loves author and comedian David Sedaris (admitting that he’d like to write creative nonfiction, too), ska and grunge music, and he has a  “hidden obsession:” movies.
“I love movies and I’ll watch The Hangover, but given the choice I’ll watch independent almost exclusively,” Homitz said, noting that some people associate the genre with being a snob. “I realized there’s a whole other world out there of film as literature,” he added.

In addition to the independent genre, Homitz enjoys watching foreign films. He loves the feeling of being in another country while watching them and absorbing languages. “I can go to all of these places,” he said. “I can hear Polish, the language my dad spoke when he was a kid.”

Homitz enjoys playing the role of a “bridge to understanding” in the lives of his students, and he hopes they can take more than just the curriculum with them.
“What do kids remember? Are you going to remember a quiz we did or a practice AP exam?” Homitz said, “No, you’re going to remember a story I told. I think what I bring is intangible in a way, but there’s something there.”

Mr. Harrison chats with students. (Alex Allen Hyma | JR)

“Mr. Harrison was chosen for the Golden Bell award for his model career which has always put the emotional and intellectual development of kids as a top priority.  His commitment to teaching young adults has truly been a lifetime pursuit of passion and persistence to reach every child,” said Principal Don Drake.

Since then, life has taken unexpected turns for Harrison. During Thanksgiving break Harrison suffered his second heart attack in Florida while visiting family. Harrison was caught off guard after having had a heart attack in June last year.

For a week leading up to his heart attack, Harrison had achy muscles and difficulty walking. He thought he was coming down with the flu.

Harrison now admits that subconsciously he knew something was wrong, “I actually was having problems and I didn’t want to accept them, I let them go too long. It could have killed me.”

Regardless of his symptoms, Harrison drove back to Marin from Florida. Shortly after arriving home he realized that it was not the flu, but something much worse.

After driving himself to the hospital, Harrison learned that he had indeed suffered a heart attack, and he described his current condition as “more serious overall but at this moment, I’m stabilized with medication and I’m fine. But there is a good chance that I will deteriorate, relatively quickly.”

This is why he has decided to retire in February instead of his expected retirement date that was planned for the end of this semester. Scott Buchanan, husband of chemistry teacher Mary Buchanan will be taking over in February as a semester long substitute teacher. Harrison saved enough of his sick days throughout his career that will allow him to be paid through June of this year.

Harrison has left lasting impressions on his students, from freshmen to seniors. “He’s been a fun teacher to have this year; he really gets the students and does fun activities. It’ll be sad to see him leave,” said freshman Jonathan Dietch. Senior Ellen Harms, has been in Harrison’s classes throughout her high school years and said, “Mr. Harrison has brought a lot to the school because he loves his students and I think that’s the best part about him, he’s so passionate about teaching.”

One of the harder things for Harrison about his early retirement will be leaving in the middle of the semester, “I’m leaving unfinished business and that’s bothering me.”

Not only will Harrison be leaving his students half way through the semester but he will also stop working on projects that he feels passionate about. One of his major efforts was to get all ninth and tenth graders into Blends: “I really want all kids to come in and have that experience. I think that is one of the greatest things that Drake offers.” He believes the community aspects of these Blends are important for underclassmen.

Harrison says he will miss all the kids, but is looking forward to moving back to his farm in Florida and watching his grandchildren grow up.

His final comment to his students before his retirement is to “follow your dreams, do what you want to do and set a goal and achieve it.”

Every year, Harrison plays a country western song he is fond of, called “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack, for his seniors.

Harrison finds a beautiful message within it, the lyrics read: “and I hope you dance.” The song goes along and talks about the things one does in life but if you have a choice, make sure you dance, and you do the big finish. Harrison wants students to always go for it and never sit back.  He said, “Make the right choices, go out there and do the dance.”

Students look on in confusion as crazed old-timer meanders through campus searching desperately for a through street. Bystanders assumed she was on her way to the Early Bird Special at IHOP. Sydney Cohen | JR

During lunch one Tuesday, students surrounding the senior tree were surprised to find an elderly woman turn the corner into the quad driving a four-door Toyota Camry as if she were searching for a through-street to an unknown location.

On August 31 this lunchtime invader in her unidentified vehicle raised a popular question amongst Drake High students and staff: What was she thinking?

“In all of my eighteen years being at schools this has never happened,” said Assistant Principal Katie Foster.

In her office at the time, AP Foster looked out her window just in time to see the Toyota Camry and its driver cruising through the quad, heading across the first corridor to the path behind the library. From that point the vehicle was said to have turned off campus and into the drop-off parking lot lining Saunders. “Kids described her as a grandma,” Foster said, but that she hadn’t looked confused.

Yearbook staff members Sydney Cohen and Ellis Garey were responsible for capturing images of the vehicle that were collected by Assistant Principal Eric Saibel and presented to the local police, who were informed of the woman’s trespassing, to identify the driver’s license plate digits. Furthermore, school security guard Rich Blasewitz, spent the seventh period hour checking the license plates of nearby vehicles with a copy of the license plate numbers.

Since, the school has not heard back from the local authorities as to the outcome of the woman and their response to her trespassing. Her spur of the moment drive through our high school campus caused a stir in the atmosphere, adding a humorous touch to an otherwise typical day.

Students read and relax outside the newly constructed Six-Plex. Lauren Pey | JR

The swimmers and water polo players have taken full advantage of the new pool, and the teachers have settled into the newly finished Six-Plex. Now that these projects are completed, the administration has planned next steps to continue Modernization.

The money that funded district-wide modernization stemmed from 2001 and 2006 voter approved general obligation bonds totaling over $200 million, according to Saibel.

According to Vice Principal Eric Saibel, a digital marquee will be positioned on the tower above the gym, and a stone monument will be installed in the median of the main parking lot, to “have a nice presence for the thousands of cars that drive by.”

Saibel also stated that room 106 will soon be remodeled into Classroom 2020, “an enriched environment that is interactive so that students are able to work in groups or individually” with an emphasis on technology. The room comes equipped with a set of laptops, and teachers will be able to sign up for its use for an extended period of time – the logistics of whether it will be a grading period or a semester haven’t been arranged yet. Classroom 2020 is based off of Wallenberg Hall at Stanford University, and is scheduled to be completed and ready for use by fall of 2011.

To make up for the loss of a traditional computer lab, the enormous lab in 104 will split into two smaller computer labs.

After these projects are completed, the district will “reassess what monies are left, and what the big priorities are district-wide,” said Saibel, in order to evaluate what modernization projects the remaining grant money will fund.

The much neededed new pool was completed in 2008 through Modernization funds. Lindsay Rogers | JR

Throughout last year, Mr. Milstead and the Green Routes Club constantly advocated for the implementation of solar panels at Drake, and it appears that the administration and district have taken notice. “Plans [for solar panels] have been drawn up,” said Saibel, and “one of the current iterations is to have them on the breezeway covers above the corridors […] mounted on poles, and to have them at an angle.”

Saibel noted the administration’s interest in getting solar panels: “Obviously we would love to have solar, but can we make that investment? Is that a smart investment?”

But he realizes that it will be difficult and costly to install solar panels: “Usually if the district is going to do something at one site, it likes to be able to do it at the other sites.”

“The technology for solar always gets better, and if that’s not something that happens for us in the near future, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t be something much more attainable, for everybody, in the future,” said Saibel.

MJ Jones crowded Science Fiction. The only empty seat in the photo belongs to the photographer. Alex Allen-Hyma | JR

The 2010 -’11 school year started out with larger class sizes, having an impact on materials, textbooks, and chairs; safety, and teachers’ ability to manage students in their classes.

The average number of students in a California classroom is 29. At the beginning of the Drake school year, more than 15 classes had 35 or more students enrolled.

According to Principal Don Drake, the situation was resolved, and classes became more average-sized during the first few weeks of school. New class periods were created for the overflow students, and classes with a small number of students were filled up so that there were no classes with wasted space.

Information from Jackie Lucero shows that even after these changes, there are still 14 classes, including P.E., that have 35 or more students in them.

Integrated Science and Physics teacher Barton Clark has a Physics section that has 34 students enrolled.  He said with relief that he has enough textbooks for everyone, and manages to work around the fact that there aren’t enough real desks, students sit back at his lab tables, which is not normal for lectures.

Labs don’t proceed as usual either, says Clark, “when I have projects, then there’s overlap right there, so the conflict is I can’t have my labs set out because my lab tables are my lecture tables.”

Vice Principal Eric Saibel said that while the beginning of the school year was hectic, the custodians worked quickly to make sure there were enough desks for the classes that did have a large number of students.

Classroom management is also an important issue when considering class size. “I feel pretty skilled at this point in my career at doing that, but yeah, it adds a whole new dimension of classroom management when you have 35 instead of 25. It’s amazing how different those classes are,” continues Clark.

Clark says he is lucky that his big classes are seniors, which, as a group, are better behaved than younger kids, but his heart goes out to the teachers who have freshmen classes with thirty or so kids in them. When you have too many freshmen, “it becomes, ‘Raise your hand before you talk,’ ‘Don’t hit your neighbor,’ ‘Don’t throw your chair across the room.’”

While most class-size related issues involve classroom management and textbooks and other supplies, overcrowded science classes present a whole new problem: safety. Science classes such as Chemistry use chemicals that are highly dangerous if handled or used improperly. If you have too many students in a class, the chance of an accident happening is that much greater with the added commotion brought on by the extra students in close proximity.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) states, “Classes containing more than 24 students engaged in science activities cannot safely be supervised by one teacher.” Chemistry teacher Mary Buchanan says that she had a section of Chemistry that had over 30 students until that number was cut down to 28. While that number is still four students over the number recommended by the NSTA, she says 28 is not a problem because of her experience, as well as the fact that her room was designed to handle 28 students, not just 24.

Even without dangerous chemicals, Clark says that safety is still an issue. “Right now I’m going to have six kids around my lab tables, and there is an issue there because there’s only a two foot space in between the tables, so people are jostling back and forth and it does become an issue.”

While class sizes shouldn’t be too big, they shouldn’t be too small either. Clark states, “Having ten kids in class is kind of boring… If you have less than 20, then there’s not enough going on to make it interesting, and if you have more than 30, it becomes a classroom management issue.”

Both Buchanan and Clark have had classes with over 35 students in them a few years ago in this school district and they consider that number too high, especially in Chemistry. “I’ve had up to 160 students before in this district… It’s impossible to do the grading if the parents want me to give their kids personal feedback and write comments on their papers,” says Clark about his workload. “Teachers can’t be expected to do 500 minutes of grading every night.”

There are still 14 classes at Drake that have over 35 students enrolled in them, including P.E., and while the number of these classes was higher during the first two weeks of school, there is still room for improvement.

The changes around our campus this year are apparent; new teachers, larger class sizes, and the rebound from last year’s budget cuts are among the most obvious. However, the disappearance of familiar faces has brought with it new opportunity in the form of a senior English elective that hasn’t been taught here in over a decade: Science Fiction/Ancient Literature.

Last year, the only Global Voices teacher (and its creator) Jennifer Carlson decided to take a leave of absence to spend time with her newborn twins. This left the English Department with the task of finding a replacement teacher for the course, which filled four sections last year.

Global Voices books sit unused on a shelf, although other courses may soon make use of them. Alexa Girkout | JR

When the department was unable to accommodate the teachers willing to teach Global Voices, its members were forced to redesign the offered curriculum, according to Sarkisian. Near the end of last semester, counselor Brian Lynch asked the English Department about the possibility of introducing a new senior elective. English teacher M.J. Jones suggested Science Fiction/Ancient Literature.

“[The idea] just sprang from my head—like Athena,” Jones said, in reference to the Grecian goddess featured in The Odyssey. “I knew [the class] would be a big draw.”

When Jones volunteered to teach Science Fiction/Ancient Literature, the English Department terminated Global Voices, despite its popularity last year.

“It’s difficult to offer a lot of electives because we only have so many teachers,” said English Department Chair Cathy Sarkisian. “And a lot of them are involved in academies, blends, or clusters already, so it’s difficult to get their schedule to be flexible enough to add electives.”

However, the English Department members are flexible regarding which courses they offer to juniors and seniors. Upperclassmen are required to take a semester of English during their final two years in high school, but can select any available class. This flexibility enabled the English Department to add Science Fiction/Ancient Literature from the district-approved course list to the senior course options, which comprise Literary Walkabouts, Poetry, AP Literature, and American Literature (available to both juniors and seniors).

“Even though [Global Voices] was a popular elective, I can’t say that it was necessarily a better elective than some of the others,” Sarkisian said, “so the kids are still getting quality choices for their electives.”

Initially, however, seniors that had signed up for Global Voices were disappointed to find they were enrolled in a class they didn’t know existed. Seniors that spoke to the Jolly Roger were expecting that the popularity of Global Voices would cause the English Department to keep it running.

Senior Julian Ruzzier-Gaul put his name down for Global Voices at the end of his junior year, yet when he received his schedule, he saw that his counselor had placed him in Science Fiction/Ancient Literature.

“I was mainly disappointed that they weren’t offering Global Voices,” Ruzzier-Gaul said, “but out of the other options, I’m glad I took Science Fiction.”

While some seniors were disappointed with the replacement course, others were excited to take a class unlike any other English class offered at Drake. Senior Allysia Mak thinks the addition of Science Fiction/Ancient Literature diversifies senior English options.

Senior Allysia Mak reads Dune, one of the required texts for Science Fiction. Alexa Girkout | JR

“I was really happy when they announced there was going to be Science Fiction because none of the other English classes interested me at all,” Mak said. “The [Science Fiction] genre is much more interesting.”

Sarkisian and Mak share the same enthusiasm for the future of Science Fiction/Ancient Literature at Drake. And the course, which was designed to run in two sections, is now running its third section. This was due in part, however, to volunteers from a large Literary Walkabouts class switching to Science Fiction/Ancient Literature in order to balance class sizes.

Still, those students are settling in to their new elective, and have communicated to the Jolly Roger that they are satisfied with their decision.

Despite the course’s successful launch, Science Fiction/Ancient Literature is still, as Sarkisian points out, “an unknown.”  So, the English Department will be watching how the class is received this year in order to gauge whether or not it will continue to be viable option for next year’s senior class.

“I’m not saying that’s the best way to make decisions,” Sarkisian said. “But so far, the idea of science fiction is popular and we’ll see if the course itself is as popular as the idea.”