On a cloudy Saturday morning on September 13, 2025, Friendship Pasadena Church welcomed residents, advocates, officials, and planners into a community workshop that could reshape the future of the city.

In late August, the 10th graders went on their High Sierras backpacking trip, their first trip of the school year. Each grade at Sequoyah goes on two camping trips a year. On the High Sierras trip, every group participating had to backpack, which entails hiking while carrying a backpack with all of your gear.

When the Eaton Fire hit on January 7th, 2025, the Pasadena and Altadena communities reeled from its impact. Over twenty-four days, thousands of buildings and acres burned before the fire was fully contained. It is estimated that over 100,000 people were displaced.

The Sequoyah H2 Grand Prix team qualified for the World Finals this year, which was held in Chemnitz, Germany, in August. The team made an excellent showing, placing 1st in America and 9th in the world.

The county of Los Angeles has a lot coming for it, not least of all the 2028 Summer Olympics, which will take place in the one and only city of Angels. This is significant because it’s the first time Los Angeles has been represented on a scale this large since 1984, when LA hosted its second Summer Olympics.

According to Ohio University’s student newspaper, The Post, recently more preteens have been trying to act older, to the point that it negatively impacts them. But haven’t younger kids always wanted to be older? So why is it becoming a larger issue now?

Vinyls were an essential piece of technology from the 1950s to the 1980s. However, with the invention of modern-day digital music, vinyls quickly became obsolete and sales dropped dramatically. However, according to Camoin Associates, vinyl sales started increasing in 2007 and continued to rise every year up to 2023.

The topic of homework has been a point of contention between schools and students for a long time. Is it necessary, and if so, when is it most effective? What do Sequoyah high school students believe homework’s role should be in education?

If asked, do you think you could find Mississippi on a map? How about Malawi? Mauritius? Have you ever heard of the Maldives? Depending on your geography education in school, whether it was rote memorization back in third grade or if it was nonexistent, you may have very different answers to these questions.

What is “good” weather? More specifically, what is “good” weather for a Californian? At Sequoyah, it’s pretty dang specific.

In conjunction with the updated Curriculum Guide released to the student body the week of March 17th, Mathematics Department Chair Alexi Burgess made a surprising announcement at March 20th’s Morning Meeting: Sequoyah will no longer be offering the class known as “Precalculus.” This news came after Burgess sensationally announced to his fall semester Precalculus class that the subject does not in fact exist.

In late March, Sequoyah’s high school theater program staged a production of Alice by Heart, a dark and touching musical set during The Blitz—an eight-month period in which the Germans bombed Britain during WWII.

Oxford Dictionary defines adulthood as “the length of time that a person has lived or a thing has existed.” Though the concept is easy enough to comprehend on these terms, the confusion seeps in when the sectioning begins. In the United States, the first major divide occurs at age 18, when you legally become an adult.

As the Sequoyah high school community knows, several Sequoyah staff members said their goodbyes last year; however, many new members joined the community this year. This means new teachers and faculty, and most importantly, new advisors!

For many, getting a driver’s license at sixteen is a rite of passage, providing freedom for teens to go wherever they want. However, fewer and fewer teenagers are getting their license. In California, teens can get their driver’s license at the age of sixteen after having a permit for six months. Although sixteen has long been the age of getting a driver’s license, many teens nowadays are choosing not to drive.

The Sequoyah High School is offering seniors a new option for the Social Innovation Program (SIP) called the Action Collective. The students who joined are in the same group for the whole year. This new addition is a third option for seniors’ SIP journey, along with internships and impact projects from their junior year.

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Institute is back after a year-long break, and Sequoyah students are excited about all the opportunities it brings.

Towering canary island pines greet Sequoyah students every morning. Pale yellow light weaves through the trees and illuminates the sullen-seeming ravens as they hobble on classroom roofs. Their shrill voices force sleepy minds awake: “Behold,” the ravens say. These creatures appear by turns somber, majestic, and amusing, giving character to the school environment and plenty of fodder for student musings. 

Sequoyah’s biannual theater production is regarded as one of the school’s many entertainment highlights, along with the Science Ambassadors’ always-intriguing lunchtime events and High School Director Marc Alongi serving up waffles during Talking Leaves season. Sequoyah’s Theater teacher and Chair of the Performing Arts Department Arden Thomas tends to serve up a sumptuous dramatic spectacle twice a year, aided by eager student participation. This past autumn, eight Sequoyah students performed two separate one-act comedies: Jonathan Rand’s Breaking Badly and Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. 

A few days prior to the November 2024 election, Sequoyah School Assistant Head and High School Director Marc Alongi announced a mock election designed for students to get familiar with the democratic process.