The Sacred Heart Food Pantry is similar to a warehouse filled with brown Safeway bags and stacks of cardboard boxes and crates, with a distinct smell of avocado and turkey from the Togo’s sandwiches that are given away at lunch.

There are so many boxes stacked tall and wide that it seems as if there are no walls.

Somewhere in all that, walking back and forth, is 15-year-old Danny Tran. He visits the pantry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, volunteering at least four hours each time.

Sacred Heart Community Service is a non-profit organization based in downtown San Jose. The non-denominational homeless shelter aids children and adults who are living in poverty.

The motto on the wall outside the community center says it all: “Feed the hungry. Clothe the needy. Welcome the stranger.”

Three days a week, that’s Tran’s job. During his time in the community center, Tran usually packages food, sorts clothes and “helps the needy,” said Katrina Huynh, a colleague of Tran’s at Sacred Heart.

Huynh says Tran is “dedicated, pretty friendly and works hard.”
He deals with a wide range of customers – some young, some old, some just needing to hear a comforting voice.

On a recent afternoon, Tran, dressed in jeans and a blue plaid shirt buttoned just enough to still reveal a red shirt underneath, was working in the front of the pantry. He was responsible for handing out food.

A woman walked up to the counter, seeming a bit embarrassed for being in the center.

“Can I have diapers?” she asked.

“Sorry. I asked the coordinator, and we don’t have any more,” Tran said sympathetically.

The woman’s face fell. But Tran said, “Have a nice day” and handed the woman a bag of food. For a moment, she smiled brightly.

“Since the customers are in a situation where they need to get food, I don’t react sad or show how I feel when people are mad,” Tran said. “That’s the bad part of working here … with mad people.”

Tran’s interest in volunteering was triggered when he researched world problems for a project at Pioneer High School in San Jose last October, focusing on poverty.

The project consisted of 30 hours of experiencing poverty, working with the community and writing about it.

That’s when he began working at Sacred Heart. After he finished, however, he realized how much he enjoyed volunteering his time. From there, Tran began trying to find ways to give back to the community.
His 30 hours long past, he is still at Sacred Heart.

“At least I’m doing something for an organization,” said Tran, who will be a junior this fall.

Aside from spending his time storing, giving and packing food, Tran has a full life away from the homeless shelter.

He’s been doing karate for a year. He plays badminton. He performs in school musicals, such as “Fiddler on the Roof.” He also enjoys playing tennis, eating out with friends, having study groups or going to the mall.

But he’s sacrificed all of it at one time or another for his volunteer work.

His favorite TV show is “The Simpsons.” When asked which character he can relate to, he casually asked, “Does gender affect it?”

He chose Lisa and followed with a laugh, explaining, “I’m not mischievous like Bart.”

“He’s fun to hang around with,” said his friend Melissa Nguyen, who describes Tran as fun-loving. “You can never get bored with him. He’s shy here and there, but he’s great.”

Tran hopes to become a graphic designer and create ads and commercials. He adds that he plans to keep volunteering.

“I want to come up with TV ads that will give more motivation to get people to volunteer,” he said. “If people stepped up and did a couple of hours once in a while, then the community would be a friendlier and stronger place.”

Anyone can get from Silicon Valley to San Francisco for a day of sight-seeing or shopping — no car needed.

Public transportation can be a big boon for teens, especially those who aren’t old enough to drive or can’t afford a car. There are discounted fares for youths and a wide range of destinations, both of which can broaden riders’ horizons far beyond the local strip mall.

The Bay Area boasts some of the best public transportation systems in the country. BART recently was ranked as the No. 1 system in America, based on service and reliability reviews, by the American Public Transportation Association. And Caltrain was recognized by the California Transportation Foundation for improving the operation of its Baby Bullet express service.

So not having access to a car should not be an obstacle for teens who want to travel around the region.

• Getting There
In Santa Clara County, the Valley Transportation Authority operates bus lines through every city, as well as light-rail service from Mountain View through South San Jose. Youth bus riders can buy day passes for $4.50 at any light-rail station or bus depot, or pay $1.50 per ride to the driver.

Gyakunta Favors, a technician at Great America and a regular rider of VTA’s bus and rail systems, can testify to the system’s usefulness.
“The trains and the buses are pretty good, and they’re almost always on time,” Favors said. “The buses go more or less everywhere in Santa Clara.”

VTA connects to Caltrain and BART, so riders can get to the North Bay easily. Every Caltrain station between San Jose’s Diridon station and Palo Alto’s downtown station is accessible by bus, and the new Campbell light-rail line will also connect directly to the Diridon station.

VTA also runs an express service that connects downtown San Jose with the Fremont BART terminal. Check the destination of each bus, or ask the driver for the major transfer points for trips outside of Santa Clara Valley.

Ron Ferguson gets around the Bay Area on bus and bike. A frequent rider of both VTA and Caltrain, Ferguson knows the system’s strengths and weaknesses.

“Both trains are reliable and work well for getting around,” Ferguson said. “But they would be faster if they had fewer stops. Caltrain’s express service is really good. It goes from San Jose to San Francisco in less than an hour.”

Although it may not be the fastest way to get there, Caltrain does offer the most direct service to San Francisco. Trains run about every half hour on weekdays and every hour on weekends. The standard trains take about an hour and a half from San Jose to San Francisco, but the trip is rewarding. The seats are soft and comfortable, and the large windows offer an up-close view of green trees and bushes that practically hug the train.

“It’s a fun experience,” said Roman Duvdevany, who rode a recent midday Saturday train for a family outing with his daughter. “It’s cheap and it always comes on time.”

Local service trains stop at regular intervals in San Mateo County. Some of the stations are very close to parks and shopping centers. The passenger coaches are double-decker, allowing riders on the upper level to see areas stretching beyond the stations. As the train approaches San Francisco, bayshore factories and highways give way to the condos and high-rises of the South Beach District. The train ride ends in the heart of downtown, within one block of SBC Park, the home of the Giants, and five minutes by MUNI metro to Embarcadero Center.

• Once you’re there
On game days, the streets around SBC Park are swarming with activity. Follow the crowds and banners with Giants’ names and numbers to get to Willie Mays Plaza. On other days, there is a small concessions and amusement center on the bay-side of the stadium, which offers a view of the field and stands from under the scoreboard. Although it caters mainly to younger kids, it’s still a fun way to see the field and get into the baseball spirit. Embarcadero Center is farther along the waterfront, and can also be reached by MUNI metro.

The youth fare on all MUNI buses and trains is 35 cents for three hours of unlimited travel. This makes it easy to explore the sights around San Francisco, from the bayside teen attractions at Pier 39 to the maritime and historical exhibits in Aquatic Park and the specialty stores in North Beach and Chinatown.

The area north of downtown Market Street is accessible by cable car, which has two routes ending on Market Street. Riding the cable car up steep hills that overlook the bay, with the wind blowing hats off, is as thrilling as a roller coaster ride – and at a fraction of the cost.
For San Francisco residents like Loralei Osborn, public transportation is a way for her and her family to get around the binding traffic congestion. MUNI also offers speedy transportation around the downtown area, where traffic gridlocks almost daily and parking is nearly impossible to find.

“It’s not the most reliable system,” Osborn said, “but nearly all the sights and attractions are accessible by bus or metro. Just be sure to give yourself plenty of time to get around. There’s a lot to do.”

Even a several-block stretch of Market Street offers a lot to do. If you continue to Powell Street, you’ll get to the center of San Francisco’s metropolitan shopping arena. You can enter the Nordstrom complex from the station, or go upstairs to Market Street for other brand-name stores. The Gap’s flagship store has a large selection of teen clothing, while across the street, the Old Navy store offers similar clothes at cheaper prices. Music fans might spend hours at Virgin Records sampling the latest pop albums or across the street at the Apple Store, San Francisco’s center for iPods and their colorful accessories.

Two blocks south is Yerba Buena Gardens. The Metreon cinema complex is there, along with an indoor ice-skating rink, bowling alleys and the Zeum youth arts and tech center. Gamers will find a haven at the Sony store, which carries almost every imaginable PlayStation pleasure. In addition, Yerba Buena Gardens is a relatively safe place to hang out after dark.

BART links San Francisco with the East Bay at Embarcadero station. Through an extensive and far-reaching rail network, San Francisco residents are one jump from the East Bay’s attractions.

Riding BART can be both quick and enjoyable. Most of the BART lines are above ground, which allows riders to see the world whizzing by. From Second Street in downtown San Jose, VTA Express 180 provides direct transit to the Fremont BART terminal and links Santa Clara County with hot destinations like the McAfee Coliseum in Oakland, which connects with the Oakland airport BART station via a concrete pedestrian bridge. This gives riders the advantage of attending A’s and Raiders games without facing the cracked sidewalks of the surrounding industrial back alleys.

BART also goes to one of the more interesting East Bay intersections: Bancroft and Telegraph avenues in Berkeley. This pocket of counterculture looks (and smells) like a scene from the hazy late-‘60s.

From anti-war T-shirts and bumper stickers to exotic jewelry and music, every revolutionary and rebel can find a symbol of self-identity from the street vendors. Follow the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campus, past Cal stadium, to get there from the BART station.

While there weren’t many teens riding BART on a recent Saturday afternoon, other Bay Area residents like Greg Thomas have discovered how useful public transit is.

Thomas, who was gently holding his bike, could barely hear over the rumble of the train’s wheels. His hearing aid was tucked under his white hair, which peeked out from under his helmet. This older BART veteran still goes all around the Bay Area on his bike.

“BART is really a wonderful system,” Thomas said. “I like to ride to the end of the line, as far as BART will go, and then bike back. It’s the best way to get around the bay.”

For more information, go to 511.org.

When one speaks to William Huie, his soft-spoken voice reveals his personality — even before he says he is shy. But when he is in front of a computer screen, he is a different person. He smiles, furiously types and sometimes laughs while instant messaging and playing games with online friends.

Huie corresponds with his friends mostly through e-mail and instant messaging, or IM. Teens are communicating online more than ever before, and in some cases, it’s helping them to improve their writing ability and social skills. But it’s also keeping them from going out with friends and feeling comfortable meeting people face-to-face.

“Online, you don’t really have the pressure you may have when meeting someone in person,” said 17-year-old Robin Liu, an Irvington High School senior.

Classmates often rely on Liu to help them remove viruses from their computers or deal with other technical problems.

Liu said he would rather meet people in a chat room than in person, because the conversation is more informal and less personal — which makes him feel more at ease.

“There’s no need to get to know each other well,” he said.

But the impersonal nature of electronic communication also can be considered a major downside, said Brigid Barron, an associate professor who researches technology in classrooms at Stanford University’s School of Education. She suggested families create a technology room to confine all electronic communication to one space.

She said the new trend isn’t all bad. She said it can help students communicate better because they learn how to think and write faster. “I see it as a new way of chit-chat,” she said. “If kids are social, they’ll interact in IM and in public.”

Huie, a freshman at Independence High School in San Jose, said he prefers the former. He spends several hours once a week — or more when his allowance can cover the $4-an-hour charge — at Cyber Hunt Café in Milpitas.

He sipped a pearl iced tea and played “Counter Strike,” a computer game, at the café on a recent afternoon. A buddy from Palo Alto, whom he sees only once every couple of months, signed on and joined him in the game. At one point, Huie chuckled.

“My friend got stabbed,” he explained, smiling. “In the game.”
The Internet is a way to socialize and, at the same time, get away. “I sort of have some quiet time to my self,” he said.

Some teens said technology makes them more social because it allows their friends to reach them anytime. Lynbrook High School student Rajiv Makhijani said he keeps AOL instant messenger on all day, every day. “People can then leave messages for me anytime, even when I’m not there,” Makhijani wrote — in an interview conducted over instant messenger.

If guys ogle 14-year-old Melanie Parola, she thinks that’s their problem.

“These are the type of clothes I wear,” Parola said Friday, dressed in a low-cut orange tank top and skin-tight jeans. “Women have the right to wear what they want.”

Preteens are increasingly wearing eye-catching, body-baring tube tops and Daisy Duke shorts. Some do it to attract older boys. Others, such as Parola, say they want to be stylish and like the attention. But some teens and parents say the trend could sexualize children at too young an age and make girls focus too much on their body image.

“If you want to look older, you are going to attract older men,” said 16-year-old Salwa Rabbad. Rabbad was shopping for clothes with 13-year-old Dominique Vera at Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair mall in San Jose. Vera, who was wearing an orange skirt and halter top, said she feels uncomfortable when she wears clothes that are too revealing. “I feel like guys are looking at me. I just want to cover up,” she said after browsing the racks at Charlotte Russe.

Corinna Frausto, a counter supervisor at the store, said provocative clothing, especially corsets and see-through tops, are popular with preteen girls. “I think it’s inappropriate, but a lot to do with parenting,” she said.

Melanie Kirk said her parents didn’t put up with her wearing an ultra-thin tank top Wednesday afternoon. The 14-year-old was headed to the mall when they stopped her and made her put another tank top on underneath.

“My parents wouldn’t let me walk out of the house skanky,” Kirk said.
“They are too young to be wearing that,” said Adel Iskander, whose 14-year-old daughter, Christine, has difficulty striking a balance between stylish and tasteful. Christine Iskander recalled going out with her friends recently. She wore a tight, translucent top. At one point, her friends pointed out how see-through it was. She said she was embarrassed. “It’s disrespectful to be wearing something like that,” she said.

Vera said provocative clothing could be dangerous because it can attract sexual predators. “It’s scary,” she said.

As Parola and her friend, Regin Victor, 15, walked through Westfield Shoppingtown Oakridge mall in San Jose, they said they generally ignore boys who gawk. “Like that,” Parola said, giggling, as a tall teenage boy approached her.

I remember during field hockey practice a few years ago, a girl on my team was talking about a certain guy who would pick her up at home and take her out for ice cream.

At least that’s what she told her parents.

Really, the two friends would drive somewhere, park and make out.
She and this guy weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. They were “friends with benefits.”

When teens talk about the phrase “friends with benefits,” the definition is understood: It’s a friendship between a guy and a girl who share some of the closeness of a boyfriend and girlfriend, meaning they make out, or even have sex.

And they don’t have to worry about being exclusive. They can have multiple friends with multiple benefits.

Anthony Daniels, 19, of San Jose, describes friends with benefits like this: “Mess around with other people and not have to worry about being tied down.”

For many teens, a friends-with-benefits relationship sounds appealing at first, because there are no strings attached. That is, until feelings get involved.

I’ve seen with my friends how this so-called relationship often ends in heartbreak. It starts with the thrill of physical activity and often ends in an unexpected emotional downfall, because someone’s feelings get hurt.

I’ve seen this happen. Repeatedly.

A female friend of mine has been involved in a friends-with-benefits relationship for years, beginning when she was a freshman. I’ve witnessed how happy the guy makes her — they go to dances, to dinner and to the movies. But I’ve also seen how he makes her cry. As part of their relationship, he gets to be with other girls, although he discourages her from seeing other guys.

My friend acknowledges she can’t get mad at him for being with other girls because she knew from the start what she was getting herself into.

It’s sad.

Most of the time, the girl in a friends-with-benefits relationship ends up suffering.

Sure, there are a few sensitive guys out there who want more than sex from a relationship, or who don’t want sex without love, or who don’t want sex at all.

But seriously, how many boys would pass up free sex?

Sex is something very intimate and precious. It should be shared only with someone you love, as long as that person loves you back.

If teenagers decide to be friends with benefits, they should seriously realize the type of situation they could get themselves into. If not, they’re likely setting themselves up to get hurt.

Jessica Esparza, 17, breezed past a store window full of sparkling prom dresses without even glancing at them. Instead, she beckoned to her mom to check out the cribs and bouncy chairs for the baby that Jessica will give birth to soon after starting her senior year of high school.

While the unexpected pregnancy initially shocked and saddened the San Jose teen and her family, it has brought Jessica closer to her mother, Stacy Esparza, who struggled through a teen pregnancy two decades ago and is trying to make sure her daughter does not repeat Esparza’s past.

“I don’t want this to cripple her,” said Esparza, who dropped out of school at age 14 and became pregnant a year later. “Just because she’s pregnant doesn’t mean she has to give up her dream.”

But unplanned pregnancies do derail dreams, and they happen in the United States more often than in any other country, according to the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University and as reported by the local media. About three out of 10 pregnant U.S. teens in 2000 – or 235,470 girls ages 15 to 19 — turned to abortion, according to U.S. government health statistics. Other teens raise their newborns at the expense of finishing their education.

That happened to Stacy Esparza, 36, when she was a teen. As a girl raised in a tough Mountain View neighborhood, surrounded by gangs and drugs, Esparza was trying to pull herself out of the only life she knew. Along the way, she stumbled several times and wound up having an abortion and two miscarriages. She moved out of the house and lived in a car. To scrape by, Esparza worked as a cashier at Taco Bell.

Jessica and her mom cried when they found out the avid math and science student was pregnant, despite using condoms and birth control pills. But they decided against an abortion.

“If you’re going to have sex,” Jessica said, “you’re going to have to deal with the consequences.”

Months ago, Jessica dreamed of studying engineering at an out-of-state university and saving up her summer job paychecks to purchase a 2006 Pontiac.

Now she’s making some compromises. Because of the pregnancy, Jessica plans to attend a nearby community college. And her job at Great America is going to help pay for baby blankets and infant clothing instead of her fantasy car.

The Downtown College Prep student also will likely skip some of the more treasured teen experiences, like homecoming, prom and even day-to-day socializing.

“I’m not in the mood to hang out or party,” said Jessica, who is about five months pregnant. “I get tired easily, so I hardly see my friends anymore.”

But she is bonding with her mom a lot more.

As a child, Jessica refused to divulge any problems to her parents. There was so much conflict and confusion bottled up inside of her, from frustration over being picked on as the middle child to tumult about her parents’ intended divorce, that she tried to commit suicide twice. First she slit her wrists, and then she swallowed a bottle of pills.

That heart-wrenching history has helped Jessica’s mother find a silver lining.

“Now, because of the pregnancy,” Esparza said, “she looks for me when she needs to talk or when she needs help.”

That was something Esparza couldn’t count on with her own parents.
“My family was ashamed,” Esparza said. “They gave no support.”
Esparza’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. A few years later, at ages 17 and 19, she gave birth first to a boy, Antonio, and then a girl, Jessica.

While pregnant with her third child, Esparza returned to school to earn her GED. She rode the bus with her kids to drop them off at daycare. Then she spent all day in class, where she sometimes vomited because of morning sickness.

It was hard, Esparza said, but she stuck with it. Last year she returned to school again, this time to earn her certification in phlebotomy. Now she has a better job in the medical field.
But she wants more for her daughter. Esparza believes that a high school diploma is essential to her daughter’s future, and she insists that Jessica earn a college degree as well.

Jessica wholeheartedly agrees. She is determined to finish high school, wants to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical or computer engineering and dreams of landing a job at Intel, the Santa Clara-based semiconductor company.

While the whole family excitedly plans for Jessica’s career, they also are enthusiastically preparing for her baby, due Nov. 29.

Jessica has picked names: April Marie if it’s a girl, Isaac Anthony if it’s a boy.

The family is guessing the gender. Esparza said, with a laugh: “My husband is buying nothing but boy clothes.”

Because Jessica will continue to live at home with her parents and siblings, “we’re not going to need a baby monitor,” Esparza said. “Everybody’s going to want to hold the baby.”

Despite all the support, Jessica knows that staying in school and raising a child will be rough.

“She told me it was very hard,” Jessica said, referring to her mother’s advice and experience. “The only difference between her and me is that she didn’t have anyone to help her.”

The first San Jose Grand Prix will be changing the face of downtown July 29-31, turning the metropolitan area into a high-speed racetrack.
Champ Cars, known for their open-wheel style, will zoom around the 1.6-mile track at speeds that top out at nearly 200 mph. The number of fans is expected to exceed 100,000.

The race starts on Almaden Boulevard, between East San Carlos Avenue and Balbach Street. The track continues past San Fernando Street, where it makes a hairpin turn and continues back down Almaden before heading left on Park Avenue. It cuts right on Market Avenue, at the Tech Museum, then right on Balbach and right again to the finish line on Almaden.

Racers will be making 100 laps around the track, totaling 11 turns and the one hairpin turn, which Bob Singleton, the vice president and general manager of the Grand Prix, describes as “the most exciting part in racing.”

Changes to the downtown area include street repairs, a special asphalt paved on the Almaden-Market-Balbach block and newly erected grand stands.

Downtown businesses such as restaurants and hotels are expecting increased business. A few residents will stay in hotels for the weekend because the path of the race is so close to their homes.
“We try not to impact the lives and businesses of people,” Singleton said.

Representatives of the Fairmont Hotel said last week that the hotel’s rooms were 85 percent booked, and the Montgomery Hotel is anticipating being full for the three days.

“It will bring thousands and thousands of people all over California to visit us,” said Lina Broydo, the public relations director at the Fairmont Hotel.

Organizers estimate that the three-day event will attract about 120,000 people; most of the attendees are expected to be men ages 18 to 41.

To attract families and children, the Grand Prix will feature the Tech Museum and a variety of entertainment events will stretch as far as Santana Row.

The event was started by Silicon Valley executive Don Listwin and is a benefit for the Canary Fund, a non-profit organization committed to detecting cancer in its early stages.

The Champ Car Series consists of 14 stops, including cities such as Toronto, Cleveland, Montreal and Long Beach. Ten of those, including San Jose, are held in downtown areas.

“It is a street circuit and it showcases the city,” Singleton said about why San Jose was selected to play host.

Around downtown, people are aware of the upcoming race.
“It will help businesses highly, to the max,” said Albert Morales, the manager of Ben & Jerry’s.

Although there are a few things Morales is worried about, such as the danger of a car crashing or tires flying, he notes, “It’s an outside event and it’s going to be hot. Doesn’t everyone want ice cream when it’s hot?”

One of the owners of Hawgs Seafood Bar, Scott Grangreco, has been promoting the race with fliers and posters on the restaurant’s windows. “It’s a great event that will bring people downtown,” Grangreco said. “July and August are slow months. We are going to greatly appreciate and will thrive on the people who will come. We need more events to generate business in the late months.”

Montgomery Hotel General Manager Greg Mauldin said the Grand Prix is a “compelling event” because of its focus on helping the fight against cancer. He recalled when his stepfather passed away from cancer.

“The doctors didn’t expect him to live another three years. He was classified with lung cancer at stage four, which is terminal,” Mauldin said.

“But if there was a way to detect cancer before it started, he would probably still be here today. If more money went into detecting cancer, you’ll get to the finish line faster … like a race car.”

A few teens waited tensely in the outfield as a scrawny boy whacked the ball and then dashed off, holding his bat. As the outfielders scrambled for the ball, the boy raced back to home base, then away from it and back again. He continued this routine twice more.

If this sounds like a baseball player gone mad, it’s not. It’s a game called cricket and it’s becoming more and more popular in the Bay Area – in part because of the recent surge of South Asian immigrants.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, 143,000 Indo-Americans live in the Bay Area today – three times more than a decade ago, before many South Asians immigrated to meet Silicon Valley’s demand for technology workers in the late 1990s.

Since then, the popularity of cricket has been on the rise. It is one of the most popular games in countries such as India, England, Australia and Pakistan. It has also been played for centuries in the United States.

“Cricket is one of the genuinely unknown aspects of American sports history,” said Tom Melville, the author of “Cricket for Americans: Playing and Understanding the Game” and “The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America.” “People don’t know that George Washington played cricket with his soldiers at Valley Forge.”

Aroon Vijaykar picked up his first cricket bat at age 5, when he moved from Fremont to Bangalore, India. He quickly fell in love with the sport. When he returned to the United States five years later, he was disappointed that so few people played cricket.

“If it was such a famous sport in the rest of the world, I figured that the U.S. would have some kind of major league for cricket,” he said.

Vijaykar, 16, and his older brother, Nikhil, decided to do something about it. When Nikhil was at Saratoga High School three years ago, the brothers formed a cricket club at the school.

The club started with less than 10 members and has grown to about 20, including a few girls and students who are not of South Asian descent. Aroon is the team captain.

In recent years, students have created cricket teams at Homestead, Monta Vista, Bellarmine and Irvington high schools.

The California Cricket Academy, a non-profit organization formed in 2003 to organize cricket games for youth, started out with 22 players. Participants practice twice a week and play games every weekend, including occasional tournaments as far away as Chicago and Toronto.
Kinjal and Hemant Buch, the academy’s founders, said they helped form the group because their 7-year-old son said he wanted to learn how to play cricket.

“That summer we thought that we would gather a few kids and have them play,” said Buch, 40, a resident of Cupertino.

The Buchs got more than they expected. They ended up hiring professional coaches and this summer, the academy has 60 players, ages 9 to 15.

Most of the academy’s players are of South Asian descent, but the Buch family has been distributing handouts at schools in the area to try to get others involved.

Cricket enthusiasts have a vision that the game will someday become part of the mainstream American sports scene, much like soccer did a few decades ago, Melville said.

“Potentially, I suppose cricket could be the next soccer,” Melville said. “Ten, 15, or 20 years from now, maybe we’ll have cricket moms running around.”

Jared Lansford is not the only California teenager on the rise in professional sports.

In 2003, at 17 years old, Guillermo “Memo” Gonzalez was selected in the first round of the Major League Soccer draft to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Gonzales, a native of Southern California, began playing soccer early in his childhood and with plenty of family support.

He describes his life emphatically as “soccer, soccer, soccer.” At the age of 15, Gonzalez moved to Florida to participate on U.S. Soccer’s under-17 team.

The midfielder is now among the youngest members of the Galaxy.
“It seems easy, sure enough, but I practice three to four hours each day,” he said. “It’s a responsibility.”

Life on the field is one thing, but life on the road with a team of adult men is a different ordeal. What happens when the guys go out for a night at the bar?

Gonzales nodded his head slightly at the question, glanced at his feet, and said, “It’s a little hard.”

He added that, at first, “I was getting picked on a lot, but I got used to it.”

Louis Ortiz faced what seemed to be the most important decision of his life.

Ortiz and two friends had chipped in $80 each to buy steroids from an acquaintance last summer.

“They were really easy for us to get a hold of,” said Ortiz, 18, a recent graduate of James Lick High School. “You could walk into any gym anywhere and get some. That is part of the reason they are such a big deal, because they are so easy to get.”

The group of friends had discussed it. It had run through their heads what seemed like a million times by now. But now the steroids were in front of them. Everything had changed.

Each friend had his own goals.

For Ortiz, it was a chance to get recruited, to vie for a sought-after Division I college football scholarship. For one of his friends, it was to get bigger for the high school football team.

No matter their intentions, one thing was for sure: This decision could affect the rest of their lives. Steroids could mean the difference between being a superstar and being average. And steroids also could mean the difference between heart and liver disease, hair loss and acne — or a healthy life.

The increased attention on steroids and the growing scandal in professional sports is leaking its way down to high schools athletes like Ortiz and his friends.

According to surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, steroid use among high school athletes has more than doubled from 1991 to 2003. More than 6 percent of 15,000 students surveyed admitted to having used the drugs. This is happening while fewer than 4 percent of the nation’s high schools are testing for steroids, according to a survey of high school athletics directors by the National Federation of State and High School Associations.

“Steroids are beginning to run rampant throughout our schools, and testing looks to be the only way we can slow them down,” said Dr. Gary Wadler, a New York sports medicine specialist who has testified for Congress as part of its Major League Baseball steroid inquiry. “This struggle will always exist: A new drug comes out that can improve performance and then it slides down to the youth. If we want to attack this epidemic, we have to attack it at the elementary levels. We must start to teach the kids at a young age about positive values and level playing fields.”

Ortiz and his friends wanted to be the best, the fastest, the strongest. They looked at their professional heroes and that’s when they started toying with the idea of steroids.

“I felt as if I was going to be lagging behind if I didn’t take them. They are a huge advantage these days. I did not want to be left in the dust,” Ortiz said. “We all bought the steroids with the hope that they would change us into super athletes.’’

In the highly competitive high school sports arena, more kids like Ortiz are looking to the needle in their quest to become elite.

Others, however, feel the same pressure, but not the same prick of the needle.

“I hate steroids because they are cheating, but when your competition is cheating it makes you want to cheat too so you can compete with them,” said David Fagin, a junior at Tracy High School and a starting defensive tackle on the football team.

Fagin says he has been offered the chance to use steroids but never has.

“Life is tough. You’re stuck in the middle and both sides are tugging the hell out of you,” Fagin said. “One side is saying no way would I ever do steroids, they are too dangerous, too many health risks and consequences. Then on the other side, you want to achieve athletic greatness.”

One constant in every steroid story is the set of harsh consequences. Side effects range from the relatively minor, such as hair loss and acne, to the life-threatening — heart disease, liver problems and cancer.

A main risk for teens, Wadler said, is stunted growth. Steroid users might not reach their maximum height.

“You would think that hearing so many bad things about steroids would turn teens off,” Fagin said. “But instead, it is turning them on and making them more eager to have them.”

That’s the problem: Steroids are bad. Teens know they’re bad. But looking at the professionals, it’s hard to ignore the potential.
“Hearing about how my idols are doing steroids and then performing at such a high level was one of the reasons why I was going to take them,” Ortiz said. “If they succeeded while using them, then I want to use them, too.”

This is one reason why the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has been forced to step up its fight to clean up professional sports.

“This anti-doping fight is winnable since it has to be won. I know we, at the Anti-Doping Agency, will do everything in our power to work for drug-free competition,” said Annette Salmeen, a member of the agency’s board of directors and a gold medalist in the 800-meter freestyle relay at the 1996 Olympics.

“I never felt pressure to take steroids or to cheat in any other way,” said Salmeen, who was reached by phone and e-mail. “I had too much respect for sport, my health and my fellow athletes to ever cheat.”
At the end, so did Ortiz and his friends. When they finally saw the steroids in front of them, when they weren’t just something on television, it got too real too quick.

“There were just too many consequences, too many risks,” said Ortiz, who has since gotten rid of the steroids. “At the time they just seemed like the answer to all my problems. They were going to help me get out of this town and go to college.”

That was a year ago. Today, he says he’s happy with his decision, although he didn’t go to college and isn’t playing football.

“These days,” Ortiz said, “I am totally opposed to any steroid use.”

LeBron James. Amare Stoudemire. Kevin Garnett. Kobe Bryant. Tracy McGrady.

Brothers. Brothers joined not by blood but by talent. Five players who share a connection as deep as the Grand Canyon. Five players who represent the best the NBA has to offer, with a new-school twist.

They’re NBA stars who have never played a game of college basketball. All they needed was their high school diploma — and, of course, their undeniable talent — and they were ready to sign an NBA contract.

That jump, however, will no longer be possible because of the NBA’s new labor agreement, which requires all players who declare for the draft to be at least 19 years old.

This rule will keep these potential all-stars from making a profound impact on their generation — the new school. Players such as LeBron and Stoudemire exhibit a style of high-flying basketball, including showboating and an array of outrageous dunks targeted at younger fans. The new age restriction would suck some of this young life and energy out of the league.

During LeBron’s first game as a pro, against the Sacramento Kings in 2003, ESPN earned a rating of 2.8, higher than all but one of the network’s 69 regular-season games last season, according to CBS Sports Line. With the NBA’s new age limit, that impact is gone. For at least a couple of years, anyway.

For most high school graduates, being 18 means the start of college. For basketball players, that could mean one to four years of playing for heart, love and everything intangible. But no money.

College administrators who give out scholarships have good intentions, but scholarships don’t help athletes provide for families who are having trouble paying the bills.

Sure, college is the route that most players should take. Only a rare few have the talent of Kobe, LeBron and T-Mac. And for those who do, why make them jump through extra hoops?

With the age limit intact, those willing to sacrifice their education to go pro, would be forced to play overseas if they want to make money to support their family.

Or they could go to college, where they’d stay for maybe a year or two. That environment may benefit the team, but not necessarily the player. The vigorous life of a student-athlete wears and tears on the body like sandpaper on wood.

After a year, theplayers who were meant to go pro would make that jump, turning the NCAA into a breeding ground or extra practice facility.

So why waste time competing at a lower level? Why make an age limit that’s only hindering the American Dream of achieving success, fame and wealth through hard work?

LeBron came into the league in 2003 as the most-hyped rookie in NBA history. He put up spectacular numbers and took home the Rookie of the Year award. Under this new rule, he wouldn’t be the national idol he is today. College would have slowed him down, and the hype would have died down like Pogs in the late ’90s.

It would also be interesting to see what would be up with Kobe’s career these days if he had to face the minimum-age restriction. If he went to college for three years, he would have been just a rookie, not a three-year veteran, when the Lakers started their championship dynasty in 2000.

If education is the issue, skipping college doesn’t necessarily mean not getting a degree. Look at Shaquille O’Neal. He left Louisiana State University after his junior year to go pro, but eventually earned his bachelor’s degree. On June 25, he earned his master’s degree from the University of Phoenix and said he plans to pursue his doctorate.

It’s like Robert Frost wrote in “The Road Not Taken:” “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

For some, the traditional route is best: high school to college to the pros. For others, the road less traveled is just as good of a choice.
An age restriction is an unnecessary confinement. A year in college doesn’t provide athletes with an adequate education, nor real experience at the collegiate level. Why decrease NCAA competition, lower NBA potential and ratings, and destroy the American Dream?
Seems to be a lose-lose situation.

The young baseball player closed the door to his Escalade, the lone luxury car in a sea of Hondas and Toyotas. For Travis Ishikawa, this Escalade is the culmination of all his hard work. He headed toward the locker room, leaving the car in the stadium lot.

It’s 11:30 a.m. on game day. The game doesn’t start until 7 p.m., but it’s a typical morning for Ishikawa, a first baseman for the San Jose Giants. He arrives this early every game day to warm up on his own before his team arrives.

Ishikawa, 21, is a professional baseball player, but not the kind most people imagine.

He doesn’t have a multi-million-dollar contract, he doesn’t have autograph hounds shoving pens in his face, and he lives with a host family set up by the Giants organization.

Nate Schierholtz, a second-year right fielder, is running a little late today. Just like Ishikawa, his best friend on the team, he is chasing the dream he has had since he was 5. He’s in Class A, the lowest rung of professional baseball, a place where many dreams die hard.

“I am going to play this game for as long as it lets me,” Schierholtz said. “I will never quit.”

Ishikawa and Schierholtz’s lives are far from that of their major league counterparts. They don’t have the luxuries. They live for the game, for a chance to make it to the next level. They spend every waking moment chasing this dream.

“Every day, I wake up at around five and go get a workout in,” Ishikawa said. “We don’t have a weight room at the ballpark.”

Ishikawa heads in the direction of the training room, which is occupied by a trainer. Two whirlpools are on each side of the player as he lies down on the training table. “The trainers’ room reminds me of being in high school, except for the fact that in high school we had three trainers,” Ishikawa said.

Despite the lackluster facilities, lack of money and a small fan base, Ishikawa views San Jose as a good home — but it’s time for another, he said.“I definitely am ready to move on in my career. At times I feel like I am going to be stuck in San Jose for the rest of my life,” Ishikawa said.

In an attempt to climb to a higher level of professional baseball, Ishikawa packs his days from the moment he gets out of bed.

“My average day consists of waking up, drinking a protein shake, going to the gym, head here to the park, and then stay here into the late of the night, working to make me a better baseball player,” he said.

It’s a life that does not appeal much to the masses, especially when the average San Jose Giant’s salary is $5,000 to $6,000 annually.

Compared to the average salary of a New York Yankee, which is set at $5,833,334, Ishikawa couldn’t even buy a rim on star Derek Jeter’s Mercedes.

But to Ishikawa, Schierholtz and other young players trying to move up, it’s worth it. They are willing to sacrifice money — or, at least, defer it — to play the game they love.

It is their big league dream.

Schierholtz does not care how little he is paid. He is a second-year minor leaguer, a different kind of breed. Minor leaguers hardly ever even have a home of their own.

“I live with three other teammates in a small apartment,” Schierholtz said, “and it sucks, but at least it is better than living with strangers.”

Ishikawa was a star in high school in Federal Way, Wash. He was lined up to go to Oregon State University on a full scholarship. Then things changed for him. To his surprise, he was chosen in the 21st round of the draft in 2002, with the 637th pick.

He then faced a tough decision: Go to college and have a better chance at the big leagues or take the signing bonus, $1 million, and work hard to make it. He chose route No. 2.

Schierholtz had been excelling since Little League. No matter the sport, he was the best. He played throughout high school at San Ramon Valley High. He had accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Utah. Then, like it did with Ishikawa, something changed.

He was playing summer baseball and had a monstrous statistical year. His coaches, who were based at Chabot College in Hayward, persuaded him to stay home and go to the junior college, at least for a year. He was drafted by the San Francisco Giants the following year.

For minor league players, it’s hard to move up. They have to fight through the feeling of being stuck.

“Feels like quicksand,” said Ishikawa, as he stretched his hamstrings in preparation for the game.

“We only have about one or two players that move up every year to Double-A,” said Joe Ritzo, director of public relations for the San Jose Giants.

Life is not glamorous. “The farthest vacation I can take is to Sacramento to play golf,” said Ishikawa as he played catch with Schierholtz to warm up their arms. “Otherwise, I have to be home to work on my game.”

During off-days and during the off-season, their work does not stop.
“Last year I worked at Old Navy, but this year I spent all off-season working to get stronger and better,” Ishikawa said.

Schierholtz is an avid Ford Mustang fan. He owns two.

“On my off time, I spend it either working on my Mustangs, spending time with my family up in Danville or working on my game,” he said.
After hours of preparation, the game starts. The players go through this routine for 7 1/2 hours a day, 140 games a year.

The “Star-Spangled Banner” is played, and Ishikawa and Schierholtz head to their positions on the right side of the field.

In the third inning, Ishikawa is up. The first pitch comes. Crack! A clean shot clears the fence in right-center.

And for just a moment, it’s goodbye Old Navy, hello light at the end of the tunnel.

The Oakland A’s second draft pick, 18-year-old Jared Lansford of Santa Clara, has an intriguing paradox: He can sweat at the gym, hang out with his friends, even enjoy a weekend in Tahoe. But for now, the baseball diamond is off-limits.

Lansford is under orders to prevent injury before he moves to Arizona to pitch for the A’s rookie team.

Lansford’s lifelong dream has begun to materialize, but on the flip side, he said, “It’s my job now to stay in shape, to stay free of injury and to focus.”

A fresh graduate from St. Francis High School in Mountain View, Lansford now faces professional responsibilities and pressures. Indeed, Lansford often describes his rise to professional baseball and the challenges ahead as “heart-wrenching.”

This emotion is not surprising, considering that baseball has always been at the heart of the Lansford family. His father, Carney, a former infielder with the Oakland A’s, has nurtured his two sons’ interest in baseball. Under his father’s guidance, Lansford matured from his days of T-ball in Oregon to clubs and school teams in the Bay Area, where the competition is more heated.

The past four years have been especially intense for the Lansfords. Carney Lansford, who was drafted straight out of high school, has dedicated most of his time to helping his sons become highly competitive players in college or the major leagues.

“My dad quit his job as a major league coach so I could get a scholarship,” said Jared Lansford.

But his father has been more than coach. His father and his older brother, Josh, who is on the roster at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, are Jared’s inspiration. “I always wanted to be like both of them,” he said.

And now he is.
Mom Debbie Lansford has also played a crucial role in the journey, acting as her son’s spiritual and emotional guide.

“She prayed for me every morning,” Jared Lansford said, a hint of gratitude in his voice.

As Lansford faced the hustle and bustle of his senior year, participating on his school and club baseball teams and facing the unrelenting scrutiny of major league and college scouts, his mother’s prayers were a definite plus, he said.

Lansford recalls the intimidating pressure in the half-hour before each game. Radar guns aimed at him and eyes wide open, scouts would dissect and judge each throw.

“You are trying to be the best you can be, and it’s nerve-wracking,” Lansford said. “You have to channel your emotions and keep yourself from trying to perform too well.”

For Lansford, the stress was not limited to the field. Like any other teen, Lansford juggled relationships and prepared for college. Many people would balk at the intensity of his feats, but Lansford said, “I never got tired of it.”
Lansford’s persistence paid off when he experienced the ultimate adrenaline rush during his senior trip to Hawaii this spring.

“Before the draft, I never had too many expectations,” Lansford said. So when he found out through the Internet that he had been chosen by the Oakland A’s in the second round of the draft, his reaction was “total shock.”

However, euphoria has given way to reality as Lansford navigates the complexities of a half-million-dollar contract, prepares physically for the training ahead and braces for a relocation to Arizona, where he will play in the lowest of the six Oakland A’s minor league teams.
Now, Lansford and his family must deal with the burdens of a dream come true.

Debbie Lansford had wanted a college education for her son. But he turned down his scholarship to Santa Clara University, where he would have pitched and played infield.

Lansford admits that he will miss being a position player, even though he can now pitch at a flaming 90 mph. But he appreciates his parents for “pushing me — no, supporting me — through this whole process.”
Lansford’s signing bonus is expected to be worth about $550,000; it does not include his salary.

That’s a lot of money. And Lansford knows it.

“Yeah, I’m 18 years old. I don’t need that kind of money right now,” he said with a little nervous laughter.

Almost overnight, Lansford has been transformed from a fairly ordinary adolescent to an adult with star potential — and the trappings of that potential.

Although Lansford speaks with the lightheartedness of a typical teen, he notes of the post-draft life: “Some people do act differently now, but my family and my best friends are exactly the same.”

This is especially important as Lansford moves away from his family. Millions of 18-year-olds face this transition, but Lansford says that for him, “It’s more nerve-wracking. I have a job, which is just pitching.”

Freshman year, first day of school, first period. The door swings open, and lo and behold: a mosaic of anti-Bush political cartoons hangs from the inner door, most prominently a monkey-fied picture of President Bush’s head. Now on guard, I step through the doorway, and find yet more welcoming signs, most notably a Gore 2000 flag and corresponding bumper stickers on the wall.

I was shy back then. As I moved from another city, my parents had told me that Monta Vista High was a top-notch school, and the transition would be easy. The teacher would go on her usual “you know how things are” political rant. And I’d roll my eyes and swallow my outrage. I bit my lip and said nothing. Little had I known that I was entering Brainwashing 101.

Political cartoons, video clips from TV commercials and excerpts from political books have taken the route of squatters and found homes on school property. This lack of teacher inhibition is transmogrifying houses of learning into vessels for indoctrination, of the likes of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia.

Effective learning is based on mutual respect. I accept the authority of my teacher, because the teacher respects my willingness to learn. But when teachers abuse this respect and use students as part of an agenda, they lose their credibility and ruin the learning potential of the classroom environment.

If politics are integrated into the curriculum, it should be through a forum-style format that provides all students with a safe, comfortable way to speak their minds. The antics of an ideologically impassioned teacher can intimidate youth and make them feel threatened, as I had felt, detracting from any learning that should be going on.

Arvind Shrihari, a Monta Vista High School junior, has been in that situation before. “It’s a teacher and he has the authority in the classroom, and I didn’t feel like I wanted to undermine that. Students do have rights, to give their own opinion, and I felt like those rights were being completely ignored. I felt like I was being looked down upon.”

It’s easy to say that students should speak up if they feel like they’re being victimized. Try being new in school, never having seen so many kids in one place at one time, and your teacher in control of your future. When you can see the anger in a teacher’s body language when he talks about his beliefs, what student in their right mind would challenge him?

“Teachers need tobe careful,” said Esther Wojcicki, an English and journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School. “In my classes, students always speak up, because I encourage diversity of opinion. I’m sure there are situations where students feel completely intimidated and refuse to speak up.”

The classroom is not designed to be some kind of therapy for the politically frustrated instructor. Currently, teachers are allowed to express political opinions, so long as they are “within the curriculum,” according to several educators. As California Teachers Association spokesman Mike Myslinski said, “We believe that teachers must be free to teach, and students free to learn. And this means that teachers and students must be free to explore and discuss many issues and different points of views.” But the alarming number of my peers who have fallen victim to political tirades in Spanish and literature classes, where they have no relevance, demands that swift corrective action be taken.

At such an academically oriented school as my Cupertino campus, grades come first, and students are willing to stomach their political grievances in the interest of getting an A. But high school is about more than grades; students should be discovering and developing their beliefs.

That’s why I founded a chapter of the Young Republicans during my sophomore year, and the club has since grown into a solid network of about 20 teens. The club serves as something of a support group for our common experience, where we can share our stories of ideological conflicts.

But for an administration to tolerate teacher demagoguery and expect students to defend themselves because they don’t complain is plainly irresponsible. As Wojcicki said, there is “very little oversight, so it’s easy for a teacher to get away with all kinds of things.”

Not to say that teachers should repress their beliefs. Like everyone else, teachers are entitled to their opinions. All I ask is that they indulge in them on their own time and off campus. Taxpayers pay teachers to educate, not to indoctrinate. Educators ought to recognize that.

The House of Representatives has once again approved a proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, and now it’s the Senate’s turn. Never before has such an amendment cleared the Senate’s 67-vote hurdle, and there’s no reason to pass it now.

Really, how many flag-burners do we usually see on our streets?
Congress should spend its summer — and the rest of its existence — ignoring this issue and instead devoting itself to solving the complex and more relevant tasks that we elected its members to take care of in the first place.

Social Security is headed toward insolvency. Nuclear proliferation threatens to kick off a third world war. And don’t forget that we’re embroiled in a war on terrorism.

The full text of the proposed flag burning amendment reads, “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

Flag burning is blatantly distasteful (and extremely rare), but we agree with the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling protecting flag desecration as a form of free speech. This issue has already been dealt with.

Let’s be honest. This isn’t just about burning flags. Much of this is a case study on the power of emotionally charged rhetoric. An attempt to shore up political support by backing a proposal intended to inspire patriotism for one’s own benefit is despicable.

The flag does indeed symbolize this country, and at times can be the only representation of its ideals for thousands of miles. But is it more patriotic to protect the flag or to protect the ideals it represents?

The preservation of freedom of speech, even in its most offensive form, is as strong of a testament to true patriotism as is possible.
A more appropriate amendment would read, “The Congress shall have the responsibility to exercise the full power it actually holds.”

“Flush!”

That’s the sound of wasted money.

The city’s master plan for skate park construction envisions 11 skate parks in San Jose, one per district in addition to a regional park.

Not only is it grossly wasteful to build a skate park in each district at a cost of nearly a half million dollars each, but in so doing, the government is also misdiagnosing the root of teen boredom. By applying a solution that will address solely skateboarders, the city is not targeting the issues of teens at large.

Skateboarders can ride on some sidewalk areas and in locations designated for skating, like skate parks. But malls and high-traffic areas are off-limits. To discourage teens from violating the law, the government stepped in to build an alternative venue for recreation.

Are skate parks needed? You bet. But building them should be a private responsibility, rather than a public one. Just as Laser Quest reaches out to teens who enjoy laser tag, and privately owned bowling allies target bowling enthusiasts, private businesses can follow suit with the youth skateboarding market. For the government to intervene and compete against individual businesses by providing access to skateboarding facilities for free challenges the American tradition of private enterprise.

While lauding the increased presence of public skate parks, Chris Overholser, the national director of communications for Vans, an apparel company that owns skate parks, said skate park businesses experience pressure from government competition.

“It’s really hard to compete with free,” he said.

For the public, skate parks pose the threat of draining parks and recreation funds. Public skate parks don’t have the same level of supervision as private parks, which use waiver forms, among other things to restrict liability. Few other public facilities engender the same level of personal risk, so these liability issues can lead to lawsuits against cities, which can limit any other projects the parks and recreation department plans.

Some might argue that businesses don’t get involved in the skate park industry, so skaters are left to deface city property. Even if that were true enough to validate the construction of skate parks, the parks need not be constructed on their current scale. Among teens, skateboarding is a minority interest.

Sure, some recreation specifically targeting skateboarders might be appropriate if businesses weren’t going to get involved. But the construction of neighborhood teen centers, which appeal to the needs of far more youths, would be more effective in satisfying demands for recreation.

While skate parks only meet the needs of some, teen centers offer all kinds of services, and attract 50 to 75 teens daily.

Supervisor Jennifer Scranton, of the Santa Clara teen center said, it holds movie nights, “hip-hop Thursdays,” and Xbox and pool tournaments.

Skate parks hold no such special activities.

Teen centers also hold events such as band jams and dances that can attract up to 250 teens. The heads of some Bay Area teen centers are even collaborating to plan different excursions for local youths.

If skate parks are going to be integrated into city recreation programs, they ought to follow the Santa Clara teen center’s model. It has a skate park directly adjacent to it, making it a major draw to all area youth.

Nevertheless, the city of San Jose is on track to re-evaluate its master plan, titled the “Greenprint,” in a few years. And re-evaluate it should.

Mary Beth Carter, the associate landscape architect for the city’s Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services department, said the skate parks built to date have been in neighborhoods with the highest demand.

Considering that the demand is distributed as it is and that the average cost per skate park has ranged from $250,000 to $450,000 with construction costs rising 15 percent each year, constructing skate parks all over the city is a waste.

If dollars are going to be spent on teen recreational facilities, they need to be spent well. Let’s keep track of what the government can do, and what teens want it to do. City officials must be mindful of clogging the drain.

It’s no secret that being out in the sun for too long can cause skin cancer. The risk is especially high for minors, which is why our moms smeared suntan sludge over our chubby toddler faces. It’s what good responsible mothers do.

So why are parents, teens and salon owners so ignorant about the fact that it is illegal for minors to go to tanning salons without parental consent?

That’s right. A 1988 state law bars minors from tanning salons if they cannot show that they have the consent of their parents. But as Mosaic Staff Writer Samantha Zenk revealed in this issue, parents don’t know that. And teens, who are at the highest risk for skin disease later on in life from using the devices, are being allowed to frequent tanning salons that let them in without even checking their age.

What’s the point of passing a law if it’s not going to be enforced? If the threat to teens is great enough to warrant legislation, then it should be important enough to enforce properly.

Moreover, the public should be as knowledgeable about the dangers of artificial tanning as they are about the health risks associated with smoking or binge drinking. If these activities can be restricted to people over a certain age, why have tanning laws and the issues they address been reduced to the level of local trivia?

Laws are ordained because society decides that problems need to be addressed. They can’t be addressed if the laws are going to be ignored.

Besides leaving the problem unresolved, ignored laws make a mockery of the entire legal system and foster resentment among those affected by the law. Tanning laws need to be thoroughly reviewed by legislators, and a working system of protecting teens from ignorance needs to be implemented.

If all else fails, there’s always good ol’ fashioned sunlight to give you that golden-brown glow. The best part is that basking in the sun will never require parental consent.

After high schools throughout Silicon Valley freed students for summer vacation, 28 teens returned to a classroom for three days of IT training.

IT is information technology, a growing field that predicts it won’t have nearly enough workers in the coming years as the baby boom generation retires and students become less interested in the profession.

SEMI Foundation, a non-profit organization based in San Jose, is trying to solve this problem. In 2001, it launched High Tech U, a three-day workshop that lets high school students explore engineering and computer science through fun, hands-on activities, such as building transistors at Applied Materials and jumping into “bunny suits” at Intel’s clean room.

Applied Materials and Intel, two of Silicon Valley’s top tech companies, teamed up with SEMI to host the region’s sixth High Tech U at their corporate headquarters June 20-22. They especially wanted to spark IT interest among females, African-Americans and Latinos – groups that are significantly underrepresented in IT.

According to a report released in June by the Information Technology Association of America, women represented only 32.4 percent of the IT workforce in 2004, a decline from 41 percent in 1996.

African-Americans accounted for 8.3 percent of IT workers in 2004, compared to 9.1 percent in 1996. And Latinos accounted for 6.4 percent of IT workers in 2004, an increase from the 5.3 percent in 1996 but still significantly lower than the percentage of Latinos in the overall U.S. workforce.

Andres Ramirez, a junior at Latino College Prep Academy in San Jose, signed up for High Tech U at the urging of his teacher. The 16-year-old has been leaning toward a career in construction, in part because he doesn’t want to be constrained by a cubicle all day long.
“I like being outside,” Ramirez said.

But after surviving the first all-indoor day of High Tech U – Ramirez sat in an Applied Materials multipurpose room from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. – he said it wasn’t all that bad.

“I liked the currents,” said Ramirez, who learned to hook up diodes, resistors and capacitors, and measure voltage.

Lisa Anderson, a SEMI vice president, surveyed the multipurpose room and smiled. But she did notice a slight problem.

Only eight of the 28 students were girls.

“Our goal is to recruit 50 percent boys and 50 percent girls,” she said.

One of the girls, Kathryn Daniels, said being outnumbered by boys is “kind of intimidating.” But it’s not something that would stop her from competing against the guys in the IT profession, where the jobs range from computer programmers to electrical engineers.

“I have a lot of friends who are guys,” said the 15-year-old Milpitas High School student. “I think I can interact with guys in the workplace.”

What was more intimidating, she said, was discovering how difficult and time-consuming it is to create microchips and wafers.

Daniels hardly knew anything about IT before entering the program. But now, she said, “I have a lot of respect for the job.”

On a hot Thursday afternoon in June, I walked into what some Silicon Valley residents consider an oasis: Fry’s Electronics, a technology superstore housed in what looks like a Mayan temple.

But I didn’t find relief.

I saw clusters of cell-phone toting teens. And middle-aged men drooling over computer displays.

I fidgeted.

Even though I am 16 years old, I am horribly out of tune with technology. No iPod. No CD player. No text messaging for me. And I was ready to admit that to the Fry’s customer service staff. I waited in line for someone, anyone, to show me what all the technology hoopla was about.

I hoped going to Fry’s would help me understand my friends’ infatuations with their tech toys. They all own some kind of device that they never seem to put down. One friend depends on her PDA for phone numbers, dates — everything. Another friend loves his PlayStation Portable, which he got as soon as it came out.

Edward Sales, a 23-year-old salesman, gave me a full tour of Fry’s. “You know, a lot of teenagers like to make their own computers now,” he said.

Great. I’m even more behind than I thought. At no time in the near future will I be able to build a computer.

We head over to the iPod section. These colorful mini-music devices are more powerful than the laptop I type my essays on at home. Even the iPod mini has four to six gigabytes, depending on how much you pay. Compare this to my measly laptop, which boasts less than one gigabyte.

“It’s so small and compact,” Sales said of the $199 device. “Teenagers are looking for design.”

Maybe they’re also looking for friendship. My iPod-pocketing friends sound like they have personal relationships with their attractive little devices. It must be something serious. I find teens all over campus listening to their iPods instead of talking to the people surrounding them.

I don’t know what the big deal is. Neither does Angela Agellon, an 8-year-old I met at Fry’s. In fact, the third-grader doesn’t even know what an iPod is, so I instantly like her.

But Agellon is slightly more tech-savvy than I am. When she started telling me about her Gameboy, I thought she was referring to the equivalent of Playgirl magazine.

Gelatinous protective covers for iPods? Kind of expensive, and they don’t even cover the fragile LCD screen.

Watch a movie on the new PSP? How stupid. The screen is too small.
It’s not just iPods and MP3 players. I have never owned a CD player — no Discman, no CD-spinning boombox, no CD-car stereo (no car, either).
Oddly enough, I was the owner of one — and only one — CD. I bought “The Postal Service,” a CD full of dark techno music, a year ago.

Wanting to share my adoration for my new album, I played it for my parents as we rode to a campsite in their truck. But I stupidly stashed the CD in the driver’s-side door, and it fell out when my dad got out to gas up the truck.

Nobody noticed, which is how my dad drove over it. Twice. He backed over it when I insisted we return to retrieve it.

It was like fate wanted to keep me as far from technology as possible.
So I saw my chance to get a closer glimpse while at Fry’s. I begged Sales to show me the CD players, which cost as little as $20 now. I actually began saving up for one when I was in third grade, but abandoned my dream after realizing I would have to buy CDs to play in it.

Same thing with the iPod. I would need to buy MP3s.

A downloaded song costs 99 cents, which is a lot for some dumb song. And, according to the Christian Appalachian Project Web site, my 70 cents can buy $10 worth of medicine for a sick child somewhere far away.

If 70 cents can buy all that medicine for a sick child, why doesn’t 99 cents buy an entire CD?

Well, I’m not one to preach. Realistically, I’m not going to donate money to help a sick child.

And I’m not going to waste it on an MP3 player, either.

I started saving all my polished pennies at age 8. My parents would give me school lunch money, but I wouldn’t spend it. I figured if I saved $2 here and $2 there, I would eventually have enough money to buy a CD player.

But now, the thought of blowing all that hard-earned money on a gadget that eventually may be damaged — or get crushed by a car — breaks my heart.

It seems to be getting harder for California kids younger than 17 to get their hands on violent video games.

Best Buy, a major tech entertainment retailer, recently reinforced its policy restricting the sale of mature video games to minors. And the California Legislature expects to see the revival of a failed bill that would make it a crime to sell ultra-violent video games to youth.

It seems to be getting harder for California kids younger than 17 to get their hands on violent video games.

Best Buy, a major tech entertainment retailer, recently reinforced its policy restricting the sale of mature video games to minors. And the California Legislature expects to see the revival of a failed bill that would make it a crime to sell ultra-violent video games to youth.

Even a tech camp at Stanford University this summer is limiting the violent content that students produce and play.

Despite all the attempts to protect kids, the line between what’s acceptable gameplay and what’s gratuitous blood and gore remains hazy. It’s also unclear whether a one-size-fits-all approach benefits everyone younger than 17.

“Everyone wants to take out anger,” said 16-year-old video game aficionado Robert DeArmond, “and it’s better to do it in a game than on someone.”

DeArmond, a Santa Cruz native, plays video games for one to two hours every few days and favors ones that can be considered somewhat risqué. He runs cars off the road for a fiery explosion and reward in “Burnout 3,” assaults hordes of aliens in “Halo 2” and chain-saws rival gangs in “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.”

“Kids just want to be rebellious, and this is just another form of it,” he said. They “want to play something more extreme than Pac-Man.”
At the weeklong iD Tech Camp at Stanford in late June, DeArmond designed a 3-D video game from scratch in which a warlock traverses through dark sewers to escape from a temple.

Another 90 or so campers, ages 7 to 17, programmed their own two-dimensional and three-dimensional games and modified existing games, like the mystical role-playing game “Dungeon Siege.” Many of the students at the camp, which is sponsored by gaming moguls such as Electronic Arts and Microsoft, aspire to become professional game developers.

Though DeArmond’s game sounds dark, it’s not violent. In fact, the instructors try to keep the video game violence to a minimum. And they only let campers 13 or older play games appropriate for teens and adults.

State Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is trying to make that kind of age guideline a law. Assembly Bill 450 would have made it a felony to sell extremely violent video games to minors, but state legislators voted it down in June. He plans to reintroduce the bill.

“We’re prepared to shore up support,” said Yee, who garnered the endorsements of the California Academy of Pediatricians, the California Psychiatric Association and California State PTA.

“These are virtual games that have life-like human figures that commit heinous, atrocious acts of violence,” said Yee, who notes research shows such activity can be detrimental to the children’s well-being.
The $10 billion video game industry and other opponents of Yee’s bill said the legislation would stifle the free-speech rights of game developers and publishers.

In an e-mail rallying video game industry members to speak out against the bill, the International Game Developers Association pointed out “no other entertainment industry’s products are regulated by the state, even though other media have controversial content.”

Electronic Arts, the world’s largest video game publisher, underscores the First Amendment issue. Tammy Schachter, spokeswoman for the Redwood City-based company, declined to comment specifically on violence in video games but did say game developers, just like filmmakers and book publishers, should be free to create content that caters to a wide range of customers.

Entertainment Software Association spokesman Dan Hewitt said Yee’s bill is “unconstitutional, unnecessary and unwarranted.” According to Hewitt, the industry supports Yee’s goal, but insists government regulatory policies are not needed. Rather, politicians, community groups and the industry itself should educate parents about which games contain violent content.

Teens at the tech camp, who may grow up to be tomorrow’s game developers, have mixed ideas about video game violence.

Sixteen-year-old Aaron Solomon thinks it’s fine for kids to play violent video games as long as their parents approve.

The parents of Daniel Adams won’t let their 11-year-old play games rated for audiences age 17 or older because they contain violence, sexual content or foul language.

But they made an exception once. Two years ago, his parents gave him “Halo,” an Xbox best-seller that they didn’t realize was extremely violent.

“We were getting really mad at each other for killing each other in the game,” said Adams, who had thrown a remote control at his brother. “It got kind out of hand, so our parents took it away from us.”

Question: Student X receives dozens of fliers publicizing the SAT-preparation classes but can’t afford to sign up. Student Y has six SAT-preparation books, spent roughly $1,500 for classes and attends Palo Alto High School, one of the best high schools in the state. Student X scored a 1710 of 2400 points while Student Y scored a 2020. The difference in these students’ experiences can best be described as:

A. Ridiculous; Student Y overspent.

B. Stupid; Student X should have taken out a loan.

C. Acceptable; Student Y is simply capitalizing on the resources available to him.

D. Unfair; If colleges use the same scale — test scores — to compare students X and Y, they should have similar resources available to them.

Answer: D

When in doubt, choose the longest or most complex answer: D. The truth is, any of these answers could be correct. But this is why I support D:

Student X doesn’t have the advantage of working with professionals who know the test inside out, familiarizing herself with the format and practicing sample questions in a real, test-like setting. Student X is Khanh Do, a senior at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose, whose family — including her parents and four siblings — immigrated to the United States from Vietnam six years ago. Her father’s job as a mechanic pays the rent and supports the family.

Student Y clearly has the material advantage.

This writer has a confession: I am Student Y. And I have to admit, I sometimes took what I had for granted. I complained about the classes and even dozed off sometimes. I doled out money for products and services I thought could help me get the perfect score, perfect college education and perfect job.

And why wouldn’t I? My parents busted their butts so I could have an easier life than they did. They emigrated from Taiwan for graduate school in the late 1970s. For years, my dad lived off a scholarship that gave him $500 per month. He’s a corporate lawyer for arguably the most prestigious law firm in Silicon Valley. My mother, the youngest of nine children, worked her way through school. She’s a successful immigration lawyer who helps thousands of people live out the American Dream she longed for 30 years ago.

It’s no wonder they have high expectations. My brother met them, getting into Princeton University. As for me, I need every advantage I can get. My grades could be better, and I don’t try hard enough. Simply put, I need help.

And there’s nothing wrong with getting it, said Harriet Brand, a spokeswoman for Princeton Review — which provides classes to help student prepare for tests. She said students who can’t afford test-preparation classes can buy SAT books or take after-school classes provided in some areas. She said while these alternatives may not be as desirable as taking high-end courses, it’s all about a student’s motivation.

You can be as motivated as you want, but that may not be enough.
Consider Do. She has a 4.0 grade-point average and attends Biotechnical Academy, an accelerated program at her school.

The 310-point difference in our scores can be decisive in gaining admission to the top colleges. It’s unfair the system has made it so people like me can essentially buy our way to success, while Do and others like her cannot.

Something must be done to level the playing field. Students can start petitions, write letters to educators or donate money to low-income students. Or students can form an SAT club that raises money to award scholarships or hire instructors.

For now, all I can do is be grateful for the opportunities I have. That means no more sleeping in class or griping.

When Vasty Pelayo was a shy freshman at James Lick High School in San Jose, she tried out for a school play.

She walked into the audition hoping for a minor role, if anything at all. She walked out with the lead and a love for drama that kept her in drama classes for three more years.

The experience boosted her confidence, brought her out of shell and made her more outgoing, she said.

That is, until the class was axed because the school couldn’t afford to rehire the drama teacher, who had left.

The drama teacher at Silver Creek High School in San Jose left as well. There was not enough money to replace him either.

Situations like the ones at James Lick and Silver Creek are common throughout the state, as schools from elementary to collegiate levels feel a budget crunch. During tough budget times, art, music and drama classes are some of the first programs to be cut.

It even happens in wealthier school districts such as Palo Alto, where the school district cut arts programs in the past three years as part of a $6.5 million budget reduction, according to the district’s Web site. A parcel tax that passed recently may help reinstate some of those programs.

Palo Alto Unified board member Mandy Lowell said arts education is crucial to learning.

It relieves stress and helps students get excited about learning and working with others, she said. It also promotes creative thinking, which is essential for innovation in other fields such as math, science and technology.

“One of the best ways to work on a team or cope with failure is through performing arts and athletics,” Lowell said.

Pelayo auditioned for the school play because a friend didn’t want to try out alone. Pelayo had never acted before, but she said her friend bugged her almost every day to try out. She finally gave in.

She played Charlie in Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” As she read through her lines and practiced them at home, she grew to love Charlie’s character. She related to his quiet, innocent personality.

When she started rehearsals, she was terrified. Most of the other actors in the play were juniors and seniors. As she performed her solo on opening night, her nervous energy transformed to excitement as she felt the audience’s energy. She said she got the feeling people really understood Charlie’s character. “It was pretty thrilling,” she said.

After more than two months of rehearsals and performances, Pelayo said she could feel the difference in her confidence level. She volunteered for more class presentations, introduced herself at more school functions and made a lot of new friends.

By her senior year, Pelayo choreographed dances for school rallies, was a cheerleader and was voted by her class “most talented.”

“Acting really boosted my confidence,” Pelayo said. “Without drama, I would not have had the chance to become outgoing.”

That’s why she was so disappointed when drama was no longer offered last year, her senior year.

“They broke a part of a James Lick bond,” she said.

On the surface, Juana Calderon seems no different than any other 19-year-old college student. She has a pleasant smile, loves athletics and juggles her classes with an after-school job and extracurricular activities.

Look deeper, though, and it’s clear that Calderon is anything but average.

She’s had to overcome challenges that many of her peers haven’t: She’s an undocumented Mexican immigrant, one of the few who has reached higher education despite not having a Social Security number to put on a college application.

Calderon is one of thousands of undocumented students who stand to benefit from a proposed federal law, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act introduced in February by U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

The law aims to legalize the status of “young people who were brought to the U.S. years ago as undocumented immigrant children but who have since grown up here, stayed in school and kept out of trouble,” according to the National Immigration Law Center.

Qualified students would be given a six-year period to graduate from a two-year college, complete two years toward a four-year degree or serve two years in the military. Then, they would be granted full citizenship. They would also be helped with tuition through scholarships.

Calderon came to the United States as a 13-year-old with her mother and two brothers. Her father had already been working in the fields in Santa Rosa, saving money to bring his family to the United States.

When she moved to San Jose, Calderon began classes at Overfelt High School, where about 70 percent of the students are Latino.

“During high school, I had a lot of Hispanic friends,” Calderon said. “But I started speaking English when I went out for sports, like volleyball and soccer, because there were Samoans and Filipinos who didn’t speak Spanish. I got all my English practice there.”

To grasp English, Calderon studied during the school year, at after-school programs and in summer courses. For this reason, she said that she was able to handle most of the classes she took at her high school. She found classes such as English and history to be more difficult because she was required to give presentations and write papers in English.

She accomplished all this while playing after-school sports and even managed to work at a local restaurant to help her family pay rent for their apartment.

Despite these odds, Calderon graduated from high school. She was accepted to San Jose City College. It took hard work and determination, and a little help from her teachers.

“I had close relationships with my teachers,” she said, “especially my volleyball coach. They helped me apply to college and helped me with my papers.”

Calderon’s story, however, is rare. Many undocumented immigrant students do not have the means or outside support to get as far as she has. There aren’t many programs to help immigrants get acquainted with the higher education system.

In California, undocumented immigrants can attend college but don’t qualify for state or federal scholarships. And after an undocumented immigrant graduates, he or she still doesn’t qualify for legal residency or citizenship.

The National Immigration Law Center estimates that 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year and are unable to continue on to college, simply because they lack the Social Security number necessary to apply for many schools and scholarships.

“A lot of the kids won’t even want to apply,” said Xavier Compos, who is head of the education department at Mexican American Community Services Agency. “There’s a fear of the immigration system. They’re worried that the minute they start the documentation process, they’ll get caught.”

Problems may begin much sooner than that. With few outlets to learn English, students can find themselves lagging far behind their peers in an English-speaking classroom.

“Our present education system doesn’t know how to accelerate their learning,” Compos said.

“They’re English-language learners, and our education system is not set up to bring them up to a level of education proficiency so they can learn. With English as the only language spoken in the schools, it’s even harder for them. The students can lose hope because they’re so far behind. They just don’t see any avenue to finish school.”

That’s one reason why Latinos have a higher dropout rate than any other ethnic group in the country. The Latino dropout rate averages 25.7 percent, while the dropout rate for whites is 6.5 percent, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

For students who do manage to finish high school, many find themselves faced with new problems. The undocumented students can include valedictorians, star athletes and talented musicians.

Aubuerto Centeno, who works at MACSA as a case manager, advocates for the 35 teenagers he works with at the program.

“Many of them speak perfect English, have adjusted to the lifestyle, and I’m sure the majority of them would give a lot back to their communities,” Centeno said.

“But they don’t have their papers,’’ she said, “so it’s difficult for them to reach their goals. They work hard. But in the end they give up because they don’t have the documents.”

Calderon knows how hard it can be.

“Out of all of my friends, only three of them went to college,” Calderon said. “It’s really sad.”

Like a growing number of teenagers, Amy Sugai of San Jose didn’t get her driver’s license the day she turned 16.

Burdened with difficulty in scheduling driver’s education courses, the expense involved and her mother’s objections, Sugai waited almost until her 17th birthday to take the road test.

Sugai is part of a new generation of teens waiting longer for their opportunity to drive.

Those who wait often cite these reasons:

The driver’s education course required for a learner’s permit can run about $75, plus $250 for behind-the-wheel training. For years, both of these courses were commonly available for free in California public schools.

Additional expenses, including insurance and the rising cost of gasoline.

The courses are difficult to fit into students’ busy schedules.
Once licensed, teenagers face tough restrictions for the first six months. They are prohibited from driving friends younger than 20 unless someone 25 or older is present.

“I didn’t have the money for driver’s training,” said Inema Orukari, a 19-year-old graduate of Salesian High School in Richmond, which doesn’t offer the course. He waited until he was 17 to get his license.

Those who are at least 17, but younger than 18 can apply for a permit without the driver’s education courses — or having to take behind-the-wheel training — thus saving money.

It is unknown how many California teenagers qualify for a license when they turn 16. But, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles, there were 92,463 licensed 16-year-olds as of Dec. 31, 2004, compared to 119,927 in 1990.

Parents, some of whom are reluctant to allow their children to drive, said that when they were in high school – and even up until a few years ago – many teens obtained their licenses on the day of their 16th birthday, right after taking the driving courses. A major reason: “It was offered through school,” said Melanie Morgenthaler, 44, who graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 1979.

Besides costs, parents also are keeping teens from getting their licenses. Sugai’s mom is one example. “She didn’t want me to start driving right when I turned 16. She still doesn’t like me to drive that much,” he said.

Although teens are eager to drive, statistics suggest that waiting longer for a license results in safer roads for everyone.

A total of 13.8 percent of drivers involved in crashes in the United States in 2003 were 15 to 20 years old. Drivers 21 to 24 years old were involved in 10.9 percent, according to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis in Washington, D.C.

It was easy to spot 13-year-old Steven “Kiven” Rocha at the bustling San Jose skate park Plata Arroya recently. Wearing an unbuckled helmet, he was the teenager closest to following state law.

It is illegal for minors in California to bike, skateboard, ride scooters or roller-blade without a properly fitted helmet. However, this 2-1/2-year-old law still hasn’t changed the ways of many Silicon Valley teens who say they won’t take a tumble, are concerned about appearance or cannot afford protection.

“I’m against wearing a helmet,” said Ben Walker, 16, of San Jose, while sitting on his skateboard, wearing a baseball cap. “I’ll wear a hat or a beanie, but not a helmet.”

Teens caught violating the law often throw excuses at police officers, such as helmets ruin their image or mess up their hair. But San Jose police Sgt. Bruce Stine has a reply ready: “A head injury messes up your hair – a lot.”

Even though some officers reward law-abiding skaters with Blockbuster movie rental coupons, they say they are struggling to convince teenagers that what’s trendy or looks good is unimportant. “That’s something we need to get past,” San Jose police Capt. Ken Ferguson said.

Meanwhile, teenagers are busy trying to get past the law. When Jon Carez rides his skateboard without a helmet, he avoids the places where he might get cited. “I don’t go downtown,” said the 17-year-old San Jose resident. He prefers to stick to Plata Arroya, where the police come often but with different priorities.

“They’re always over here, but they don’t say anything about a helmet,” Walker said. He saw police officers at Plata Arroya recently, but their hands were full dealing with a fight.

Since the helmet law took effect Jan. 1, 2003, advocates have been talking to San Jose elementary and middle school students to raise awareness about it. Police officers said they see more teenagers than younger children violating the law but have limited funding for outreach. So “we try to get them young,” said Rosana Carrasco, school safety coordinator for the San Jose Police Department.

Soon Silicon Valley middle schools’ traffic safety lessons will teach about seat belts as well as helmets under a new program by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. Alice Kawaguchi, a health department education specialist, said skateboarding safety has taken a back seat to automobile safety at many high schools, where students are eager to get their driver’s licenses.

But high school students still need to hear the message. Jesse Gonzales, a 17-year-old student at San Jose High Academy, thought he was old enough to bicycle without a helmet and wasn’t aware of the law.

Ignorance is only part of the problem. Some families can’t afford helmets, said mother Ruth Rocha, who talked about the issue with other parents at the skate park.

When minors receive a citation, they can clear it off their record by attending a traffic safety class. If they choose not to attend or if they violate the law a second time, they must appear in court and pay a fine.

A year ago, a police officer gave Steven Rocha a warning for not wearing a helmet. But he kept roller-blading bareheaded. Not too long ago, blood dripped from Rocha’s head onto the skate ramp at Plata Arroya. Unfazed, he got up and kept skating.

Neither law enforcement nor injuries pushed Rocha to finally change his ways. He now wears a black helmet with a sticker from his sponsor, Aggressive Mall, because his mom made him. “She said if I don’t wear a helmet,” he explained, “I can’t skate anymore.”

It may seem like an odd bond: A 54-year-old petite Indian woman, her student and Allen Iverson. And it started in an eighth-grade literature class, of all places.

The bond began when I wrote a 15-page report about basketball player Allen Iverson. The woman was my teacher, Mrs. Rani Chandran. She stood no taller than 5’2”, had a slight accent, and held an intensity in her eyes that burned into your soul.

She didn’t know much about Iverson. But when she read my report, she told me it brought tears to her eyes. Those words changed my life.

Mrs. Chandran and her words are the reason I’m taking photos and writing for Mosaic, the two-week journalism workshop that produced this issue. She’s the reason I have a passion for journalism.

A cruel twist of fate brought Mrs. Chandran, Allen Iverson and me together again a few days ago. It also brought tears to my eyes.
I was in the passenger seat of my editor’s car, on my way to a Mosaic photo assignment. I had my Canon 10D on my lap, had just put my reporter’s notepad in my backpack and was wearing my white No. 3 Iverson jersey.

That’s when my cell phone rang.

It was a friend of mine. He made small talk at first. Then he dropped the bombshell.

“Mrs. Chandran died in a car accident,” he said.

He said it a few times before it sunk in.

She died June 23 when a pickup truck coming from the other direction struck the Buick she was riding in on her way home from a family vacation at Yosemite National Park.

Before I knew what was happening, the tears started to fall. My mascara smeared. My eyeliner rubbed off. And a whole box of tissues sat clenched in my fist.

My editor said she would take me off the assignment, if I wanted, if I needed some time to re-group and talk to my parents.

The first thing I thought was that I should be professional and see the assignment through. Then I reminisced about Mrs. Chandran’s personality and how, with everything she did, she wanted to bring out the best in her students.

She was not an ordinary teacher. Class started off every day with a, “Hey homie, what’s up? Show some love,” followed by a high-five — in an eighth-grade literature class. In that classroom, she helped her students bring their writing to life. Especially mine.

I wanted to finish the story, for her. I felt like it was the least I could do. After all, her belief in me and those intense eyes inspired me to write. She sparked a love for journalism that blazes like American patriotism did after Sept. 11.

It hurts that I’ll never see those eyes again.

Through her guidance and mentoring, I found my voice. The dramatic fragmented style that I loved to use so much was never criticized in her class, but instead polished. Mrs. Chandran’s inner beauty was reflected in her students, and each one left her class a better person.

The better me sits here today, in a newsroom, at a keyboard, writing this column and once more wearing that white No. 3 Iverson jersey. When I put it on now, it has a completely different meaning.
I used to think of Allen Iverson and what he meant to me as a basketball player – my motivation.

Now, I think of her, too —her beauty, her inspiration, her deep brown eyes that tore through my heart as I looked into them for advice.

I will remember a petite Indian woman who lived for her students and expected nothing in return. I will play every game, write every article and take every photograph as though it was my last, because that was the way Mrs. Rani Chandran lived.

In an effort to stop skateboarders from further damaging benches, handrails and other public property, the City of San Jose plans to open another skateboard park this summer.

And this one won’t be like the city’s other two. The Stonegate and Plata Arroyo skate parks are shaped like bowls and empty swimming pools. The new Great Oaks skate park is designed as a “street-style” park, meaning its cement-covered ground will contain replicas of objects found in public places, such as stairwells and sidewalks.

“Cool,” said Jon Nunes, an employee of the South San Jose Skate Works store, when he heard of the plan. Bowl-shaped parks are “kind of dull,” he said.

San Jose intends to open a total of 10 skate parks as a part of the 20-year “Greenprint” plan to provide more meaningful activities for youths. A park is proposed for each city council district, and each park will provide a different skating experience.

“Skating is a fast-growing sport in America,” said Mary Beth Carter, associate landscape architect for the city’s Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services department.

Carter said she expects the park to provide another option for skaters who enjoy working on their stunts in public.

The new park, which costs about $400,000 to construct, is set to open in August, Carter said. The park is located at Guisti and Snow drives, near a teen center and a middle school.

The Great Oaks park represents an effort to show mutual respect. “We listen to the people, to what they have to say,” said Carter, explaining that San Jose skaters wanted a place to skate street-style. On the flip side, she added, “everyone should have respect for public property.”

People like Mick Johnson may enjoy the new park. On a recent afternoon, while skating in Plaza De Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose, Johnson and his friends were stopped by police.

“Me and my friends were kicked out many times for vandalizing something,” he said, “and we were doing nothing but skating.”

Attention films buffs! Do you like ordering movies online through Netflix? Are you pumped Blockbuster eliminated late fees? There’s another film source you might want to check out: the public library.

That’s right, libraries aren’t just for books any more. They host a formidable range of DVD and VHS titles that can be alternatives for movie-enthusiasts. The best part is that the rentals are 100 percent free — as long as you return them in time. To be sure, renting from libraries is far from perfect, say those who frequent library video departments. Waits are often long and parents lack control over what kids rent.

The selections include television series such as the second season of “24,” classics like “Rosemary’s Baby” and new releases such as “Seabiscuit.”

The Santa Clara County Library system started offering VHS rentals in 1986, according to Davie Evans, head of children’s services for the Santa Clara County Libraries. In 2001, the library network added DVDs to its system.

Local libraries have tried to update their movie collections — when funding allows.

“Some we get just after the release date, and others we wait until the price goes down,” according to Debbie Erwin, the youth services coordinator for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in San Jose. The library recently started purchasing just DVDs instead of videos.
Because libraries often have fewer copies of films than video stores, naturally there’s a waiting list at many. At some, people can sign up for movies online.

“Sometimes, you’re in position number 100-something and you need to wait a really long time,” said Shasha Du, 16, who uses the Saratoga Library’s movie service once a week.

Libraries generally have fewer copies of movies than video stores.
There is another downside. Public libraries don’t offer parents direct control over what movies their kids are renting, Erwin said.
“Parents are responsible for telling their children what they can or cannot check out,” she said.

At video stores like Blockbuster, renters must generally be adults to open accounts and parents can block their kids from renting R-rated movies.

Despite the hassles, Saratoga High School senior Pamela Liu said the library is a great option for a simple reason: “It’s free.”

Teen anarchists dressed in black masks and hoods sit in the middle of a street, shouting, “What does a police state look like? This is what a police state looks like!” Dozens of police officers in orderly, Army-like lines approach, some with batons, some on horseback.

This is not Berkeley, not San Francisco, not Oakland. It’s posh Palo Alto.

The June 25 protest and a similar one a month ago were staged by teens whose parents are doctors, lawyers, bankers and college professors.
The teens are building an anarchy movement. It may be small, but it has nonetheless intimidated police and city officials.

Experts say teens are drawn to the rebellious philosophy of anarchy. The homogeny of suburbia in particular can foster it among youths, experts say.

“Teenagers often find the idea of anarchy sexy and appealing without thinking about history or context of anarchist motions,” said Maristella Huerta, a sociology professor at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills.

“They don’t have the ability to juxtapose it to our system, and are seduced by the ‘screw authority’ part of it.”

Huerta explains the popularity of anarchism among the affluent teenagers as a search for answers to their own suburban life, and to questions like, “Why am I rich when other people are poor?”

“Suburbia can be a controlled and stifling environment for teenagers,” Huerta said. “Especially for the ones who can think critically.”

“Free Palo Alto! Kick out the cops!” shouted a group of about 25 teens who refused to budge from the cold asphalt they were sitting on in downtown Palo Alto.

Their message: They’re against war, government hierarchy, globalization and capitalism. They want a society based on communal and mutual aid.

“Our society forces a certain lifestyle on us,” said Sean, 19, a high school graduate who helped organize the protest. He also helped form Palo Alto’s chapter of Anarchist Action, an informal network of activists.

“To survive, you have to go to school and go to work all your life. It’s a lifestyle that most of us, if given the choice, wouldn’t choose.” Sean, like all of the anarchists interviewed by Mosaic, did not want to be identified because he’s afraid the police will track him down. Sean’s father is a college professor and his mother stays at home.
Sean helped stage the first protest in late May. He said it was intended to be a non-violent demonstration called “Reclaim the Streets,” but it ended in outbreaks of violence and vandalism.
A police car was damaged, the window of a local bank was shattered, garbage bins were overturned and spray paint was used to deface the street and a local Starbucks, said Palo Alto Police Chief Lynne Johnson.

This time, police and local businesses were ready.
Store windows had been boarded up, security guards were stationed in front of banks and drug stores, and about 200 police officers worked overtime to patrol the streets. Police were expecting up to 1,000 demonstrators.

“When a large number of people gather, there’s always a potential for damage, so we had to bring in other forces, for their protection as well as ours,” said Johnson.

As the protest got started, the crowd of anarchists and onlookers marched down University Avenue, with signs that read, “Resist the G8
Empire and Global Capitalization” and “Support Humans, Stop the War.”

The anarchists — many of whom were teenagers — wore masks and hoods to conceal their identities, for the same reason many of them refused to provide even their first name.

Police in helicopters hovered above the crowd and ordered it to disperse.

It was a sad sight, said Earl Crowl, who owns a Palo Alto yoga studio. “The police were the ones committing acts of violence by intimidating kids.”

After three hours and no arrests, the protest fizzled out.
Erik Strom, a sophomore at Los Altos High School, said he doesn’t know enough about anarchy to consider himself an anarchist.

“I’m here because I’m against the war in Iraq and our government system,” said Strom, wearing a dark T-shirt and jeans. “I hate Bush-huggers.”

Sean said he felt the protest was successful.

“I think it opened Palo Alto youth to anarchist politics, and we took direct action against exploitative corporations and the police.”

Nancy, 18, of San Jose, listened to her best friend talk about her alleged relationship with her chemistry teacher for months on end before she mustered up the courage to tell police. Investigators then told her not to tell anyone she had reported the crime — not even her best friend.

Now, former Leland High School chemistry teacher Earl Roske, 41, awaits trial in jail on $1 million bail.

The girl, whose first name has been changed to protect her identity, reported Roske in September to the San Jose Police Department. After an investigation, he was arrested May 6.

Nancy knew of the alleged relationship between Roske and her best friend — who was 17 at the time — for most of the 2004-05 school year.
But she said she didn’t know how serious it was.

“The conversations he had with her were always really inappropriate but nothing had really ever happened,” Nancy said.

But as the months passed, her concern grew.

“The fact that she was so deeply in love with him, that made me upset,” Nancy said. “She was so blinded that she didn’t know anything.”

When Roske allegedly sent her best friend a sexually-explicit photograph from his Web camera, Nancy had enough: “He had crossed many lines before and that was the last line he crossed for me.”

She told her mother about the accusation against Roske, who then set up a meeting at Leland High with an investigator.

“I was scared because I didn’t want to get in trouble or anyone to get hurt,” said Nancy about filing the report. “But I knew I wanted it to stop.”

San Jose Unified School District spokeswoman Karen Fuqua said it was a clandestine investigation. That meant officials from the school and district, students, and parents were not notified.

The secret was a huge burden on Nancy during the nine-month investigation.

“I had to sit there and keep on lying to my best friend,” she said. “I acted like I didn’t know anything. It was a struggle because not only was my friend feeling th

Nancy also was anxious because Roske was still teaching at Leland High during the investigation.

“I was afraid of Roske,” she said. “I had a feeling he knew it was me who told. When he looked at me, I could feel it.”

School officials told the Mosaic that it was not the first time Roske was investigated.

“The SJPD was called in to do an investigation last year after complaints were filed,” said Fuqua. “We thought it was needed, but there was not sufficient evidence for them to do any prosecution.”

Fuqua said the school district investigated all complaints that were filed except those sent anonymously. Nevertheless, some students became angered at the school’s apparent apathy toward their safety.

“So many people complained and not one action was taken. The school’s exact words about Roske last year were, ‘Moral lines were crossed but nothing happened,’ ” said Nancy, her voice rising in anger. “So it’s OK for a teacher to meet a student at a movie? It’s OK to talk about sex with a student on the Internet? Hell no, it’s way out of line. They should have done something, but they didn’t.”

There is no publicly disclosed evidence Roske did such things. However, rumors about alleged flirting with female students and other unusual behavior by the teacher hired in 1998 had spread among the student body.

“Pretty much the whole school knew about it,” said Joseph Palacios, 17, a recent Leland High graduate and former student of Roske.
Police arrested Roske on May 6 and charged him with one count of unlawful sexual intercourse, two counts of oral copulation with a minor, two counts of using a minor to produce child pornography and two counts of sending harmful matter to a minor.

Many students said they weren’t shocked when Roske w
as arrested.

“I was totally not surprised,” Bradley said. “I was just shocked that it happened before I graduated. I felt that there was no way the school could prove it and they would be more likely to cover it up than fire him and have him arrested.”

Following the arrest, the school and the students had to deal with the aftermath, including media reports. Fuqua said the district sent a letter to parents about the arrest. District officials have been meeting with concerned parents during the last few months, she added.
Bradley said some students blamed one of the victims. “People were saying she led him on or she wanted it,” he said.

Most students feel the alleged incident with Roske will not affect their relationship with the rest of the school staff. They are choosing to move on, he said.

“I trust my teachers. I might not like them, but I trust them,” Bradley said.

The district is working with the YWCA’S rape center to provide people with information and resources “in order for them to be able to handle the crisis in the future themselves,” Fuqua said.

Nancy herself is now caught up in the rumor mill surrounding Roske. She said students she doesn’t know will ask her questions or comment on her role in the investigation. One student told her: “That was a good thing you did about Roske.” Such talk makes Nancy uncomfortable.
Despite all she went through after filing the report against Roske, Nancy doesn’t regret her actions.

“I’m so glad I said something,” she said. “In my heart, I know I’m the one who opened the investigation up.”

CONTACT POLICE
Anyone with information on the case is urged to call San Jose police detective Robert Dillon of the San Jose Police Department’s Child Exploitation Unit/Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force at (408) 277-4102. Persons wishing to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-STOP (7867).

The puffy pink dress was hanging just outside her fitting room but Kalen Bigger knew she couldn’t have it. The 14-year-old beauty pageant contestant gazed at it longingly with big, blue eyes, and reluctantly accepted that it was time for a change.

“I wore pink last year,” Kalen said while shopping last week for a dress at the Jessica McClintock boutique in San Jose’s Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair. “I wanted something more mature.”

Kalen’s desire to show more sophistication runs parallel to beauty pageants’ efforts to evolve. For decades, feminists have been criticizing the way these contests objectify women. Some pageants have responded by adding more categories that focus on intellect and character.

“In the past, the size you were was very important,” said Frankie Simmons, director of Center Stage Productions, which produces many California pageants. “I changed the pageant I was working at because the interview didn’t weigh as much as everything else.”

The difference becomes readily apparent as Kalen’s mother, Robin Bigger, recalls her own time on the pageant stage in the late-1970s and early-1980s.

Back then, winners were basically picked based on who looked more than a pretty face. Judges will pepper her with questions about her ambitions, goals and community involvement — and consider her answers more carefully.

If the slim girls still had the upper hand, Kalen wouldn’t need to worry. She resembles a life-size Barbie with a slim 5-foot-4-inch frame, toned 115-pound body and highlighted blonde hair.

Even when Kalen entered her first pageant at age 9, her looks weren’t enough to win. She bombed the one-on-one interview with the judge and went home empty-handed. At the second pageant, still nothing. The third time was the charm — she took the title of Preteen California Sweetheart in 2002, which gave her the ticket to nationals. At 11, just around the age her mother began to compete, Kalen became the third runner-up in National Miss American Sweetheart.

While Kalen seeks pageant advice from her mother, their different experiences lead them toward distinct strategies.

When Kalen emerged from the dressing room, her mother squealed, “It’s Business Barbie!”

Kalen frowned at what she saw in the mirror — a shocking pink jacket and matching knee-length skirt.

“It’s not serious enough,” she said, thinking about whether it would match the tone of her speech.

Her mother begged to differ — she loved the color. “But hot pink is very fashionably cute,’’ she said.

Kalen stared a while longer. “I don’t know, Mom.”

“I like it.”

“I don’t.”

Although some pageants have added speeches and emphasized character-revealing introductions to shift their focus toward the mind and away from the body, many young women have followed a dangerous path to the stage.

Simmons knows there have been many cases of bulimia and anorexia with the girls he has worked with. He always shares a personal story of becoming a victim to eating disorders with his contestants.
“I have had girls in a size nine or 10 win and girls in a size two lose to them,” Simmons said.

Kalen places no restrictions on food. “I eat whatever I want,” she said. “It’s just going to the gym and working it all off.”
Kalen’s 3.8 grade-point average will also be judged at the upcoming pageant, which gives her the most motivation to get through the school day.

“I don’t want to have bad grades on the report card I’m turning in on the pageant weekend,” she said.

In the past, judges learned little more about contestants other than their names and home cities. Today, introductions make it easier for judges to separate the girls who have well-rounded lives and ambitions from those who are depending on their body to reach the top. The 30-second openings for the pageant Kalen is preparing for requires contestants to reveal their goals and hobbies in addition to biographical information.

Another growing aspect of some pageants is the speech, which is judged on delivery as well as content. Kalen practices her speech in front of friends and family, who don’t hold back when it comes to criticism.
“Sometimes I’ll get kind of nervous that I’m going to mess up on my words so I don’t show any expression,” Kalen said.

Despite all these changes, pageants are facing difficulty ridding themselves of a certain standard for beauty. “I think beauty’s wonderful and admirable. The problem with the pageants is that they only reward one kind of beauty,” said Wendy Shanker, spokesperson for Love Your Body, a program by the National Organization for Women.

While shopping, Kalen focuses on which dresses will bring out her personality rather than the ones that look most beautiful. Wearing tiaras on shopping trips to put her in the mood, Kalen takes her mom’s advice and struts around the store as if it were the big day. Robin Bigger knew by Kalen’s actions how much each dress suited her age and expressed her personality.

“I can tell by how she walks when she wears it,” she said, imitating her daughter slouching and an exasperated expression. After 45 minutes, Kalen decided on a strapless white gown with translucent beadwork.

Each pageant brings Kalen more personal insight and a healthier lifestyle. She knows that it’s important to present this growth on stage, and expresses it by changing her look from year to year.

“You don’t want to be known as the person who always wears the pink dress,” Kalen said. “You want to be known for you, for who you are.”

MOSAIC STAFF
When Michele, 16, of San Jose went to a tanning salon eight days in a row to even out the farmer’s tan she had gotten from playing softball, she knew her parents wouldn’t approve.

What she didn’t know is that it’s illegal.

California law requires teens between the ages of 14 and 18 to have a written and signed parental consent to tan at a salon.

When a 17-year-old Mosaic staff member visited six tanning salons this week, three of them told her she could get a tan – without parental consent.

As state legislators become more aware of the risks of skin cancer, they’re becoming more aggressive about regulating tanning salons that serve younger customers. But some question whether it makes sense to create new laws when existing ones are not enforced.

Jim DeBoo, chief of staff for Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, said authorities often have no way of finding out whether salons are breaking the law.

by phone would be required to get a tan. At three salons she visited this week, however, this was not the case.
“Are you over 18?” the owner of a salon in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood asked.

When the reporter said no, the owner responded, “It’s OK. You have to be over 16.”

A manager at the Willow Glen salon declined to comment when later informed of the state law, which is designed to protect young people from the documented dangers of tanning.

Skin cancer strikes more than one million Americans every year and kills about 9,000, according to the Web site of the American Cancer Society. About 18 percent of teens spend $20 or more each time they go tanning indoors, according to a survey of 106 girls between the ages of 14 and 22 that was conducted by public affairs group Westin Rinehart.

“We are trying to make people aware of the danger,” DeBoo said. “It can be life-threatening.”

DeBoo helped research a bill that became law late last year. It bans teens 14 and younger from using tanning beds in salons. Salons that violate this law could face a fine of $2,500 a day.

California’s State Board of Education approved a bill recently that was sponsored by state Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, to make sun safety part of elementary school curricula. The bill – inspired by a 25-year-old who died of skin cancer – will go to a Senate committee next.

Michele, the 16-year-old San Jose girl who went to a tanning salon without parental consent, said she did not want to be identified because her parents don’t know she went to a tanning salon. She added that more education on tanning wouldn’t change her mind about it.

Michelle said she realized one evening that she really needed a tan. She was trying on her prom dress — a sleeveless teal gown — for fun when she noticed the contrast between her pale shoulders and her tanned arms.

“I looked in the mirror and wanted to look good in my dress,” she said.