The 21st century is starting to look more and more like a science fiction film everyday, and our school is no exception to these changes. SaddleCrack School District has released a statement including plans for AI teachers and teacher assistants to be introduced into schools early in the 2024 school year. And the best part? Mission Viejo High School will be the first school to be equipped with these machines.

     While these robots are still in the testing phase, engineers have told school staff that things are looking promising. These AI teachers will be capable of doing everything our old fashioned human teachers do and more.         

     Once finished, these teachers will be able to automatically scan classrooms in search of cheating in the matter of  seconds. The teachers will also have access to the answer of any question in the world, meaning students will never have to be confused in class again. Along with these features, grading will also be much faster, with the robots having the ability to grade papers and tests automatically,  according to a grading system ingrained in their coding.

     There are some concerns as to job loss for current human teachers, many of which are valid. It is true that many teachers will lose their jobs to these robots, and it’s probable that eventually human teachers will be no more. But, at the end of the day, the most important thing is the education of future generations. Because these robo-teachers are equipped with all the knowledge in the world, they will objectively make better teachers than meager humans. 

     SaddleCrack has also assured teachers currently employed under the district that they will be graciously compensated for their removal from the school. A whopping $20 check will be provided to every human teacher to ease the transition from having a stable paycheck to being jobless citizens. 

     Our very own journalism teacher, Mr. McCormack, is very enthusiastic about the situation, stating that “I’m incredibly excited for the introduction of AI teachers, even if I lose my job. Besides, with that $20 check, I can finally buy eggs again!”

     Along with concerns of current employees, some argue that the human connection between students and teachers will be completely destroyed with the introduction of these AI teachers. However, these claims are completely false, as these robots have been specifically programmed to be incredibly life-like, in a way some even describe to be “eerie”. But, rest assured that the rapidly approaching robo-teachers are completely safe for students, and definitely not terrifying to small children. There have also been no incidents similar to The Terminator, none at all. These are totally safe, and pose no threat to students or staff, of course. All that bogus about one of the robots incinerating an engineer with a surprise laser is completely made up…right?

     Anyway, these new robo-teachers are sure to be a wonderful addition to our school, and we are ready to welcome them with open arms. Say your farewells to your favorite human teachers, because the way of the future is coming soon, and they won’t be in it!

 A group of bats has been spotted not one, but multiple times, circling around Fukuda’s door when dusk hits. For many years, the suspicions of the staff and students have raised a concern that Mr. Fukuda could be a vampire.  It’s pretty easy to envision him in the role of a scary blood-sucking guy with fangs. 

    Even his classroom screams the word vampire, from a mysterious wall of faded pictures to the reports of students hearing an organ sporadically throughout their time in the classroom. And the faded pictures on the wall? He’s in all of them and he looks the exact same. 

     The guy looks 35 years old, at the most, but has to be at least 55. Maybe the effects of aging haven’t gotten to him yet or… that the blood he sucks must really be working. 

   Forget about a time-consuming and expensive skincare routine, just gulp down some fresh young blood from a random person and you’ll be good, right? Easy and convenient for Mr. Fukuda. Especially when he is always around students. 

   Students have reported rarely seeing Fukuda ever out of his room. And when he does, he instantly gets a sunburn and goes through severe coughing fits. 

    Not only do students believe Mr. Fukuda’s a vampire, but also the staff at MVHS. Biology teacher Henry Wallachia reported that one day someone had brought garlic bread to the teacher’s lounge. “Fukuda had never looked more scared before, his eyes widened with fear and he excused himself to leave immediately.”

     In addition, when the custodians did their daily shift of emptying the trash in Fukuda’s room, they spotted teeth marks on apple cores that had fang marks too long to be human teeth. 

     Also have you noticed the uncanny resemblance between Fukuda and the original Dracula actor Bela Legusi, because I have. It was all based on him, I wouldn’t be surprised if the original novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was not based on Vlad the Impaler but instead used as a cover up for Fukuda’s existence.

     The dots are all connecting, if you don’t believe this obvious realization, the joke’s on you.

      It has been revealed that prom will be held at Chuck E Cheese, a place fun for the whole family and now MVHS’ junior and senior class. 

     This decision was  perfect in the eyes of those involved, combining nostalgia and fun all into one disease-infested family restaurant. “Our goal this year was to pick a location that made students think of childhood. Picking Chuck E Cheese was the perfect choice because it was a place where we would go a lot as kids, crying over prizes and how scary Chuck E looks.” one prom organizer explains.

     Using this location on Moulton Pkwy in Laguna Hills, California was cheap to rent out, the cost only being $50. It also saved money through catering, with the food usually offered at the pizza parlor being still available. Students attending will get to choose from some of the finest cuisine Chuck E Cheese has to offer, getting a single slice of pizza, a kids cup, and two unicorn churros.

     The committee faced complaints from families wanting to go to Chuck E Cheese that night, one mom being furious as her daughter’s birthday falls on the same day of the prom. After discussing the possible solutions to this problem and hearing numerous children cry, the committee and parents came up with a solution to share the pizzeria for that day. Now, the night will not only celebrate the four years MVHS students have endured, but also little Kaitlyn’s eighth birthday.

     Due to recent complaints from parents regarding song choices from previous dances, all songs containing any remotely explicit connotations are banned, and only music sung by the hit kids pop group Kidz Bop will be played.

     Now, students will be able to listen to their favorite hits free of vulgar language, dancing the night away to the catchy covers of your favorite songs sung by the angelic voices of tweens. Some students have already requested their favorite Kidz Bop tunes for Prom night, current popular requests being “Dance Monkey”, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, and “Gangnam Style”. 

     Students have shown mixed reactions in the revelation of this policy. Kenny Johnson, a senior at MVHS, is very excited to hear his favorite group at his senior prom. ”I’m so pumped for Little Richard to sing ‘Cha Cha Slide’ and to give Chuck E Cheese a big warm hug!”

     Despite the location’s employees having assigned shifts on the night of the prom, people working at Chuck E Cheese have refused to work during the Prom hours, calling the situation  “their own personal hell”. ASB is currently looking for volunteers to work the prom night hours, preferably those who have a background in game services and child entertainment. 

     Currently, Mr. Zides has been rumored to be the night’s Chuck E, but wearers of the other mascots have yet to be revealed.

     During the night of the prom, students will have the opportunity to take pictures with Chuck E Cheese mascots and dance to their heart’s content out on the light up floor, with Chuck E (or Mr. Zides) himself as the night’s dj. Animatronics will also be available to dance with for any students looking for a special dance partner.

     The prom committee has also decided to take a new approach to the traditional crowning of the prom court, integrating the family restaurant into the tradition by determining prom king and queen through a game of skee ball. One prom court contender, Paul Smith, showed thrill in the decision, stating, “I’m going to get that dub.”

     This will surely be an entertaining sight, greatly more interesting than any basic crowning ceremony. If the prom king and queen do not want to dance together, animatronics will still be on the market.

     By just looking at what the prom committee has in store, it is clear that MVHS’ 2023 prom is going to be a memorable experience. Some students are already showing excitement, one student so much so that they had to question whether or not it was real. “Are they joking?”

     Moving. Attention-Grasping. Astonishing. These words alone show the magnificence of  the revolutionary Titanic mockbuster Titanic II, where the stakes are raised to the extreme and the only thing more intriguing about the events involved is how Hayden Walsh was able to break a glass barrier encasing an ax moments after it was already broken.

     Released in 2010, Titanic II is a thrilling action-packed film featuring the multi-talented actor Shane Van Dyke, who not only directed and wrote the movie but in addition starred as the main male lead. The movie also has a plethora of brilliant minds behind the screen, such as “make up” artist Megan Nicoll and second-second assistant director Mathew Calica. 

     The story follows two nurses Amy Maine (Marie Westbrook) and Kelly Wade (Michelle Glavan) as well as Titanic II owner Hayden Walsh (Shane Van Dyke) as they journey through the waters of the Atlantic alongside many passengers before they encounter a monstrous tsunami that causes the Titanic II to start sinking and chaos to ensue, whilst father of Amy Maine and United States Coast Guard Captain  James Maine (Bruce Davidson) and scientist Madeline Kay (Kendra Sue Waldman) explore the sudden collapsing ice tied to the disappearance of a surfer earlier in the film.

     This movie was the actionest of action movies, and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. From the twenty minute continuous screams and constant dramatic falling from everyone on board, I found at times my heart rate would increase so quickly that I had to stop the movie to get ahold of myself.

     Yet, the real icing on the cake was when Amy and Hayden had to cross the electric-infested pool of water by climbing above it using pipes above, causing me to avert my eyes when Amy started exclaiming she was going to slip for what seemed like forever before Hayden heroically grabbed back into the pipes, climbed over to her, and, as her hand slipped, grabbed it and put it right back on the pipe like the man he was.

      The actors’ talent was evident in their reactions, giving the same frightened look no matter the circumstance and nothing else. Those terrified stares  alone were worth an Oscar, much more than any intense and emotionally dark performance.

     While watching Titanic II, it was clear that from the start Amy and Hayden showed a deep connection, cementing their evident interest in one another when Amy tells Kelly how she still has some romantic interest in Hayden even after and Hayden in his first scene enters with four women surrounding him. So romantic.

     From then on the romance blossomed, with Amy and Hayden sharing a deep conversation on the deck of the boat where Amy spent the entirety talking about how she missed him while Hayden would just give a small, meaningless comment back. The chemistry between the two was exponential, as good if not better as their predecessors Jack and Rose.

     While the acting performances were definitely memorable, it would be unfair to not note the incredible special effects used throughout the film that really brought the film together. From the obvious green screens around Captain James May and Madeline Kay as they were escaping the collapsing ice and the way the Titanic 2 looked two-dimensional, you could tell the filmmakers put a great amount of effort into making sure the action movie was as realistic as possible. 

     After spending an hour and thirty minutes of my time watching this movie, I can say that it was definitely worth it. Having the chance to watch Titanic II was a pleasure, and I truly can’t wait to see what great story Shane Van Dyke will come up with next.

     Today, April 2nd, marks an inconsolable day for Mission Viejo High School; our stronghold of a newspaper, The Diablo Dispatch, a publication that’s existed since the dawn of this school, is releasing their last issue onto this god forsaken world.

     The principal problem is the rising costs of the newspaper; the printing costs have more than doubled since my time arriving at Mission Viejo High School due to a rising endangerment of the Pacific Yew, the only tree that is able to be turned into newspaper paper. Our capital has stayed stagnant, but the amount of these trees in the world halves every year.

     In addition, we have had to deal with countless angry parents in the past couple years; just this past issue we had a mother who was livid that our cover article was titled “The Staff Takes The Students To School,” she sent us a 1,200 word email explaining that the phrase ‘taking someone to school’ would mean that we were assuming the students were not even smart enough to go to school and so they need to attend it so they can educate themselves on rudimentary topics.

     Also, with the discovery of fossils on Mission Viejo High School grounds leading to a temporary relocation of students to Trabuco Hills High [read more about this in Tanya Cramer’s article], we don’t have a facility to run the journalism program. And, from our past experience with independent studying journalism, it is much harder to run the program.

     It’s just all too much, and it climaxed with our recent kerfuffle with a restaurant.

     An unnamed local food eatery, let’s just call them UL Sandwiches, has swindled, cheated, and defrauded us (The Diablo Dispatch). Initially we reached out to the company for a fundraising collaboration, and they gladly accepted, but once the fundraising event was completed we realized their scheme. 

     They used us as a ploy to bring in more customers, and in return gave us a mere 61 dollars and 59 cents, hundreds short of the amount of revenue, 20 percent, that we were promised to be given. 

     You may be asking how we know this valuable information, well we had a man on the inside. He meticulously counted all the sales of the day and calculated that our cut should have been 543 dollars and 23 cents, almost enough to fund the printing of a whole paper issue.

     Our distinguished newspaper institution and staff would never stand for this level of tyranny, so we challenged them in the court of law.

     A month after announcing our suit the court date arrived.

     We hired the best lawyer that our limited journalism budget could buy, Vice Principal and Law & Order: SVA enthusiast Mr. Zides. With this talent, the case should’ve been shut and closed, but UL Sandwiches had an ace up their sleeve, Richardson Tweed of the Goodman firm. 

     Although Tweed was one of the most feared people in the lawyer world, Zides was still confident that his recent binging of season 6 of Better Call Saul was enough to win him the case.

     Barc McCarthy, advisor for the Diablo Dispatch, and Umar & Larry Costanza, owners of UL Sandwiches, were the first to arrive in the courtroom. They glared in eachothers’ eyes for twenty minutes straight, only stopped by the judge’s commencement of the trial.

     Tweed was the first to speak, and spewed out a lengthy (boring) speech stating that there was no contractual agreement between us and UL Sandwiches and blah blah blah. Then, in the middle of the speech, our lawyer bursted through the doors.

     Zides, outfitted in his eminem-esque attire, broke out into freestyle with a beatbox on his shoulder, silencing Tweed and awestrucking the judge and the jury with his indisputable arguments of staying classy and never trashy.

     As expected, Zides easily convinced the judge to throw out the case, we even got guided out by a couple of nice jury policemen.

     Upsettingly, though, due to the dismissal of this case, we were swimming in legal fees (Zides is a very expensive asset), and are now unable to print paper issues, or spend any money, for the next 14 years.

     All of these issues just piled onto each other; it’s near impossible to run in these conditions anymore. So thank you for the time you’ve spent reading these articles and we hope that Mission Viejo High School can somehow run without the integrity and genius of The Diablo Dispatch.

     Mission Viejo High School’s very own assistant principal, Michael Zides, was shot down last weekend after being mistaken as a spy balloon. Yes, everybody’s favorite attention attracting staff member and renowned Eminem impersonator had his white, hot air balloon shot down while on a romantic outing with his wife.

     After winning a large sum of money from hours at a poker table, Mr. Zides decided to treat his wife to the perfect date night. So, he canceled his weekly salsa dance class and booked the most intimate and romantical activity he could think of hot air balloon and wine tasting.

     Saturday, March 4 is when tragedy struck. It was a beautiful weekend afternoon, and Mr. Zides had meticulously planned every detail of his special night, down to acquiring Mrs. Zides’ favorite wine, a 1992 Chateau Poisson D’avril, and making sure to bring a huge camera to capture all the special moments. He was very excited to feature them on his Facebook to make all the other middle-aged couples jealous.

     The couple took off at 5:30 pm into the sky in their monstrous, white air balloon. They commenced with popping open some wine and indulging in only the finest of dining. Such dining included uncrustables, fruit by the foot, and, a personal favorite of Mr. Zides’, those Scooby Doo gummy snacks.

     So far the date was going flawlessly, but little did they know down below citizens feared over what the suspicious white ball in the air with a massive camera was.

     A flood of 911 calls poured in from local farmers. They speculated the intentions of the balloon and whether they could shoot it down. Aliens? Weather balloon? CHINESE SPY BALLOON? No one would ever assume it was a loving husband treating his wife to a high altitude wine tasting experience because, well, a spouse that thoughtful is unheard of these days.

     Finally, after thorough investigation, it was ordered for the U.S. Air Force to shoot down the potential threat. At 6:45 that Saturday night, Mr. and Mrs. Zides were shot down. The massive balloon exploded in a fiery blaze and the couple plummeted down, along with it, their hopes of enjoying the rest of their night out. 

     After the balloon was hit, the mistake was soon realized. Everyone was terrified to see their favorite vice principal/international phenomenon, Michael Zides and his wife fall to their possible demise. Then the most miraculous, incredible thing happened.

     Many underestimate the power of Zides’ mind and sheer awesomeness. When I said that he planned every detail, I mean EVERY detail. Mid-freefall Mr. Zides grabs his wife, reaches deep in his pocket and pulls out a pair of aviator sunglasses. He puts them on and pulls a string from under his jacket. A parachute ejects and carries them down to safety.

     People cheered and celebrated. The rejoicing could be heard for miles. It has gone down as the single-handedly most epic and joyous event in human history. 

     This memorable date night gone wrong will not be soon forgotten. And even though the situation of Zides being mistaken for a Chinese spy balloon could be seen as incredibly comical, this tragedy is not a laughing matter. Mr. and Mrs. Zides not only had their picture perfect night go way south, but they also had to endure a truly terrifying experience. 

     It may seem that nothing could shake this astonishingly brave and swagger dude, but that fateful night has definitely taken somewhat of an emotional toll on everyone’s favorite icon. When asked about the event, Mr. Zides reflects, “I’ve never been scared a day in my life, but I’ll never forget that day.” “It was very traumatic and I will probably have to start seeing someone professionally to get over it,” he said.

   There is now a gofundme to raise money to help get Zides the psychological attention needed to get over this experience. Contact Michael Zides to get the link and additional information about it.

     So if anyone who reads this article happens to run into the man himself, please praise him for his courageous actions and engage in some conversation with him. Also a compliment, for instance about his cool sunglasses, would work as well. Anything will help. Michael Zides is a lot like Tinkerbell, he needs applause and attention to live.