After two days of competition, the championship game was played on April 6 between Cottle, president of Chess Club, and sophomore Ryan Nguyen.

The tournament is hosted annually by Fountain Valley’s Chess Club.

Overall, the meet posted many personal and even meet records. The girls 200-yard medley relay consisting of Meredith Lightbody (’14) , Katelyn Farrow (’14), Makenna Dubois (’14), and Jordan Stead (’14).  Lightbody also set a meet record in the 50-yard backstroke to becoming Swimmer of the Meet.

Through all these successes, the girls frosh team left Belmont with a 1^st place plaque with a total of 110 points and the boys frosh team were runner-up to Long Beach Wilson.

The boys JV sqad had early successes by capturing 1^st in the 200-yard medley relay, 200-yard freestyle, and taking the runner-up spot in the 100-yard butterfly. However, entering the freestyle events, the Barons did not have the top seeds and fell shortly behind Long Beach Wilson and Los Alamitos. To top off the meet, the boys 400-yard free relay touched second, posting a time of 3:43.18, to out-touch Lakewood, who touched 3:43.37.

The highly renowned girls varsity team did not have to great of a meet, but still managed to pull away with 4^th place out of 8 teams present. Jaime Dang (’13) was out-touched by Janelle Nguyen of Dos Pueblos by almost one-hundredth of a second in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 57.19. However, Taylor Johnson (’12) claimed the 50-yard freestyle, posting a time of 24.21. Also the Lady Barons were swimming without key freestyler Sarah Yao (’14).

Appearances by Marina, Edison, and Los Alamitos will gauge the Barons swim team as they head toward Sunset League Finals and CIF-SS.

On Tuesday, the Barons will face the Los Alamitos Griffins at Los Alamitos High School, whose girls are currently ranked No. 5 and boys No.9 in Orange County.

With the knowledge that the Baron will leave with a victory, many swimmers were entered into the meet in their off-events to attain a time. Despite this every level for both boys and girls won the meet, except frosh girls were edged by a slight number of points. Fountain Valley posted 1^st and 2^nd place times in most of the events.

College Board logo.

Funding for AP exam waiver fees was cut from $43 million to $29 million during the 2011-2012 school year. The smaller fee reductions will impact low-income students, who will now pay $15 for the first three exams and $53 for each exam thereafter.

As the exams approach in May, more students will be forced to search for alternative sources of funds to pay for AP exams.

In May 2011, 91,009 low-income students took 160,605 exams.  College Board predicts that 29,000 students within America will avoid taking the test entirely due to inability to meet financial need.

“It’s been rough to get by so I’m trying to get an education and fix that, but it’s even rougher when I have to put out more money that I can barely even spare,” says Bryan Cao (’13).

College Board plans to increase aid for such exams from $22 to $26 to meet the normally $87 exam.

Within California, a state program provides further financial aid to low-income students.  For those schools and distracts that participate in the program, low-income students can pay $5 for the first three exams.  Any test paid for after the first three will cost $53.

However, students within districts that don’t participate in the state program  must pay the entire $15 per test, which may be enough to deter them from taking the test altogether.  Some schools have begun to allow students to pay the exam fees in small installments rather than all at once.

FNL acts gather onstage for the award ceremony.

Friday Night Live hosted FVHS’s 9th Annual Talent Show April 6 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The audience was captivated by a variety of acts, including piano medleys, dance performances and even a saxophone piece.

Singer Jacqueline Nguyen’s “Disney Night Live” performance was named top act of the night, while the saxophone group Sax-ody Saxophones was awarded second place and vocalist and guitarist Wei Yan third.

“I thought the show as a whole, was the best we’ve had in the past 3 years,” says Quazi Safin (’13). “The hosts were interesting and the contestants were very talented and well rehearsed.”

Hosts Deeder Lam and Sam Cummings began the night entertaining the crowd with funny dialogue and jokes. Together, they made a great pair and were easily able to improvise lines and keep the audience laughing.

The show began with Thomas Tran playing the piano, Misa Kieu strumming away at the ukulele and Alex Quan Pham singing a musical medley. Brandon Khong stole the spotlight of the first half of the show by electrifying the crowd with an amazing dance performance.

After intermission, the show went on. The saxophone group did great as they played their rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. The Smooth Sassy Boyz danced an amazing routine in matching outfits. Jacqueline Nguyen sang a medley of Disney songs, hurriedly changing into different princess costumes throughout the performance.

Says FNL Activities Director Samar Saad (’14), “Our talent was at its best this year and everyone did a fantastic job.”

Jessica Le                    President

Tricia Vuong              Vice President

Bryan Nguyen           Secretary

Dolly Dang                  Treasurer

Jessica Hanson         Parliamentarian

Quantin Pham           Activities

Paul Do                        Activities

Congrats to everyone who put their blood, sweat, and tears into the election. Looking forward to a new year!

Assemblyman Chris Norby, creator of Assembly Bill 1767

On February 17, 2012, Orange County Assemblyman Chris Norby introduced the Assembly Bill 1767, a bill which would dramatically change English Language Learner (ELL) programs.

Rather than having students take the California English Language Development Test (CELDT), which has been deemed too difficult to pass for even a few native English speakers, students become “English proficient” if they receive “Proficient” or higher on the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) test and maintain a 3.0 GPA.

The creation of the bill was a product of concerns over the false classification of English Language Learners and incorrect placement in classes.  Any students that write down a language other than English as their first language are forced to take the California English Language Development Test.

The concern is that these students may be bilingual and do not actually need English Language Learner classes. These students may have non-English speaking parents who may not know how to pull their children out of ELL classes.

Norby claims that his bill will “foster quicker reclassification of ELL students.”

Currently, there is no state standard as to what constitutes a passing grade for the CELDT.

The program may be inconvenient for students falsely classified as English learners, as annual testing takes up valuable funds and time from families.  The students themselves lose important class time for the program.

Schools receive more funding based on the number of ELL students they have per school, so these schools may have a reason to keep these students in the program.

False classification of ELL students takes up funds that could be used for something more useful as well as create a false notion that the California schools are filled with immigrants.  However, 83% of the students in the ELL program are native-born U.S. citizens.  Thus, foreign-born students don’t necessarily equate to being ELL students, which is a common misconception.

“These students apparently understand the material to a certain degree and are succeeding at some level,” says Kevin Nguyen (’13).  “Therefore the language barrier isn’t as prominent with these students.  If they can handle it, sure, why not?”

Album cover for Birdy

Some of you may have heard of Birdy (née Jasmine van den Bogaerde), the British teenager that wowed music critics everywhere when she released a cover of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love last year. In November she released her debut album, self-titled Birdy.

At 15 years old, Birdy has accomplished much–but this album is anything but impressive. There is no denying she is a star, however, most of all the tracks on her albums are moody, piano ballads, with music videos to match. Birdy runs through a dark forest, looking anguished. Birdy bangs away at the piano with tormented eyes. Birdy rides the bus as she stares out the window. Little creativity is brought to the production of her music videos. She seems to base her fame solely on her singing abilities, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but her music is dull and uncreative as well. She provides nothing catchy or memorable. Many of her best works are covers of other songs.

Maybe Birdy’s voice just sounds better when she’s singing sad breakup songs. But after ten tracks of this, it’s getting hard to differentiate between them. Many of them sound eerily similar. In fact, the album could just be the same melancholy funeral anthem song playing over and over again.

Birdy is not the kind of artist to take seriously. Listen to her version of Skinny Love, the song that skyrocketed her to fame, and it’s the only song on her new album that deserves recognition. But the heavy piano music, the mopey lyrics, and her beautifully dreary voice, makes Birdy a rather weak and disappointing debut. This album gets a C+ at best.