This semester, Samo teacher Daniel Escalera stepped down from the position of co-Athletics Director, leaving social studies teacher Marisa Silvestri the only person with the position.

Samo students Ryan Tepper (’13) and Julian Mickelson (’13), also co-president of the Samohi Solar Alliance (SSA), are competing in the 2013 Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge.

Previous Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) parents Laurie Lieberman and Maria Leon-Vazquez were elected president and vice president of the Board of Education, respectively at their Dec. 13, 2012 board meeting.

Samo administrators have worked to streamline the school tardy policy, while a revised detain system is still in the works, according to H-House Principal Leslie Wells.

Samo administrators issued a survey on Jan. 7 to students and staff in order to create the first ever Samo homework policy after complaints from parents and students about the amount of homework assigned at Samo.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Board of Education passed a student-proposed conflict-free minerals resolution.

Santa Monica crime rates rose dramatically in 2012 and have affected Samo students both inside and outside of school.

According to college adviser Frank Gatell, the University of California (UC) Website has been reported to crash days before the UC college admissions are due. Due to the thousands of applicants accessing the website to upload applications, the site overloads, preventing students from being able to submit.

Due to an assembly presented by an organization called The Village Nation, Samo students had a block schedule on Nov. 16 and 17.

Samo's Team Marine is helping the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) organization collect supplies to ship to students affected by Hurricane Sandy in New York.

Samo's Circle of Friends club held a mixer in the Humanities Center at lunch on Oct. 19 for club members to meet each other and their buddies, the Special Education students they will work with this year.

Regional Occupational Program (ROP) Digital Design teacher Richard McGee passed away on Oct. 13 after an extensive struggle with cancer.

Principal Laurel Fretz announced at the Homecoming Pep Rally on Oct. 12 that Samo's Academic Performance Index (API) score increased by 19 points this year, from a score of 804 to 823.

The Santa Monica City Council decided in August to prohibit advertisements from non-commercial campaigns, including the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Walk, on the Big Blue Bus.

Hip-hop violinist Karon Briggs and spiritual sculptor Artis Shreve Lane performed in Barnum Hall on Friday Sept. 28 for the second annual Back-to-School with The HistoryMakers event at Samo.

S-House Leadership is attempting to make the 2012-13 school year more enjoyable for the entire school through their Kindness Campaign, introduced last year by teacher Meredith Louria.

M-House has welcomed Stephen Franklin as its new M-House principal, taking over the job from long-time House Principal Larry Boone.

The Samo school garden, once blooming with opportunity, has suffered due to a cut-off in the water supply brought on by the ongoing construction.

The space shuttle, Endeavour, flew over the Santa Monica Pier on Sept. 21. Samo students and staff left classrooms in the middle of instruction in hopes of glimpsing the shuttle.

Samo students made their way to this year's annual Club Rush event on Friday, Sept. 14, during which club members recruited students to join their respective organizations.

Samo’s College Center has adopted a new approach to college applications through Naviance, a system that allows students to complete much of their college paperwork online and replaces the need for physical transcripts.

Continuing the tradition began in 2002 of an all-school summer reading book, the Samo English Department has announced “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls as the 2012 selection.

A group of professional comedians and entertainers congregated on Wednesday, May 23 for the third annual Samo girls’ volleyball comedy night fundraiser. The fundraiser’s proceeds go towards paying for the volleyball team’s Ann Kang tournament in Hawaii.

The construction project currently occurring on the Samo campus to develop a new Science and Technology Building and reconfigure the current parking lot is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a link on the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) website.

Samo students were dismissed at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 16 due to a power outage.

The Associated Student Body (ASB) announced on Friday, May 4 that the 2012-2013 executive board will be composed entirely of seniors for the first time in Samo history.

The College Board has made significant changes to Advanced Placement (AP) class curricula that will go into effect and change the way Samo APs are taught beginning next year.

The Samohi sat down with Samo AP psychology teacher Charles Thun to find out the motivation for vandalizing bathrooms.

One of Samo’s silent caretakers, Felipe Cueva, can be found every day after school, walking the halls of Samo’s technology building, working late into the night to keep Samo clean and running. Once he has repaired the damage done to the school that day, he will return home, coming back the next day to start all over again.

In a recent move to increase the cleanliness of Samo restrooms, the Associated Student Body (ASB) has began to put up signs to encourage students to be more respectful of the facilities they are given.

Due to the new general fund funding method, many, if not all, elementary school aides’ working in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) jobs are in jeopardy.

Samo cellists, sophomore Jeffrey Ho and senior Niall Ferguson were two of 22 students accepted to play with world-class cellists at the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival. Niall was also featured by many news sources, including the Los Angeles Times and NBC Los Angeles, for his participation in the festival.

In an effort to improve the teaching of introductory English in Malaysia, members of the National Union of College Trained Teachers and Peninsular Malaysia visited Samo second period English Language Learner (ELL) classes and other schools across the United States.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) Board of Education recently revised the permit policy to increase the number of available permits. Though more permitted students will slightly increase District revenue, it will not cause crowding problems in schools according to Vice President of the board Laurie Lieberman.

Samo’s Academic Decathlon (Aca Deca) Oceans Bowl Competition Team and Quiz Bowl Competition Team are both headed to the east coast for nationals this year.

Samo administration is in the process of creating an official policy to regulate the ordering of rooter buses to transport students to away sports games after fans were confused by the ordering of rooter buses for boys’ and girls’ basketball playoff games.

In an attempt to eliminate a $4.6 million budget deficit, Samo has given pink slips to multiple teachers at Samo signifying that their job is not secure for the coming year.

Recurring incidents of trespassing on the Samo campus by non-Samo students have left the student population worried about school safety.

After Samo’s annual audit, the school was forced to rethink the way clubs fundraise. Now, they will not be able to fundraise the way they have in previous years because the way the Associated Student Body (ASB) has been handling money from club fundraisers is inconsistent with laws governing how fundraising money should be handled, according to ASB Financial Assistant Jenny Nicolas.

Next year, Samo administrators hope to offer Advanced Placement European History (AP Euro) to incoming sophomores. The course, which has not been offered at Samo before, will become an alternative to World History.

The concert planned by the Associated Student Body (ASB) for Feb. 24th was postponed, effectively cancelling it.

Due to incorrect grade calculations, Samo had to postpone sending out senior midyear transcripts to colleges. However, the transcripts were sent out on the Feb. 15 due date, along with a letter explaining the situation.

Samo’s marching band and soccer, baseball and football teams were asked unexpectedly to contribute $2,000 each towards the cost of re-sodding the baseball field.

The seventh annual “State of Our Schools” presentation was held in the Thelma Terry building in Virginia Park on Tuesday, Jan. 31.

John Green's The Fault In Our Stars book signing tour arrived at Lincoln Middle School on Thursday, Jan. 26.

The city of Santa Monica recently created a program called Active Santa Monica to encourage residents to engage in a healthier lifestyle. The program focuses on different types of exercise each month.

Student organizations the African American Mentor Society and La Sociedad have begun community building activities in the wake of recent race-related violence on campus.

A fire at Samo, suspected by police and fire officials to be arson has left the South Gym and the South Gym’s boys’ locker room quarantined and many students without cell phones, house keys and text books since last Tuesday.

SMMUSD Board of Education has made changes to the Controlled Substance Policy, according to admin, it is now a more lenient policy.

The initial investigation into the fire that started in the South Gym boys' locker room during fifth period on Tuesday, Jan. 31 suggests that the cause of the fire may have been arson, Samo Principal Laurel Fretz said in an email to Samo parents.

Construction called for by Measure BB has started at Samo.

Sections of the ceramics and photo rooms were closed off due to toxic mold growing in the classrooms, however, they have now been reopened.

Due to construction and security officers' posts being moved around, the 6th Street and Pico Boulevard gate has been closed for the remainder of the 2011-2012 school year. The gate at 7th Street and Michigan Avenue is now the main gate.

Seventeen Samo students were accepted into the all-state band for the third consecutive year.

In response to programs on campus requiring fees for participation, Samo Principal Laurel Fretz sent a memo to sports coaches at the beginning of the month, asking them to to be in compliance with the law from now on.