Welcome back Lincoln Lions! Welcome to the 2017-2018 school year, we’re so glad to have you here.

I sat down with our principal Matthew Hewitson in his office yesterday morning to go over events that took place over the summer. As always Mr. Hewitson greeted me with a smile and a warm hello as I sat opposite him.

We first addressed the “new” dress code, which wasn’t so new at all. “To be honest it’s not going to be a huge difference for us at Lincoln, we’re selectively non inforcing elements of it (the district’s uniform rules); the gender issues we’ve come across here at Lincoln have helped us enforce those rules.” The only change students will experience is the ability to wear spaghetti straps or for our bros “bro tanks”.

As many know Lincoln was the first school in San Jose to offer gender neutral bathrooms in addition to the more traditional single sex options. Now, however, every single school in the SJUSD school system will provide a gender neutral option for both students and staff.

“Lincoln has lead the way in a lot of ways for years as an educator the best thing in the world you can see for your students is for them to take what they learn and apply it to the world to create a positive impact. This is the perfect example of kids doing that and being thinkers, leaders, and setting a standard for the community.”

Touching lightly on all the new staff Mr. Hewitson seemed optimistic as he said “Most of the teachers we lost were to retirement or in one case to medical school, so all good things. In general most teachers will quit in the first five years of teacher, probably because of the low pay. In this area (Silicon Valley) in general teachers can’t afford to live here so they’re forced to find cheaper places to live.”

We may have lost our old favorite teachers  but we’re eager to see what the new ones bring to the table.

Every year we have a new staff of writers for Lion Tales and I am so happy to introduce our newest editors Hazel Stange, Emalie Ortega, and Daniel Ceja. For Daniel and Hazel this is year two but Emalie has been writing and working on our social media platforms for an impressive two years. We have exciting things to come, be sure to check back in soon.