What Do You Think of Tiny Swim Suit Attire for High School Car Wash Fundraisers?

Apparently, those Northgate kids were at it again Sunday, doing a car wash fundraiser in their tiny swim suits.

The blog Claycord reports that the young gentlemen of the water polo team at Walnut Creek's Northgate High were donning Speedos and maybe little else while standing at a busy corner in central Contra Costa County, holding signs and trying to lure motorists into a gas station to have their cars washed.

The issue of high school students and their so-called bikini car wash fundraisers, exploded on the local blogosphere last September. This includes on Crazy in Suburbia. It all started on an early September weekend in 2009 when the blogger Mister Writer and other witnesses spotted Northgate High cheerleaders, in string tops and "tight" shorts that barely covered their buttocks, holding a car wash fundraiser at a gas station at Ygnacio Valley Road and Civic Drive in Walnut Creek.

The blogger Mister Writer said the scantily clad girls were "waving signs" to advertise their fundraiser.

A few weeks later, members of the Northgate water polo team were out at the same Walnut Creek intersection--some in Speedos.

Much debate ensued on the Crazy in Suburbia, Claycord, and Mister Writer message boards--about the appropriateness of kids showing a bit of flesh while doing their fundraisers.

Some readers were horrified at young people exploiting their bodies in such ways. Other readers accused us bloggers of being grumpy farts who should just give these kids a break. These students are young, health, in shape and should feel no shame about their bodies. Also, readers said, these car washes happen to fall on particularly warm afternoons. For students, stripping down to their bikini tops, short shorts or Speedos was a way to keep cool.

Last year, after the first bikini car wash hit the blogosphere ("High school girls gone Lolita (?) at Walnut Creek car wash"), I contacted Northgate High Principal John McMorris.

He told me that students at school fundraisers must adhere to a dress code--"shorts, shirt, etc." I didn't think he was talking about bikini tops, short shorts and Speedos.

What was interesting about presenting this debate was soon learning that the bikini car wash fundraiser is something of a phenomenon in contemporary suburban culture. Enough that the hit musical TV show Glee had fun with the phenomenon by featuring a song and dance number, set at a car wash fundraiser for the fictional McKinley High Shool Glee Club. And, yes, cheerleaders were involved. And, yes, the cheerleaders were in their bikini tops and short little skirts.

The day the music died at Northgate High, and at other MDUSD schools

Music boosters at Northgate High school are in shock about the news that the Mt. Diablo Unified School Board unanimously agreed to lay off 200 teachers, including the music director of their school's highly acclaimed instrumental music program.

The music director had been on the list of teachers notified of layoffs in March and was among the 200 who were on the layoff list approved by Mt. Diablo Unified trustees at their meeting Tuesday night, parents say.

The instrumental music program at Northgate has been "recognized with numerous command performance awards, unanimous superior festival ratings, and first place awards at band, orchestra, chamber music, and jazz festivals / competitions," according to a Northgate High website.

More recently the Northgate jazz band received the honor of being one of 12 bands selected, from out of hundreds, to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation Festival in April. The band will also perform Monday evening at Yoshi's in Oakland. 

A Northgate music booster I spoke to said the music director's layoff is just one terrible blow among many to students, parents, and educators who value music education in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District. The planned teacher layoffs in the district included 25 music teachers. 

The Mt. Diablo Music Education Foundation is working to keep fourth and fifth grade instrumental music in the schools. The reason music education is important in those early years is that kids gain experience, the Northgate music booster told me. She explained that kids can get hooked on performing music when they're young; they want to stick with it into middle school and high school. If kids lose that chance for music lessons and ensemble experience in the early grades, there won't be enough kids ready to fill band programs in high school. 

"For so many kids, music is a big part of who they are," the booster says. "The bare bones academics isn't enough. It doesn't give them a form of expression."

Racial tensions at a San Ramon high school: do they exist on Walnut Creek campuses?

Maybe we don't live all live in post-racial harmony after all.  

That's becoming evident in our state and national arena.  Just yesterday, State Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco told reporters  he had received racist-tinged death threats since demanding greater transparency over Sarah Palin's June visit to Cal State Stanislaus. One fax he received contained an image of an American-flag-adorned truck dragging a noose.

But what about post-racial harmony in our safe, happy suburbs?

More information emerged this week about racial slurs and a noose-hanging incident at a San Ramon skate park that triggered at least one fight at California High School last week. 

A reporter with the news website, San Ramon Patch, interviewed students at the skate park who said that two white boys and a white girl initiated a dispute with racial slurs aimed a group of black girls. "Witnesses said the boys left the park and returned a short time later hanging a noose from their car window and shouting 'white power,'" the story said.

That incident apparently triggered a fight on the California High campus two days later involving an African American girl who was being attacked by two other girls. When Principal Mark Corti and other adults tried to break up the fight, the girl, a former Cal High student who recently transferred to a continuation high school, struck the principal. School officials describe it as a "glancing blow."

Maybe such racial tensions are not unique to San Ramon--or to its public school campuses. 

Back in October, I reported that police were investigating a number of racist incidents in Walnut Creek and other surrounding cities. These included an employee at a North Main Street Midas auto service who said he endured repeated racial slurs, racist graffiti scrawled in a restroom at Miramonte High School in Orinda,  and a teenager in Martinez harassing an African-American family at a park near the town's marina and shouting "white power!"

I don't remember things like this happening in Walnut Creek when I was growing up, or while attending middle or high school. Either I didn't hear about them or us white kids didn't have many non-white kids to have tensions with. In flipping through the pages of my high school year books from (dating myself!) the early 1980s, I don't see many non-white faces. I remember going to school with a few Hispanic and Asian kids but I don't remember any African-American classmates. I didn't get to know anyone African-American until I went to college outside Chicago. 

While student demographic information for when I was in high school is not easily available, I would venture to say that our Walnut Creek public school campuses are more diverse today than back then. Sure, our campuses and communities are not "diverse" by Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco standards, but they are certainly less white than when I was a student here.

Las Lomas High, which my son will attend in a couple years, is 69 percent white, 10 percent Asian, 7 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent African-American 

Northgate High is 68 percent white; 18 percent Asian, 8 percent HIspanic; and  2 percent African-American.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Walnut Creek's campuses are more diverse than they were 20, 30 years ago. Does it follow that kids today are more tolerant? From what I've observed of my son and his friends, they seem to be more tolerant. Do kids of different races and ethnic backgrounds mix in easy harmony in the cafeteria, off campus? Or do they self-segregate?

Maybe the kids--generally and with a few exceptions--are all right. Maybe it's the adults around these few exceptions who have the problem and who are advocating the idea that it's okay to yell things like "white power" and to hang nooses out of their cars while driving past community parks. 

Are you Team Las Lomas, Northgate, or Acalanes?

Sure, it’s Super Bowl weekend, and maybe a lot of people’s attention is focused on Sunday’s showdown between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts.

But listen up! Some of our best and brightest East Bay teens will be vying for a major championship themselves the day before: the team that wins Contra Costa County’s 2010 Academic Decathlon. Some 150 ninth through 12th graders will compete this weekend to represent Contra Costa County at the California Academic Decathlon, to be held in Sacramento, March 12-15. This year's Nation Academic Decathlon will be held April 21-24, in Omaha, Nebraska.

The county’s decathlon, which has taken place over two Saturdays, will conclude this Saturday. Directed by the Contra Costa County Office of Education (CCCOE) , the Academic Decathlon provides an opportunity for ninth-12th grade high school students to compete as individuals and teams in a series of 10 academic tests and demonstrations that include: art, economics, language and literature, mathematics, music, science, essay, interview, and speech (prepared and impromptu). Close to 150 students have been studying and preparing for this event with their coaches since September. This year, the theme of the decathlon, including the Super Quiz Topic, is the French Revolution.

According to Jonathan Lance, who is with the Contra Costa County Office of Education, there will be a maximum of three students in each of the following divisions: Honors (3.75-4.00 GPA), Scholastic (3.00-3.74 GPA) and Varsity (2.99 GPA and below).

I’m in awe of kids these days who excel in various ways: sports, arts, academics. I know it can be fashionable to grumble about how “kids these days" are spoiled brats with way too much personal freedom, as well as disposable income to spend on video games, mobile devices, and drugs.

I’m sure that’s the case for some kids. But I also come across 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds who definitely have their s--- together better than I did at that age. They are polite, motivated, curious, passionate, idealistic. They have grand ideas about changing the world, and they already have their blueprints in place for making that happen. And, frankly, I think they are under so much more pressure to fit into some kind of 21st century definition of “success.”

I want to give a shout out to the various teams competing this Saturday in the finals of the county’s 2010 Academic Decathlon. Besides Las Lomas, Northgate and Acalanes, which are attended by Walnut Creek students, the other teams vying for the championship are: American (Fremont), Antioch, California (San Ramon), Campolindo (Moraga), Freedom (Oakley), Miramonte (Orinda), and Pittsburg.

Lance says that more than 1 million students have participated in the United States Academic Decathlon since 1968. It has become known as the first and most comprehensive program to promote and recognize academic achievement for all students.

Saturday’s event will take place 8 a.m. to 4 p.m in the gym at Los Medanos Colleg, 2700 E. Leland Rd., Pittsburg. The SuperQuiz begins about 2:30 p.m., finishing around 3:45 p.m.

The Academic Decathlon Awards Ceremony will take place Wednesday, February 10, 6:30 p.m. at the Contra Costa County Office of Education (Stewart Building), 77 Santa Barbara Rd., Pleasant Hill.

For more information about the Academic Decathlon, contact Karen Rice, Event Coordinator, CCCOE, 925-942-3400, or krice@cccoe.k12.ca.us.

Memorial today at Northgate High for student who died last week

Northgate High School's gymnasium will be the site today for Trevor Tonsing who suffered a heart attack at school last week and died a short time later at age 16.

Trevor was a lifelong Boy Scout and a popular sophomore at school.

The school will host the memorial service at 11 a.m. Students attending plan to wear black and white in his honor. A Facebook page created in his honor now has more than 1,000 fans. You can go there and share your memories of Trevor.

Men in Speedos? Depends. Teen-age boys? At a suburban public intersection? Many questions to ponder

UPDATE: Principal John McMorris got back to me. Maybe he wishes these students would just keep their clothes on and not get all us cranky grown-ups (envious of their free-spirited youth, no doubt) all upset anymore about their car washes! Anyway he said:

"Thank you for this information. We met with the cheer team and discussed this, it is now obvious we need to meet with all coaches. We will get the message out."


BACK TO THE ORIGINAL STORY: Those Northgate kids apparently were at it again (right in a photo by Radar, posted on Claycord.com). A few of them were out this past weekend, at a major intersection in Walnut Creek, donning nothing but tiny swim suits to show off their trim, athletic bods, and to presumably entice motorists to buy their, uh--carwash--services.

It's been all over Claycord and Mister Writer the past few days, how some Northgate students were once again, flashing some flesh while holding a car wash to raise money for their extra-curricular organization. This time, according to the Mayor of Claycord, it was a fundraiser for the boys' water polo team. But once again, some members of an organization were trying to lure motorists in to their car wash by standing on the street corner, holding up signs while dressed in--not much at all.

In some ways, these boys were even more stripped down than a few of the cheerleaders apparently were during the last controversial car wash, put on by Northgate students.

So, I'm mulling some vexing questions over what is proving to be the latest suburban scandale--a controversy of such civic import that it might soon be coming to a TV news broadcast near you!

1. Okay, back in early September, Northgate's principal, John McMorris told me that students at school fundraisers must adhere to a dress code. He said the previous controversial car wash-- involving, according to Mister Writer, teen girls in bikini tops and short shorts holding signs and calling out to motorists--had prompted discussion regarding "appropriate behavior with all programs." He said "the discussion is that all students will adhere to the dress code for these things, shorts, shirt, etc."

2. So, why wasn't this supposed new policy enforced, either by adult supervisors at the car wash or by the students themselves. Were the students, shown above in this photo, perhaps pissed off by their perception of adults going all moral and judgmental on them?

3. Were these kids, with this display, giving us cranky, puritanical bloggers and other grownups a figurative finger?

4. Meanwhile, the future of after-school sports programs in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District are in deep, deep trouble, according to a report on this blog, other news reports, and an e-mail I received by Walnut Creek City Councilman Kish Rajan. He says that "winter and spring sports are at risk of being canceled if the schools and the United Mt. Diablo Athletic Foundation are unable to raise enough money by October 27." Rajan urges people in the community to donate money to the foundation, created specifically to keep after-schools alive at the district's six high schools, including at Northgate.

5. Does this concern with the future of sports in the Mt. Diablo high schools at all play into this latest attention-getting effort by students to raise money for their sports program?

6. In this instance, can the students involved and those parents who condone this Speedo showcase use the excuse that it was a "really hot day" and that the kids just just wanted to strip down so they could stay cool and comfortable while they washed cars? That was one major explanation given by defenders of the Northgate cheerleaders in bikini tops--that it was a hot Saturday. Well, that is true, in that situation, back in early September. The cheerleaders were working on a weekend that fell during a heat wave. But this past weekend? Sorry, it was pretty mild, early autumn weather.

7. Finally, and, perhaps most importantly, what do you think about men in Speedos?

Okay, I'm superficial. But, I'm asking. I'm posing this question to ladies. But gents (of whatever gender identification and orientation) are free to weigh in.

Oh! But by even asking this question, I am perhaps trying to sexualize underaged males! I am such a perv, right?

As it happens, I have absolutely no "cougar" tendencies, and these boys pictured above are just a bit older than my own son. Please!

7. Let's get back to men in Speedos... I think there is an American aversion to men in Speedos, which I must admit I share. Tiny swim suits on men: it's more of a European male fashion statement, right? And it is one shared, unfortunately, by big German men at Greek and Southeast Asian beaches.

On the other hand, I admit what I'll call an aesthetic admiration for the form of a healthy, red-blooded, Olympic swim champion in a tiny swim suit. I will also admit both an aesthetic--and even a carnal--admiration for that famous--or infamous--shot of actor David Duchovny in a red Speedo, emerging from a swimming pool, when starring as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder in the TV show The X-Files.

I got into watching The X-Files in reruns when I was pregnant with Soccer Son, and I developed a major crush on David Duchovny as Fox Mulder (the so-called "thinking woman's sex symbol.")

Anyway, I'll end this contemplation about men and boys in Speedos with this link recently sent to me by one of my degenerate friends. It shows the famous Duchovny-in-a-red-Speedo scene. You can even watch it in slow motion!!! Ladies (and Gentlemen) enjoy.