The California High School Exit Exam (CASHEE) results are out, bearing good news for Palo Alto: More than 95 percent of students pass the test on their first try.

In the Palo Alto Unified School District, 97 percent of 10th-graders passed the math section of the test, and 96 percent of students passed the English-language arts (ELA) section, according to the California Department of Education's results released Wednesday. Students must take the test for the first time in the 10th grade and then are given a few more opportunities to take it through the 12th grade if they don't pass. 

The results of the CASHEE, required by California state law since 2004 to graduate from high school, were also broken down by gender and ethnicity. For the math section of the test, the pass rates in Palo Alto were as follows: girls, 98 percent; boys, 96 percent; Asians, 100 percent; Hispanics/Latinos, 83 percent, blacks, 80 percent; and whites, 99%.

For the English section of the test, the results were: girls, 97 percent; boys, 95 percent; Asians, 99 percent; Hispanics/Latinos, 76 percent; blacks, 81 percent; and whites, 98 percent.

In Santa Clara County, Asians and whites continue to perform near the ceiling for the CASHEE. Hispanic 10th-graders showed the largest improvement from 2010-11. They demonstrated the largest improvement on the mandatory exam, seeing their pass rate go from 72-75 percent. 

By the 12th grade, approximately 94.6 percent, or 422 of 558 remaining test takers in the Class of 2011, successfully passed both the English and math portions of the test. 

In 2011, Asian 10th-graders passed the English/language arts test at a rate of 94 percent. They passed the math test at 98 percent, the same level as the previous year.

From the Class of 2011, the percentage of African-American students meeting the requirement by the time they graduate was 90.9 percent compared with last year’s 89.6 percent. For Hispanic students, the number stood 92.3 percent over last year’s 91.4 percent; for Asian students, it was 97.7 percent over 97.4 percent; and for white students, 98.4 percent over 98.1 percent

Since 2004, California law has specified that all high school students must take the CASHEE for the first time in the 10th grade. If they don’t pass the test the first time, they then have two opportunities in the 11th grade and three in the 12th, to pass the test. Students with disabilities are exempt from taking the test.

The following are pass rates for 10th graders in local districts. More results can be found on the California Department of Education's website.

Palo Alto Unifed District: Math: 904 tested, 878 passed (97%); English: 913 took, 878 passed (96%)

Fremont Union High District: Math: 2,603 tested, 2,457 passed (rate: 94%), English: 2,603 tested, 2,444 passed (94%)

Milpitas Unified District: Math: 794 tested, 704 passed (rate: 89%); English: 789 tested, 693 passed (88%)

Mountain View-Los Altos Union High District: Math: 842 tested; 788 passed (rate: 94%); English: 865 took, 773 passed (rate: 93%)

With balloons, flowers, music and pure glee, students at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools as well as Castilleja School celebrated graduations this week. Below are reports from the festivities.

Palo Alto High School (Wednesday, June, 8):

Palo Alto High School's 403 graduating seniors added an honorary member to their ranks Wednesday.

Eugene Bradford, who would have graduated with Paly's class of 1953 but joined the U.S. Marines to fight in Korea instead, got a standing ovation as he was wheeled to the podium to receive his Paly diploma from Principal Phil Winston.

"I don't need my legs to say, 'Thank you, 2011,'" a tearful Bradford said.

The ovation for Bradford followed student speeches and musical performances in a typically festive and occasionally raucous celebration that packed the Paly quad with more than 1,000 people.

Senior Class President Jack Smale recited various feats of the class -- producing dozens of National Merit Scholarship finalists, a ranking debate team, two state athletic championships and award-winning scientists and journalists.

"But what impressed me most is ... we still managed to come together as geeks, jocks, thespians, musicians, artists and more to prove that we're one class," Smale said.

Osceola Ward, a student in the Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program, described his daily commute from "the cracked concrete and McDonald's ... that served the children of my neighborhood to the smooth sidewalks and palatial homes" of his elementary school classmates.

"I stand before you the humble child of the cities of both East Palo Alto and Palo Alto," Ward said.

"I implore you not to be content with titles and names ... but to understand that success and giving back to the community are truly one and the same".

Quinn Walker evoked the intellectual journeys made in Paly's classrooms -- to the Battle of Brandywine, the French Revolution, or the Romanian home country of math teacher Radu Toma -- as a foreshadowing of the class's world travels ahead.

"As we spread out ... we aren't really going anywhere we haven't been before," Walker said.

Holding up a scuffed home plate, Will Glazier, a member of this year's CCS Championship baseball team, likened high school to a run around the bases.

"Our journey around this diamond has taught us that being perfect has nothing to do with the end result ... but with knowing in our hearts that we held nothing back, that we did all we could for this school and community," Glazier said, urging classmates to pursue their passions even if they seem unconventional.

Wes Rapaport, winner of Paly's top honor, the Viking Award, told classmates: "If you follow your dreams and get involved in activities you have fun participating in, everything else in life will follow."

Asking all the student speakers to line up, the last one, Chirag Krishna, pointed to his classmates: "Every time I think I've done something well, a member of this class steps up and does it better.

"By the time the world realizes this, it will truly be our oyster. I speak with no shame when I say I have truly been outclassed."

Gunn High School (Wednesday, June, 8):

Amid the cheering and clouds of balloons, and the flowers either brought by relatives or dangling around their necks, the 356 graduating seniors of Gunn High School Wednesday were urged to proceed with the courage that has characterized them in their formative years and to embrace their dreams.

"Courage is falling off and climbing back on again," Principal Katya Villalobos told graduates.

"Courage is exploring heights and depths, holding on to the dream, and sometimes having to say goodbye," she said.

Quoting Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Villalobos said: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what."

Max Lipscomb, one of two student speakers, said, "Roughly all graduation speeches say the same thing: that our school is the best, that our students go on to do many great things, that we will all be friends forever. I find it hard to believe that we will achieve all of those things simultaneously."

But referring to his two years at private school, Lipscomb emphasized the power of Gunn in providing new experiences and in enabling him to deal with hardship and personal tragedy in a positive way.

"The people there knew no hardship, and neither did I. Given what I know now, and given the opportunity to go back, I would not take it," he said.

"We have experienced personal tragedy meant for people four times our age, but still we stand," Lipscomb said. "It is my honor to stand for one final time with the Class of 2011 as we celebrate our separation."

The evening's second student speech came from Reade Levinson, who emphasized the strong and opportunity-rich community that Gunn's graduates are emerging from.

"We started in Silicon Valley, we started already half way there. Challenge yourself to find your own success," she urged.

"Don't spend all of college preparing for grad school," Levinson said.

"You won't look back, at 90 years old, and remember that French test you failed. But you will remember that time you stayed up until 3 a.m. watching 'Love Actually' and eating the best red velvet cupcakes of your life.

"Go somewhere. Do something fantastic. Making an impact can be as easy as giving a smile as you pass someone walking across the quad," she said.

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren D-San Jose, a member of Gunn's first graduating class of 1966, was on hand to deliver a speech in place of U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo D-Palo Alto, whose appearance was cancelled due to an appendectomy.

"Tonight, instead of telling you to find your passion, Anna and I tell you to find your calling, to find where you can make a difference," Lofgren said.

"Many of you have already begun," she said, referring to the counter-protests held last year against the Westboro Baptist Church's anti-gay picketing.

"On that day a problem found you, and you found a solution. And you let that solution change you."

Quoting New York Times columnist David Brooks, Lofgren added: "The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It's to lose yourself. Class of 2011, lose yourself."

In presenting the 2011 class gift, class president Ori Herschmann and vice-president Paula Jung announced that the $4,311 raised would go towards the athletics department and weight room.

"Thank you, on behalf of the Gunn community, for giving us all of these wonderful memories, and for reminding us every single day that teaching is best job in the world," Villalobos said.

Old arguments were once again brought to the table Tuesday night when the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Education revisited the issue of changing future school calendars to move first-semester finals to December, before winter break. Though board members previously voted to keep next year’s calendar the same as this year’s, a vote has been scheduled for May 10 on whether to approve pre-break finals for school years 2012-13 and beyond.

The board appeared to enter the night’s discussion of the issue knowing it was up for a fight, from both sides—those who support pre-break finals, and those who don’t.

“We’re always going to get both—there’s no school calendar that’s going to satisfy everybody,” said Scott Bowers, a PAUSD associate superintendent who leads the calendar committee, at the beginning of the night.

“There’s a saying in Palo Alto that we can do anything, and anything is possible—but in this issue, I don’t think we can [make everyone happy],” said Kevin Skelly, PAUSD superintendent.

The idea of pre-break finals was originally brought to the school board in September, and was tensely debated by board members, parents, students and administrators alike for months after, eventually leading the school board to approve a rollover calendar—meaning, the same type of calendar as in the current year—on Dec. 7. Board members said the reason for the decision to approve the rollover calendar was so they could spend a few months gathering data in the district and community before revisiting the idea for school years 2012-13 and 2013-14 at the end of the year.

That time is now—school calendars with pre-break finals for years 2012-13 and beyond will be voted on by the board on May 10. Debates over the issue began at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, as a record number of community members showed up, and a whopping 45 comment cards were filled out by those who wished to address the board.

Since Dec. 7, Bowers and the calendar committee have been working to gauge opinions on changing the calendar across the district and community. On Tuesday night, Bowers presented a report of that data to the board, along with the recommendation that the board approve a calendar with pre-break finals for school years 2012-13 and 2013-14.

The data included the results of an online survey written by the calendar committee. Invitations to take the survey were sent to all district families and the staff members of all elementary, middle and high schools in the district who had e-mail addresses on file with the district. Approximately 2,700 parents, 430 high school students, 165 high school staff members and 310 elementary and middle school staff members accepted the invitation and took the survey.

In the survey, the key question was, if the survey-taker was in control of the school calendar, would he or she schedule finals before winter break or after, or if he or she had no opinion on the matter.

Interestingly, 70 percent of high school students and 66 percent of parents who answered the question on the survey indicated they would schedule first-semester finals before winter break, if they were in control.

As college acceptances and rejections roll in, some students at Gunn High School are sharing their rejections for all to see on a makeshift "Wall of Rejection."

By the weekend, the wall facing a well-trod Gunn hallway held a growing number of "no" letters from UCLA, Cal Poly, New York University and other institutions.

With high tension over college applications, the rejection wall has become a cathartic -- though sometimes controversial -- rite of spring on many high school campuses across the country.

Described as feeling like a consoling "group hug" by one recent Gunn graduate, the rejection wall was absent from its traditional quad-facing location at Palo Alto High School last year.

It will return this year, but in a more regulated format, student leaders said.

The term "rejection wall" had some "negative connotations that weren't really appropriate," Senior Class Vice-President John Brunett said.

"This year it's not called a 'rejection wall' but a 'colleges-missing-out wall,'" Brunett said.

"We want to focus on the positive aspects -- that people in a very stressful environment in a very stressful school can see that it's OK to fail and sort of take some pride in that, have a community-life feeling."

Rather than taping up their own rejections, as in the past, Paly students are asked to drop off their rejections, with names blacked out, at the Student Activities Office, and others will handle the posting.

Brunett said the new plan -- as well as the absence of a rejection wall last spring -- represents a "group decision" on the part of student leaders and administrators.

"A common description by students for colleges rejecting them is because they're not good enough, and that's not the case. It's because it didn't work out; they don't have room for that many qualified people.

"So I and the rest of (student government) and the administration wanted this phrasing because it's really supposed to be a positive experience, and we want kids realizing that rejection isn't the end of the world."

Brunett said he hoped students would begin submitting rejections by the end of last week, and that the wall would be launched this week, after fliers from the school's career fair are taken down.

"Outraged" by the mysterious absence of Paly's rejection wall last spring, editors of the student newspaper The Campanile mounted their own smaller version, taping rejections facing out on the windows of the journalism classroom, Brunett said.

Thirty seniors from Gunn High School and 28 seniors from Palo Alto High School have been named as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship competition.

An additional 108 students from Paly and Gunn were named "commended students."

At Castilleja School, 13 girls were named semifinalists and 17 commended students.

The semifinalists were among the top 1 percent of scorers nationwide on the 2009 Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT), used as a screening tool for the scholarship program.

Palo Alto school officials said they hope to ease academic stress by shifting the calendar to hold first-semester final exams before winter break starting in 2011.

But the proposed calendar change actually would increase -- not decrease -- stress among students, particularly seniors trying to squeeze in college applications and musical performances in addition to finals before the holidays, some irate parents told the Board of Education Tuesday night.

Tuesday's angst-filled discussion underscored the sensitivity and complexity of the calendar issue for the diverse families of Palo Alto's 12,000 schoolchildren.

Officials stressed the public will have ample opportunity to comment on the proposed academic calendars for 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 before the school board takes a final vote Nov. 9.

Superintendent Kevin Skelly's recommendation to shift the calendar grew out of a desire to give students a clean, work-free break over the holidays, Assistant Superintendent Scott Bowers said Tuesday, citing concerns expressed by students and research by Stanford University senior lecturer Denise Clark Pope.

For 2011-2012, Skelly's proposal calls for students to begin school Tuesday, Aug. 16, and for first-semester finals to end Wednesday, Dec. 21.

For 2012-2013, the first day for students would be Tuesday, Aug. 14, and first-semester finals would conclude Friday, Dec. 21.

Gunn and Palo Alto high schools should shift their academic calendars to hold first-semester final exams before the December break, starting in 2011-2012, Superintendent Kevin Skelly has proposed.

The start of the fall semester for all Palo Alto students should be moved from the fourth week to the third week in August, he said.

The superintendent's recommendation on the contentious calendar issue will be discussed by the school board Tuesday (Sept. 28) and will be put to a final board vote on Nov. 9.

The district is soliciting public comment to an e-mail address: calendar@pausd.org. Skelly said he will present a summary of the public comments at the Oct. 26 board meeting.

For 2011-2012, Skelly's proposal calls for students to begin school Tuesday, Aug. 16, and for first-semester finals to end Wednesday, Dec. 21.

For 2012-2013, the first day for students would be Tuesday, Aug. 14, and first-semester finals would conclude Friday, Dec. 21.

Google has contributed 350 "wireless access points" and other networking hardware to the Palo Alto Unified School District, the district announced.

The access points -- spread throughout the district's 12 elementary schools, three middle schools, two high schools and single preschool campus -- "allows us to stretch our educational dollars further and deliver excellent educational technology to our students," Superintendent Kevin Skelly said.

Neither Skelly nor the district's technology director, Ann Dunkin, could be reached immediately for further comment.

Paly student Sam Greene, a rising senior, said he had heard talk about the prospect of getting wireless access on campus.

"They were talking about implementing it," Greene said today in a phone interview from Princeton University, where he is participating in a summer program.

"They said they were going to open two servers -- one for teachers and administrators that's confidential, and one that's more open for students.

Teenagers heading back to school this fall will find dramatically altered landscapes at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools.

At Gunn, the 26 portable classrooms that comprised the "Titan Village" section of campus have been moved to the parking lot to make way for construction of a new, two-story building for the math and English departments.

At Paly, the campus is abuzz with "belly dump" trailers, bulldozers, backhoes and motor graders.

The Churchill Avenue field containing baseball and softball diamonds has been dug up -- resembling a moonscape studded with mounds of dirt and gravel -- and will not re-open until February.

And the entire central campus is fenced off as workers assemble 16 portable classrooms in the Paly quad.

The work -- funded by a $378 million facilities bond that was approved by 77.5 percent of school district voters in June 2008 -- eventually will touch all 17 campuses of the Palo Alto Unified School District.