Talk:Rancho San Joaquin Middle School

Course list
There isn't anything non-encyclopediac about listing Rancho's offered courses. It could help if someone who wanted to enroll wanted to know the courses. Venado Middle School has it on their page, that's where i got the idea. 70.187.180.70 23:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I've left a rationale at Talk:Venado Middle School. --F a ng Aili 16:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Teachers of the Year
Please do not revert the Teachers of the Year edit. Yanksox, if you think that there is really something non-encyclopediac about putting a list of Teachers of the Year, please leave your reasoning here. It seems exactly like something I would find in an encyclopedia. 70.187.177.70 02:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The list is not notable, and it's more of something that is local flavor and that you would find on the school's website. Wikipedia has a wide range of visitors, most of whom won't know about these teachers or who they are. It is not encylopedic and doesn't warrant mention on Wikipedia. Yanksox 02:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The idea of including all of the teachers of the year is probably excessive. However, I think that maybe including the teachers of the year who were also teacher of the year at district level could warrant mention in Wikipedia. Of course, only teachers of the year still at teh school should be included. Anyway, since this subject has been somewhat contentious, I think I should get someone's approval before including teachers of the year. For now, I'll put what I've proposed here on the article. AlexKrolewski 17:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not too sure or keen about this. I've been looking at other "good" school articles to see what the most popular path is, just to get an idea/consesus. Yank  sox  17:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You're probably right. I looked at the old article with the teachers of the year, and only one teacher still at teh school even became District Teacher of the year. This could be mentioned, but it probably isn't too notable...anyway, it doesn't warrant a separate section. when the article says that kay gee was a John Hopkins fellow, we could mention this teacher of the year, since Kay gee is the teacher of teh year i'm reffering to. My current Humanities teacher, Kay Gee, is a John Hopkins University Nationaly Recognized Teacher 70.187.177.70 02:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be a jerk when I say this, but it's a simple rule that applies to everything on this site: prove it. Yanksox 02:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

How about we put this to a vote? 70.187.177.70 02:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be between us, you can go to WP:RFC if you want more editors to approach this situation. I recommend pursuing that path if you want a resolution. Yanksox 03:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, here are some sources http://www.ranchoms.org/kgee/kay_geeprofile.htm http://www.ranchoms.org/newsletter/rsj4-5-06.pdf 70.187.177.70 03:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Adobe's broke for me, so second link means nothing. Thank you for verifying, obviously, you can place it on the page and source it. Thank you for your concerns. Yanksox 03:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I've asked another editor to approach this situation. Yanksox 03:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I am CrazyRussian, and Yanksox asked me to give a third opinion here. Upon further review..... Seriously, I looked at all the diff and all the talk and read the teacher homepage and the newsletter. "John Hopkins University Teacher Fellow" is a minor award and does not really make a person notable for a mention in Wikipedia. This is a judgment call, there's no policy governing this, but I would not include that. However, there's no harm in having a really brief mention. So I will go ahead and add one. I hope that will put the matter to rest. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 03:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Awards Section
I have again reverted the awards section as something that does not appear to be notable or exceptional. If you have an issue with this post it on here. Yank sox  21:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that the awards section is notable: firstly, the part of the awards section that was deleted seems far more consequential than the one line, remaining from earlier, that was not deleted; secondly, it provides an organized list of rancho awards from 05-06 that cannot be found on the webpage and could potentially be important information to someone trying to find information on this school. AlexKrolewski 21:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you elaborate on this? Yank  sox  21:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

if someone is trying to find information on the school, seeing the list of awards would give them an idea of what type of activities the students participate in. AlexKrolewski 21:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is first and foremost an encylopedia, not something that caters to everything or something to be used as a promotional tool. The list shows nothing exceptional or unique about those awards, unless it can be proved that those are: rare, unique, notable, etc. The awards should not be relisted. Yank  sox  21:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

music: i don't think i was very specific on the page. First of all, about 20 students participated in the all-southern orchestra, which had 8 different counties in it:  kern, los angeles, san bernardino, ventura, orange, san diego, imperial, riverside. the los angeles metro area has a population of 12.9 million: these 8 counties are far more than the metro area. finally, there were only about 150 slots in the orchestra. this means that rancho comprised about 13% of the orchestra despite the fact that irvine only has about 1.5% of the population of the metro area. 69.234.118.50 22:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to say that I think the awards should stay in. They may not, as Yanksox points out, be notable enough in themselves for an article. However, that is not an issue. The school is worthy of an article and anybody wishing to find out more information about the school would find this information of interest. However, it needs to be included from a NPOV, just stating the facts. Tyrenius 22:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I decided to move the standardized test results to a separate section because this seems to be more reflective of a npov; also they don't really fit under the "awards" section. AlexKrolewski 23:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Noted alumni
In the noted alumni, it says that the latest one was Christopher Wong, a nationally acclaimed swimmer, which is kind of hard to believe, since he's only in 9th grade now. When I clicked on the hyperlink, it says that Christopher Wong was a screenplay writer and a piano teacher. Seems odd to me that someone wouldn't even put a wikipedia article of a "nation acclamed swimmer." I smell a fish, don't you? --TheNextOneAcross 04:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

He's not nationally acclaimed, just nationally ranked. Who's Angela Lee? 70.187.183.33 (talk) 08:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * For future reference, please do not just add yourself or a friend to the noted alumni. You must meet WP's guidelines on notability, and unfortunately, nationally ranked sports players and such are not notable. Esper  rant 00:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
I was wondering why this article is listed under cleanup. (I'm not trying to contest this decision; i just want to fix the article). AlexKrolewski 23:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks OK to me. I've removed tag. Tyrenius 01:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions
I saw your assessment request at WP:SCH, im not here to assess the article, but ill just offer some suggestions to improve it:
 * The layout section is pretty non-notable. Might be worth re-naming it to "Campus", and talking about the grounds, including any heritage listed buildings, sporting facilities etc.
 * The section entitled "Standardized Test Results (2005)" should be re-named "academics", and also look at the schools curriculum, scholarships on offer etc.
 * The departments section is non-notable and should be removed.
 * The "Achievements (2005-2006)" section seems quite POV, and any notable awards should be moved into sections on "academics" or "the arts" etc.
 * The article doesnt tell me much about the history of the school, the demographics, the extra-curricular activities etc.
 * The major problem is references, its got none. The article seems pretty pro-Rancho. If you need further help, please contact me on my talk page. Thanks. Twenty Years 11:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Assessment
I am assessing this article as Start / Mid. The main issue which is preventing this article getting B class is lack of a established reference section; references need to be added by citing them with the reference section, see WP:CITE for more. More references in general are needed too; many sections such as alumni been completely unreferenced. Some content of this article is very trivia based at some points, see WP:SCH for guidance, make sure it all follows WP:NPOV as well. Finally, I would also suggest that the article is re-structured a bit with "Layout" been re-named to "Campus" and perhaps merging "Athletics" with "Facilities", WP:SCH provides some guidance. Giving "Mid" importance for alumni, awards, and history. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC) The article needs to inclulde the date of the first day of the 2008/2009 school year for Rancho. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.233.106.187 (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Balance
Seems a little one-sided, don't you think. It is only talking about one humanities teacher, Kay Gee, there are other humanities teachers and other teachers there who deserve to have their name on their as well, not just her. Please do something about it, I didn't want to touch it, but I might fix it a bit... just a bit. -- comments moved from Wikipedia:Cleanup, made in March 2007 by an anonymous contributor