The Fremont Podcast

Episode 124: Student Journalists take over the podcast.

Ricky B

In this episode, we get to hear from two student journalists based in Fremont. 

We have wanted to work with student journalists for some time and, over the summer, we were honored to have two students contact us for a collaboration.

Padma Balaji and Atharva Sonune worked in parallel for this story about the SATs.  What they produced is a glimpse into the recent troubles that so many students are dealing with (because derpy adults can’t get their act together).

This episode is merely an introduction.  The two of them have other stories in the works and we will feature those future stories inside of our larger episodes later on.
 
 If YOU are a student and want to collaborate with The Fremont Podcast, please let us know. We would like to work with you, we will help you produce audio stories where you need help and we WILL make room in our podcast for your work.

*And we don't have to meet IRL because we know you are busy.

If you would like to contact The Fremont Podcast, please text us here.

Petrocelli Homes has been a key sponsor of The Fremont Podcast from the beginning. If you are looking for a realtor, get in touch with Petrocelli Homes on Niles Blvd in Fremont.

Haller's Pharmacy is here to help. They have been in our community for decades.


Founder: Ricky B.

Intro and outro voice-overs made by Gary Williams.

Editor: Andrew Cavette.

Scheduling and pre-interviews by the amazing virtual assistant that you ought to hire, seriously, she's great: your.virtual.ace

This is a Muggins Media Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Are you with an organization? Are you just on your own? What brought you to paint the utility box today?

Speaker 2:

We're on our own, but we just like art and we wanted to beautify Fremont. So it just inspired us, and when we saw this contest, we just immediately grabbed the opportunity.

Speaker 1:

And, briefly, what is your design?

Speaker 2:

Our design, so our theme was sustainability and how Fremont is making it a greener place. We decided to incorporate things like windmills and eco-friendly solar panels and other kinds of biodegradable things and show like nature, and we also incorporated like the carbon footprint being erased how long did?

Speaker 1:

how long were you out here? How long did it take to do what you've done so far?

Speaker 3:

we've been here since like around a 7 40 february this morning. We were here yesterday. We're gonna come back tomorrow. I don't know how many hours overall.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is gonna take the whole week to finish, but we're happy to see how it turns out. I mean, yeah, like seeing all these cars being run on gasoline it does kind of hurt, but knowing that gasoline-driven cars are going to be like reduced soon and replaced by like hydrogen power or like eco-friendly cars, it is promising to our environment.

Speaker 1:

Anything you wanted to add, I didn't get a chance to Okay.

Speaker 3:

Regarding the cars, we do have renewable energy in transport, I think featured in the art too. We have a person on a bike to encourage more active, eco-friendly transportation, and also a BART train, which is Fremont's approach to carpooling, so reducing gasoline-driven cars Awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, they were very kind with their time. You are listening to episode 124 of the Fremont Podcast.

Speaker 4:

I tried throughout freshman year many, many times to register, but missed almost every single deadline. And these spots fill up so quickly.

Speaker 5:

Coming to you straight from Fremont, california. This is the Fremont Podcast, dedicated to telling the stories of the past and present of the people and places of the city of Fremont, one conversation at a time.

Speaker 1:

Hello Fremont, this is Andrew, the editor. I'll be your host for this episode. This episode is two things coming together in the best way. Is two things coming together in the best way? Number one is that we here at the podcast have interviewed kids. Kids, teenagers have been guests on this show and they have been some of the best episodes that we've done, quite frankly. Top-level BMX riders, eagle Scouts letting us know about local history, two separate guests where these young ladies were driving their insane cars, sometimes through the deserts for long periods of time. Kids who show up with their professional magician dads and almost steal the episode. And groups of teens who are trying to put more art into the world in an organized fashion with the Athena Project.

Speaker 1:

Number two there exist in the schools of Fremont student newspapers and student journalists who write those newspapers, and we thought it would be a great idea to work with those student journalists. They are going to think up story ideas that we aren't going to think up and they are going to have access to an entire category of storytelling that we just don't have access to. A few episodes back actually more than a few episodes back we had one of our reporters, mark, go out and ask people about niche communities, and one of the things we learned from that reporting was that maybe this town focuses a little too much on just families who are raising kids and there were some downsides to that. But the flip side of that is that there are a lot of people raising kids in this town and maybe we should hear about what the kids have to say. I am genuinely a big fan of COVID involved reporting that had been done by some students at one of the local high schools. It was an amazing, brave piece of work that touched on taboo topics and it really tried to address a problem that was impacting, let's say, half the students. It was well-written and well-reported and I thought, oh, we should recreate that in an audio form and it never happened. But that's okay, because here we are.

Speaker 1:

This episode is going to be all about student journalists. We put a call out to the student journalists of all the high schools here in Fremont and two people replied. They spent the summer working on stories for us and this is just an introduction. They've got more than this and you will hear more of their work in later episodes, but for this episode they worked on the same story in parallel, but for this episode. They worked on the same story in parallel and I'll introduce them properly in a moment and we'll get around to all of that.

Speaker 1:

But I wanted to first tell you a story about some of the difficulties that we had here at the podcast actually working with teenagers, despite them really wanting to work with us. Yeah, I'd be interested in tapping into some of those and seeing if there's a. I think it would be kind of cool to hear their perspective and just kind of like we could email. I'll do it. Yeah, we could email all the newspapers from the high schools and say if you want to do a special project, the students don't need to have great equipment, you can just do it off your phone. Yeah, and then we will make space for your project on our feet. Yeah, that's great Within an episode on its own. Yeah, we had this idea to work with student journalists at a staff meeting and after that staff meeting I emailed all of the high schools, as many as I could find. There are more than five high schools in Fremont, but not all of them have newspapers. So and we did this almost at the end of the last school year.

Speaker 1:

So, understandably, the advisors and the students were all very busy kind of wrapping things up. It certainly wasn't going to happen before the end of the year, but some of the advisors were enthusiastic about it. There is, unfortunately, one catch One of the advisors for the newspaper, a very nice person, wrote back and explained to us some of the roadblocks that are on a district level for any outside party, any third party, to work with students inside of the Fremont Unified School District. I'll read some of the email in a second, but the short answer is we can't work with the schools directly. The amount of district-level paperwork and permission that we would need to get is kind of a non-starter.

Speaker 1:

The district is being very protective of the students in all the schools in the district and, okay, that's fair, I'm not complaining about that. That's a good thing. Uh, they don't want third parties just showing up on campus and working directly with the student staff during class time. Absolutely, we don't want to do that. Us to address a number of liability concerns, including student media releases, site administrator approval and potentially district level approval. Yeah, and all of those sound like very good precautionary rules. If you're going to have people who don't belong to the district, you're going to have to put them through the ringer in order to make everything legit, totally understand.

Speaker 1:

And so I pitched back oh hey, we don't need to do that, we don't need to show up at all, but we certainly would like to mention the papers that they work for. We wanted to give these schools and their top level journalism students the credit they deserve, and I was told that even that is a no-no and this is district-wide all the high schools. According to our district's public information officer, as long as our school and school newspaper's name is used in association with the student's work published by an outside entity, we would still need to undergo the level of school and district approval required, as had been mentioned before in the previous email. Some of the advisors have spread the words about the opportunity to work with us, and I'm so happy they did so. We here at the podcast are working with these students independently and we got their parents' permission first before we started chit-chatting over email.

Speaker 1:

So while we certainly can mention these kids by name they're in the show notes below we can't tell you what school they go to and we can't mention the name of the newspapers that they would normally be writing for. There was a subsequent email, by the way, that listed a bunch of things that we had to make sure to do and we've checked off all of those, and I wanted to clarify that all of this work was done over the summer. So it was not a conflict with their work for the school newspaper, extracurricular family responsibility and for what it's worth. Nor does it plagiarize their work in the school newspaper. And, yes, this may seem like me rambling on about a minor complaint, but I just wanted to explain some of the things we went through and some of the reasons why we can't give credit where credit is due. I wish we could. So I just wanted to make it clear that we're not going to mention the schools and we're not going to mention the school newspapers.

Speaker 1:

Okay, as you can imagine or remember, taking the SATs is hard. This year, apparently, it's even harder, especially for a particular group of kids. I asked both of the student journalists that are working with us over the summer to tackle this story from different angles from the people that they could find, and to also put in their own experiences, because they are not only reporting on it, but they are going through it. First up, we are going to hear from Atarva Sunune. He went out and asked one of his classmates what she went through just to sign up for the SATs.

Speaker 6:

I talked with Shreya, a student. She's a junior. While you're getting prepared for college applications, have you become familiar with the new testing policies of Ivy League schools?

Speaker 7:

For the most part, yes.

Speaker 6:

During the COVID years, Ivy Leagues like Harvard and Princeton, as well as private colleges like Stanford, did not require the SATs or ACTs. Standardized test scores were optional. Covid-era policies are now four years old, and an entire class of students have grown from 7th graders to juniors in those four years. However, prestigious colleges across the country recently announced that they're now going to require standardized test scores for their fall 2025 admissions cycle, and that's a sharp reversal to their earlier policies. This announcement does not leave much time for juniors to take the SAT.

Speaker 7:

It's a little bit scary, considering that we're going to be the first year back and they're suddenly just deciding to require it for our year again. The preparation process is going okay. I'm a little bit lost on how to study exactly for the SAT, but I'm just practicing. I don't know what else to do.

Speaker 6:

Has it been difficult finding test slots?

Speaker 7:

Yeah, it has definitely. I tried to get one in October. I was able to get two spots in November and December easily, and then I wanted to get one in October just so I could get it done fast, but then the spots like went away for the October one super fast.

Speaker 6:

And studying for an additional test while desperately searching for a time slot for that additional test is not the only thing high school students are dealing with. Mixed in with your APs, mixed in with all your classes that you're taking. How does it relate to the larger in the larger context?

Speaker 7:

In the larger context. I mean I'm trying to figure out how to manage my time evenly and give enough time to each of those activities, since a lot of them require a huge time commitment. So just trying to figure out how to manage my schedule.

Speaker 6:

Only a handful of Ivy Leagues and private colleges have announced this recent reversal in their policies. The University of California system, for example, does not accept standardized test scores at all.

Speaker 7:

I mean, it's definitely a relief that UCs don't require it, so there is a chance in case I don't do. Well, I do have a chance of still ending up fine, but I think I will still. I'm ending up taking it, just I don't know, in case something great happens. You know, you never know.

Speaker 6:

Do you think the SAT is important?

Speaker 7:

I do think it's important. Standardized testing does make it a lot easier to compare students on like a base level, because GPA really can depend on how easy the teachers are at your school. It's a stressful process, but I do think it can be useful and it does serve a purpose, although I don't enjoy it.

Speaker 6:

While researching and interviewing classmates about the SAT, I began to notice that, apart from the juniors who are planning to take the SAT for the first time this fall, there's a lot of seniors who are planning to retake the SAT. It made me question what is a good SAT score? A 1050 is the nationwide average, while a 1350 or above puts you in the top 10% of test takers. It sure doesn't feel like I'm in the top 10% of test takers though. It sure doesn't feel like I'm in the top 10% of test takers though. I took the SAT in November of last year, got a 1550, college board set us in the 99th percent of test takers, but living in the Bay Area makes me feel like I'm in the top 50%. Almost everyone here has taken the SAT more than once.

Speaker 6:

Most of my classmates took two SATs back to back November, december. If they didn't get the score they wanted, they would just keep taking it again, and I'm confused. Do I want to spend the time, effort and energy in studying for a standardized bubble in test, or do I want to invest that time and energy into pursuing a passion project, into studying for my six classes in school and preparing for college applications? I know someone who got a 1490, retook the SAT, got a 1510, retook it again this is twice now for a 1530, retook it once more, got a 1530, and retook it a fourth time only to get a 1540.

Speaker 6:

This man studied for countless hours on end and looking at him I realized that maybe the marginal improvements aren't worth it for me, but for some people they just might be, and that kind of represents the entire Bay Area culture as a whole. We keep pursuing something it's the college grind mindset we need to get into the top schools, into the top universities, and maybe that's just due to our location. We live in Silicon Valley. Berkeley is 40 miles, 30, 40 miles north. Stanford is 30 miles away. In Palo Alto, we're surrounded by such great universities that it seems like if we don't get in there, what are we doing?

Speaker 1:

Next up we have Padma Balaji, and while I am not allowed to tell you that she goes to, I can tell you that when she asked to work with us she sent her resume and it looks better than mine. She has worked all over the Bay Area with radio and I hope to hear more from her.

Speaker 4:

I spoke with Tanvi Ramesh. She's a junior here in Fremont and, like many students this summer, she cannot take the SATs where she lives.

Speaker 8:

We need to fix something. There's something wrong, Because I'm not able to get a proper SAT spot within like a two-mile radius of me. Like why isn't my school holding SATs? Why do I have to go all the way to San Jose, which is like a 30-minute drive for me, to take my SAT? But I wasn't even able to get that because it was the closest, so now I have to go all the way one hour away.

Speaker 4:

Even when Bunby successfully signed up for a spot, she couldn't sign up for a spot.

Speaker 8:

I was trying to get a spot in the place closest to me. I clicked on it. The 10-minute timer was going. I had the spot. For some reason, my entire page refreshes and then somebody else took my spot. After that, that was the last spot for the place, so I then had to find a place an hour away.

Speaker 4:

This can't be that big a deal. So a few top colleges, some Ivy Leagues and some private universities are being daft, changing their policies too soon and telling juniors too late. So what? Some amazing colleges still don't accept SATs. Why not apply to them and avoid this nonsense?

Speaker 8:

The Bay Area is a very competitive place and SATs regardless or not people are going to take them to them and avoid this nonsense, have to fly all the way to like Southern California to take their SATs and I think that's like pretty crazy. And some people have to take like three to four hour drives. I think that's just wild. All for some like standardized test.

Speaker 1:

So I wanted to talk with Padma after her reporting to see what her personal experience was. To me it seemed. It seems like students have to be like really on the ball, more so than just being serious about it, more so than just sort of like like I can understand, not slacking off, but it seems like there's almost an aggressive nature to how on it these students that you've been talking to have to be. I don't hear from these students that they are like being frivolous with their time, but a lot of these changes are happening really quickly and they're not staying. The changes aren't staying still. The changes aren't staying still.

Speaker 4:

What was your experience and what did you know about the SATs and how to go about this when you started? When I first decided I wanted to take the SATs, I had no idea how to go about registering. I had no siblings or family members who had ever taken the SAT before, and my parents had no idea what to do.

Speaker 1:

So what did you do Like? How did it end up working out for you?

Speaker 4:

I tried throughout freshman year many, many times to register, but missed almost every single deadline, and the spots fill up so quickly.

Speaker 1:

I assume you were successful. Tell me about the day.

Speaker 4:

I ended up registering the day SAT spots came up almost completely by accident. It was just another day of school. I wandered into sixth period and as I was coming in I heard some kids talking about registering for the SAT.

Speaker 1:

That was lucky.

Speaker 4:

It was almost a miracle. Completely by luck, I had so many spots open to me just because the registration had been open just hours earlier. But even by the time that I went in, all of the August SAT, which is the first spots that are open were already taken. I had to register for September, but thankfully I was able to find the closest spot to me, which ironically was almost 20 miles away in San Jose, even though I live in Fremont. Still, that was a miracle.

Speaker 1:

It seems like that's a very common theme through all of the reporting and through your personal experience having to travel.

Speaker 4:

I know so many people who had to register in late December and early spring, who are having to drive more than 50 miles, 60 miles, who have to take entire road trips just to take an SAT test. And most people take it once or twice. I only registered once because I had no idea how the SAT worked at the time.

Speaker 1:

Right, that's. Another thing that kept coming up is that this is not a test. You have to take one time to get better and better scores. Well, hopefully, hopefully, better and better scores. These kids are having to take this more than once, which means they're having to travel more than once, which means they're having to book it more than once, and they're getting pushed and pushed, and pushed.

Speaker 4:

For many kids these kind of miracles don't happen very easily. It's so very difficult to take time out of our already super busy schedule to go to fly out, to drive out, just to take a standardized test for a couple of hours.

Speaker 1:

You said you took it once. Have you been able to get it again? Have you been able to book something again?

Speaker 4:

you been able to book something again. Just recently. I again very miraculously found a spot in San Francisco that was open for the August SAT, which is just a couple of weeks now, and I was able to register.

Speaker 1:

That is good. Is it weird to say that, like, thankfully it was only in San Francisco? I mean, from what I've been hearing from the reporting, having it be as close as San Francisco is, you know, pretty lucky. But that also sounds very strange that you would have to go all the way to San Francisco. Take your reporter hat off and what needs to happen, Like in your opinion, what needs to happen, what needs to change.

Speaker 4:

College Board needs to do better providing us spots, providing us accessibility and also providing transparency. We have no idea when the spot registrations open, we have no idea how many spots there are or how registration works, and because of this, we get screwed over by College Board almost every single year, and this has been going on for a very long time now.

Speaker 1:

A little peek behind the scenes. I had to come back to the same spot. I had recorded the story about the ladies who were painting the utility box to have the same ambient car noise. So I'm back. It's just a little radio magic that you might not otherwise notice. If you are a student and a journalist and a student journalist and you'd like to work with us and you'd like to learn about a little radio magic, please contact us. We'd really like to work with you. Well, that is it. Thank you for listening. The creator and founder of this podcast and the normal host of this podcast is Ricky B. My name is Andrew Kovett and I'm normally the editor and for the rest of it, I'm going to let Gary do his normal excellent work.

Speaker 5:

I'm Gary Williams. Scheduling and pre-interviews by Sarah S. Be sure to subscribe wherever it is that you listen so you don't miss an episode. Join us next week on the Fremont Podcast.

Speaker 4:

This is a Muggins Media Podcast.