Schools
‘Hate crime’ threats lead to arrest of Fremont High student
BY ROBERT SALONGA
A 17-year-old Fremont High
School student is in Juvenile
Hall after he allegedly made
“hate crime” threats against
Jewish schoolmates on social
media and forewarned a Columbine-style attack at the campus
Sept. 9, authorities said.
The purportedly anti-Semitic threats surfaced over the
weekend and were reported to
police Sept. 5 by parents and
school officials. Detectives from
the Sunnyvale Department of
Public Safety investigated the
social-media messages and ar-
rested the student suspected of
sending them.
The suspect, whose name is
being withheld because he is a
minor, was booked into Santa
Clara County Juvenile Hall. Police say a search of the suspect’s
home did not yield any weapons
that would suggest plans or his
ability to carry out the threats.
“Right now we’re not aware
of anything that would lead us
to that,” said Sunnyvale Capt.
Shawn Ahearn. “But we’re still
following up on other things to
make sure no stone is unturned.
We’re still going through [the
suspect’s] cell phone and com-
puter.” Ahearn said the suspect
reportedly admitted to detectives that he posted the messages and that he was trying “to
intimidate this group of kids.”
The suspect
was booked on
suspicion of
hate crime and
criminal threats
The suspect was booked
on suspicion of hate-crime
and criminal threats offenses.
Ahearn declined to comment
on the remarks made by the
Fremont principal describing
the threats as anti-Semitic in
nature.
Police increased their presence on the Fremont High campus Tuesday and planned to do
so for the rest of the week.
“It’s just to be safe and let people know we’re here for them,”
Ahearn told The Mercury News
on Sept. 6.
Additionally, in a letter to
parents, school administrators
offered counseling to students
distressed by the incident.
“The safety of students and
staff remains our top priority. School counselors will be
available to provide assistance
to any students experiencing
stress over this situation,” reads
a statement from the Fremont
Union High School District.
“Please encourage your child to
come and speak to our counseling staff if they express the need
to talk to an adult about this situation and the emotions it has
brought up for them.”
Robert Salonga is a reporter with
The Mercury News.
‘Zero waste’ program comes to two more Sunnyvale schools
By VICTORIA KEZRA
Cumberland and Cherry
Chase elementary schools are
talking trash this school year.
Both schools are in the stages
of implementing zero waste programs that see students work to
divert as much lunchtime trash
as possible away from landfills.
The schools were inspired by
fellow district school, Lakewood
Elementary, which instituted
its own zero waste program in
April.
The program sees students
separate out food scraps, recyclable materials and garbage
into different bins.
“The kids love it. I think they
think it’s fun like a puzzle,” said
Cumberland Assistant Principal Laurie Carlson. “It’s true
project-based learning. They
are categorizing and sorting.”
Nick Nabhan and Tomer Shapira, both from Specialty Solid
Waste & Recycling, developed
Lakewood’s program when
they were tasked by Leadership
Sunnyvale to create a project
that would help the community.
The program was meant to last
only a few weeks, but will continue this school year.
After five weeks, Lakewood
diverted nearly 2,000 pounds of
food scraps that were otherwise
bound for landfills and reduced
the school’s garbage costs by 50
percent, according to the district.
Like Lakewood, Cumberland’s
program not only includes separating out the trash, but also
features a table for students to
share uneaten and unopened
foods. Similarly, Cumberland
has “zero waste champions,”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACQUELINE
RAMSEYER
Cumberland Elementary School
started its zero waste initiative
at the beginning of the school
year. Students who have been
selected to be ‘zero waste
champions’ wear green vests
during lunchtime and assist
other students with choosing the
correct bins to discard lunches.
students from different classes
who help direct their peers to
the right bins to dispose of their
waste.
Students say it’s not an easy
job helping students determine
what is waste and what is recyclable.
“The hardest job is trying
to let the people with so much
food know what’s happening.
We have to come [to the bins]
and say ‘that goes there and
that goes there,” said 8-year-old
Yousuf Adel. “The best part is
we know that we’re helping the
environment.”
A waste audit found at least
50 percent of school waste was
organic material and 40-45 percent was garbage. The remaining roughly 5-10 percent was
recyclables. Cherry Chase Elementary is working on a trash
audit of its own.
Cumberland’s audit also found
that the spork and napkin set
offered to students could not be
recycled. To cut down on waste,
the utensil set is now placed at
the end of the lunch line so students don’t initially grab the set
out of habit. Students now only
grab the set if it is necessary for
their meal.
To launch the program, the
school worked extensively with
parents Ariel Yule and Rebecca
Richardson as well as Sandy
Jensen, the city’s residential re-
8 SILICON VALLEY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS SEPTEMBER 9, 2016
Anya Klinger and Yousef Adel, both 8, help students figure
out the correct bins to recycle their leftover lunches at
Cumberland Elementary School in Sunnyvale.
cycling coordinator.
“We met with Ariel and Rebecca and Sandy Jensen from
the city and kind of learned about
what was happening at Lakewood and then brainstormed
about how that might look here
at Cumberland,” said Principal
Edy Mourtos.
The bins, as well as bins for
the staff lunch room, were purchased by the school’s PTA.
Jo Enders, a mother of three
Cumberland students, has been
helping staff the zero waste bins
for the first few weeks of the
school year and says the program not only makes a difference
on campus, but at home as well.
“What I’ve noticed with my
kids is they’re coming home and
being more thoughtful about
where things go at home as
well. Even though we’ve always
done recycling at home, doing it
at school makes it stick more,”
says Enders. “I think they are
more conscious of the fact that it
would go to the landfill and they
don’t want that to happen.”
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