The Cardinal staff signs off for summer

As the school year comes to a close, and the seniors are preparing for their graduation, the rest of The Cardinal staff reflects on the school, what they liked, didn’t like, and what they can improve on in the new school year.

Santiago De La Cruz, Natally Leon, Quincy Enyama-Turner, Griselda Covarrubias, Emily Garcia, Tania Mondragon, and Sarai Mendoza

May 29, 2025

The 2024-2025 school year has been one I won’t forget for many reasons. It’s the last year where I’m not the oldest. It’s the last year before things get serious and I’ll have to really decide what’s next.

I wouldn’t say I participate much in school events, but there are some events that I always look forward to. Like the food fairs that I argued to buy food at instead of having to work the food stand. As well as the script I got to work on in Drama Club. Not to mention all the end of the year events and field trips I got to attend like the arcade, escape house and the VAPA assembly in which my grade did not technically win, but it was still entertaining to watch everyone at play. That would be a part of the ups in addition to the growing connections with friends.

While some of the downs of the school year were definitely academic based, with new and more difficult classes than the last few years. It was tough and stressful for me to maintain decent grades. Especially when in some classes, like math for example, I was initially doing really well and I might’ve ignored it too much because when the second semester came, it kind of just went downhill for me.

There’s not much for me to miss since I’m not leaving high school just yet but the idea that I won’t be the youngest anymore is something I will miss. The fact that instead of looking up to the older kids, it’ll now be the other way around. Also, I’ll have to face more responsibilities, and not say “I won’t worry about this right now because I’m not quite there yet.”

For the school year 2025-2026, I’m sure there will be many things for me to look forward to during my senior year, as well as some emotional aspects of it. Like all the senior activities and eventually parting ways with friends, teachers and high school in general. But to end on a better note, I hope to enjoy it to the best of my abilities because I guess what people say about high school is true; “High School goes so fast, before you know it, it’s over.”

~ Tania Mondragon

When looking back on this year, I would say it has its ups and downs even though this is my second year here.

I look back on the memories that I’ve created here at Hoover High School during my sophomore year, and think about the classes where I made new friends and bonded with old ones. Although I’ve had many downs here and there, I never try to focus on them. High school is filled with challenges that we may not know the answers to yet. Each one of my classes meant something different to me.

When I was in my Math classes, I always tended to struggle with keeping up or learning new topics, but I had it with friends and that’s when I met my substitute teacher who I bonded with. My second period was always my least favorite for both semesters. I had physics and history which were my least enjoyable classes. English was my favorite by far because my teacher Ms.Woodfill, who was an understanding teacher who never made me feel less and always pushed me to be greater. My fourth period was art and yearbook, another of my favorite classes that I’d enjoy during my year here. This was my second year of art, but my first year of yearbook. The yearbook helped me push myself out of my comfort zone and let me evolve my writing capabilities.

The memories I’ve made this year won’t be forgettable. This year is when I got nothing lower than a C which is good in my book. Knowing this now, I want to push myself further for the upcoming year. I feel the need to keep up with myself and find a way to make my parents proud like how they were this year. Although I’m far from done for high school, I’m not done trying my hardest. I can’t wait for what the upcoming year has in store for me.

~ Griselda Covarrubias

This school year for me was pretty good. Going through ups and downs taught me many things. I learned to improve myself and work hard this year

Junior year is supposed to be the hardest year of high school. In some cases it was, and it ain’t easy, I can admit that. But it was also the year where I locked the most. I took this year seriously because I knew that it would impact me for the rest of my time in high school. There were nights where I stayed up late just to turn in an assignment that could’ve been done days ago, but at least I got it done. There were easy days and hard days. I think out of all my years in high school this has probably been my favorite so far.

It’s crazy for me to think that my time in high school has gone by this fast. Not only was I able to improve my grades this year but I was also able to keep and gain new friendships that made my school year ten times better. The main thing that I will miss this year are my senior friends, while I know that they are going into the real world, I am very proud of them. It does scare me to know that I’m up next for that.

One thing that I’m looking forward to this summer is doing more things for myself. I want to work and become independent. Time flies super fast after junior year. I want to be prepared for my senior year and be able to come into the new school year with a positive attitude and mindset. For my senior year, I’m looking forward to all the events that come with it. Senior year is probably the most exciting year of high school. I hope to enjoy it and keep getting good grades.

~ Sarai Mendoza

This school year has been very interesting but I wouldn’t change anything about it. I’m glad I got to experience the things I did and I’m glad I made the mistakes I did because I learned a lot from them. Mistakes kept me up at night sometimes but at least I grew from them.

The beginning of the year was like a dream. I barely remember it but the little bits that I do remember seem fun. I didn’t really have a best friend at Hoover but I definitely had a lot of friends which made it fun but it sucked because I could never really open up to anyone since I wasn’t close with any of them.

Throughout the year, I met more people and one of my best friends moved back to Hoover so life was really good. Looking back, I wish I had made more plans with my friends because this was the last year all of my friend group would be going to the same school. I started doing bad in school because I had lost my motivation and wouldn’t even get up to go. I knew I was smart but I struggled to apply myself to do better. It was after the end of the first semester that I realized I couldn’t keep doing that to myself. I didn’t do horrible but I was capable of so much more and I knew that.

I complained a lot about school at the beginning of my second semester because I felt so drained from everything, I felt like I was so separated from all my friends and I still wasn’t where I wanted to be with my grades. The only people I needed at this time were my friends so I decided to stop letting this time go to waste and started hanging out with them more regardless of the emotions I was feeling. They helped me a lot and my grades were getting a lot better. I started doing more work for extra credit any chance I got and I was happy with myself. I ended up getting distracted again because I was going out a little too much so I’m finishing off the year a little stressed but I know I’ll be okay. I could hate on my sophomore year all I want but deep down I know I’ll always carry these memories with me and be grateful for the people I had this year whether they’re still in my life or not.

~ Natally Leon

The 2024-25 school year was my junior year of school and by far the most difficult year. I know it’s a cliche saying that “junior year is the hardest year in high school,” but after going through this year, I am able to confirm this statement. I say this not only because of the workload of junior year, but also because of the stuff happening outside of it. As a freshman and sophomore, you are eased into what it’s like to be somewhat independent and responsible, but you are also given a reasonable cushion and room for failure. But as a junior, it’s a transition to begin becoming a responsible young adult, so you are expected to be fully responsible for yourself and consequences of mishaps or errors are more harsh.

I felt this school year was a great learning experience for me, as I was able to see flaws in my communication and work ethic. I never really thought much about how efficiently I was able to communicate with people, until this year. Whether that be communicating with teachers, friends, and family members, it is important to be able to express yourself. I learned that if people don’t know your situation, they have no way to effectively help you in the way you seek.

During this school year, I had also seen that there are holes in my work ethic that I need to work on. I was always the type of person to do enough work just to ‘get by’ rather than to exceed. This always worked for me because I am a lazy person and want the least amount of work possible. But with the workload that I had received this year, I started to fall behind. I had always had a fear of falling behind, so this really affected me. My work ethic paired with the amount of work and commitments I had was a recipe for disaster. So I decided to spend any free time that I had strictly for schoolwork and catching up. Hopefully I’ve learnt my lesson and won’t make those same mistakes.

I am looking forward to the 2025-26 school year, as it will be my senior year and the beginning of my adulthood. But there is also this lingering thought that I want time to move slow so I can cherish high school. With the oncoming school year, I’m going to be missing the class of 2025. The seniors on baseball, yearbook, and around the campus have been great friends and great people in general. They will be missed and I wish they could stay, but I know they can’t and I hope they succeed in their new endeavors. I’m ready for senior year and I hope I can be as good a person as they were to me.

~ Quincy Enyama-Turner

The 2024-2025 school year has been a fun and stressful year. I had classes with my friends which brought me closer to them and these classes also created new friendships that I’m grateful for.

As always, football season was a very fun and memorable season because of the games that I attended with my friends and because it is always a good way to start off the year. I also took this year to try some new electives which were yearbook and broadcast journalism. I never really thought that these classes were going to mean something to me or teach me anything but it was the opposite.

Yearbook ended up teaching me a lot and it helped me improve my writing but it was also very fun to play around with the camera and try something new. The class also just felt like we were all one big friend group and there was not a day where it had any downs. Broadcast journalism taught so many things about editing and filming. Going into this class I had no clue what we were doing but by the end of the year I mastered it and it would take me a short amount of time. Although this year had many good things it was definitely a stressful year.

In my freshman year I didn’t really care much about my grades or about locking in but this year I realize how important it is to actually try in school. I began to forget about work and realized how much it was affecting my grades and GPA, so I began working and stressing to get my grades but in the end it worked out.

For the 2025-2026 school year I’m hoping to actually focus on school and make it a priority since next year I am taking some more difficult classes but I also hope to create more bonds and friendships. This school year came with a lot of ups and some downs but nonetheless, it was a school year that I enjoyed.

~Emily Garcia

This school year has been very fun for me! I have made so many new friends and have completed some of the goals I have wanted to achieve from last year.

Some of those goals were to gain more confidence, communicate better, meet new people, earn better grades from last year, and get involved more in school, such as volunteering and joining programs. Most of my pros and cons about my sophomore year were all about academic grades. Some of my cons were about doing my assignments at the last minute, turning in assignments late, getting grades that I don’t like, and not pre-ordering the yearbook this year. Some of my pros were earning grades that I am proud of, going to tutoring almost every day after school to help with my math homework, having fewer than 10 absences, and even arriving at school on time.

I loved all of the fun events that were hosted at school, even though I didn’t attend all of the events, but I did enjoy them. I loved when the yearbook class would watch movies during class almost every Friday, when we sang a karaoke song that one week on Wednesday, even though barely anybody sang the song “The Boyfriend” by Justin Bieber, and when we would go out to take pictures for assignments cause we always made it fun. Some of the challenges were trying to catch up and getting those straight A’s throughout the school year because of how struggling it was when you had too many things going on in one day, like family, school programs, sports practices, and lots of homework tasks to do after school.

I was expecting my school year to be half as perfect as it was last year, and next year will be better than next year. When I am a junior and the next school year begins, I will be looking forward to completing more of my personal goals that I would like to get done. Some of those goals are to fully learn how to drive, know most of what will happen in the SAT and state tests, get my GPA higher than this year, and finally apply for more scholarships and/or internships.

~ Santiago De La Cruz

About the Contributors

Santiago De La Cruz, Staff Writer

Santiago De La Cruz is a sophomore at Hoover High School and always tries to do their best and works hard for (almost) every class, electives, and every class that is assigned to him. He has great responsibility decision-making skills, may take some time, but always makes sure that it is worth doing. He has many good traits that fit in with his personality that include: kindness, empathy, compassion, great patience, and interpersonal skills that help him academically and potentially. His favorite foods are pizza and spaghetti. Lastly, His favorite kinds of music genres are R&B, hip-hop, and classical instruments. Santi’s goals and aspirations are to graduate from Hoover High in white, which means that he is reaching his main goal of having a 4.0 and above GPA. After high school his plans are to attend four year university like SDSU, UCSD, and especially at UC Davis! Right now he is interested in the medical field and to study to become a veterinarian. If he had the ability to change the world, it would be to stop wars and reduce fossil fuels being used for causing climate change and dismantle natural environments around the planet. If he would have the ability to make society and the world a better place, it would be to have everyone treat each other with respect

Natally Leon, Staff Writer

Natally Leon is a sophomore at Hoover High School. Natally enjoys reading fictional books and writing about basically anything. She loves cats but isn’t the biggest fan of dogs. She hopes to be very successful and rich in the future. Her plan to make this dream a reality is to work hard and go straight to college after high school. Her biggest role model is the strongest, smartest, most hardworking woman she knows, her mom. She looks up to her mom and hopes to be just as kind and hardworking as her when she’s older. She looks up to her siblings too. They all work for the life they want and they travel to a lot of cool places. Her family is her biggest motivation. They keep her from failing, support her, and always remind her to keep her head up no matter what. She’s not too sure what she wants to work in yet but once she finds what’s for her, she’ll do everything in her power to be successful in it, and having so much support from her loved ones will make it easier to succeed. Her favorite foods are menudo, buldak noodles, and breadsticks from Olive Garden. Her favorite drinks are water, sprite, and sometimes Dr. Pepper. She enjoys hanging out with her friends and going to Starbucks or the mall. When she’s not around her friends, she’s at home with her cat and her family either baking or playing video games with her siblings. She thinks that we can make a change in the world by keeping our planet clean and picking up trash from the floor even if it’s not ours. This is our earth so we have to keep it nice and clean. She also believes society should be less judgy, instead of being ugly to someone and ruining their day, try to make them feel good about themselves. There’s no reason we should be bringing each other down, we’re all human and we’re all living for the first time.

Quincy Enyama-Turner, Junior Editor

Quincy Enyama-Turner is a junior student at Hoover High School. Quincy is a current member and team captain of the Hoover Cardinal Baseball team. He hopes to continue his baseball career into college and also continue his education. Outside of baseball, Quincy loves fashion and frequently searches for different styles of clothing to see different ways he can express himself. His biggest critics are his friends when it comes to fashion because he thinks very highly of them and their opinions. Quincy is as much friend oriented as he is family oriented due to their major effect on his decisions and how he carries himself. Quincy comes from an African American and Japanese background. His mom is from Japan and his dad is from Cleveland, Ohio. His favorite dish is a Japanese dish called Katsu Curry which consists of rice, japanese curry, and a fried chicken cutlet. Quincy has been to Japan four times to meet relatives and enjoys the cultural differences between Japan and the United States. Quincy believes that by helping people who are willing to learn the game of baseball, he can change the world. He believes that by helping others to learn how to play baseball, it will get more kids off the streets and give kids less of a chance to get involved with the wrong people. He thinks that everyone should be able to do extra curricular activities and there should be no barriers in the way of that. Along with this Quincy is an advocate for society giving schools in low income areas the ability to provide more workshops and programs to help the kids of the future find a career path they might want to pursue. Quincy says that by giving opportunities to kids all around the world, different career fields whether its stem or business, can be diverse which in turn makes the world a better place as all voices can be heard.

Griselda Covarrubias, Staff Writer

Griselda Covarrubias is a sophomore at Hoover High School and 16-years-old. Her birthday is on October 14, and she was born and raised in the City Heights area of San Diego. Griselda’s favorite thing to do is play soccer, and she plays as a center defender and right winger for Hoover. She has been playing soccer since she was six years old. She really enjoys that hobby and wants to play high school soccer until her senior year. Another thing she enjoys is art. She’s been drawing and painting since she was very young, and still continues to take on that passion and push herself to become a better artist everyday. Music is another thing Griselda enjoys and music is a part of her everyday life. Without her music she’ll go crazy. Her favorite artists are Laufey, Mitski, MF DOOM, Daniel Ceaser, Frank Ocean and many more. Everyday walking throughout campus and during class, she uses music to help herself concentrate in her classes. Some of Griselda’s dislikes are loud crowded places, because it makes her feel overwhelmed and not be able to let herself think in peace. Another thing she dislikes is Star Wars because the plot is pretty stupid and doesn’t make any sense, and they just keep adding on to the same lame old story. Griselda’s favorite food has to be Dominos pizza, to be specific pepperoni with pineapple pizza. Her second favorite food is birria tacos. Griselda wants her future career to be a therapist because helping others and hearing their problems knowing she can find a way to make them feel better. Griselda’s biggest inspiration in her life are her parents. They make a big impact in her life because of how hard working they are, and she knows that she’ll have to work even harder to make them proud. Griselda can make the world a better place by speaking her mind and knowing what is wrong with the world. Each person’s voice matters and she’ll always try to make her voice known and heard. Griselda believes society can make the world a better place by social justice and equality. We always judge each other, but we never speak about it. If we address all the human issues like sexism, racism, economic injustice, etc. Griselda truly believes that society can make the world a better place for all.

Emily Garcia, Staff Writer

Emily Garcia is a 15 year old and a sophomore at Hoover High school. Emily loves music and enjoys spending time listening to music while working or doing some other activity. She would love to get into new music and discover new genres. Emily´s favorite artists are Clairo,The Cranberries and The Marias, and her favorite music genre is alternative/indie. Her all time favorite song is “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star. She loves being outdoors and going out to new places and shopping sprees as well. Emily also loves the company of others and having people close to her. Three things she absolutely hates are loud food eaters, people who don’t chew with their mouths closed, and the smell of public bathrooms. Her goals in life are to graduate from both high school and college, and she plans to attend SDSU and major in education so that she can become an elementary teacher. Her aspirations are to have A´s and B´s throughout high school but also make her mom proud. She says that her role models in her life are her mom, her cousins, and her uncles. She hopes that she will be able to push herself as much as they have in their life. Her favorite fast food place is Mcdonalds and she loves to get chicken nuggets from there, as much as she loves unhealthy food she also enjoys strawberries, pineapples, and mangoes, especially in smoothies. Her favorite drinks are Sprite, orange juice, and especially Coca Cola. Emily thinks she could change the world by using less fossil fuels to stop climate change and would also try to keep peace with other countries so that no country or person would go through any of the horrors of war. She believes if society stops using things that require fossil fuels and treat each other with respect, then society would definitely become a better place.

Tania Mondragon, Staff Writer

Tania Mondragon, attends Hoover High School as a junior and a part of the former ALMA Academy, VAPA. For quite some time now, Tania has been a huge fan of video games, pizza, shopping, hanging out and many other things that involve spending quality time with friends and family. Tania’s list of things she isn’t such a big fan of contains some basics like homework overloads, fake friends and coming to school right before getting a text from that one friend who decides to stay home last minute. During Tania’s years in high school, she hopes to maintain wonderful friendships with new and old friends. As well as being able to keep up the grades to succeed in her future hopes of dream. For plans after high school Tania is yet to pick one specific path, therefore two main goals that stick out to her are to serve in the military for a few years, specifically AirForce. The other goal that Tania is planning on stepping towards is attending college and then going into dental hygiene school to take upon a role that has interested her for quite some time as a dental hygienist. One of the global issues that has been surrounding Tania’s mind for a few years is climate change. With this catastrophe that has been around for decades and big cooperation/regular people who don’t take action in this matter, it is set to progress into worse problems for future generations. On that note, Tania thinks that she and many others can take actions to address this issue on things like using more sustainable alternatives. Some ideas of this are as simple as considering a different form of transportation, supporting more sustainable brands and the three r’s which are…

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

Sarai Mendoza, Staff Writer

Sarai Mendoza is a junior at Hoover High School. She hopes to be the first in her family to attend a four year college and make her family proud. Sarai grew up with a big and loving family and was always taught as a child to value her education and take advantage of great opportunities. She likes to relax and listen to music in her free time. Her favorite color is purple and her favorite show is the Vampire Diaries. Sarai may seem shy at first but once you get to know her better she will open up to you. Sarai believes that if she continues to encourage others to reach their goals and never give up on their dreams, it can make a huge difference on other people.