Growing up in Pflugerville, Texas, Mr. Kluge’s career path did not clearly lead to education. An indecisive kid, he often entertained the idea of many careers. As he moved on in his high school and college years, however, the teaching path became more apparent as a viable pathway.

“I was a very indecisive kid growing up, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Mr. Kluge said. “My biggest influence [for] going into computer science and becoming a teacher [was] a great teacher in high school, Ms. Stewart. I had her for multiple years, [and] she really encouraged me to go into computer science. [After college], my friends became teachers, and [I was] like, ‘I should come in and sub for their classes,’ so that [also] influenced my decision to become a teacher.”

“I was [at UT Dallas] for five years,” Mr. Kluge said. “I did my undergrad in four [years], and I did an accelerated master’s program. [I minored in statistics] because of my AP Statistics teacher. I excelled in AP Statistics and I [thought it was] fun.”

Drawing on his schooling experience, Mr. Kluge understands the challenges students face. He looks to help students overcome these challenges by providing them with specific tools.

“The biggest challenge is probably getting [students] to think algorithmically,” Mr. Kluge said. “Having them change their thinking is a big shift for a lot of kids. You’re having to think through, step-by-step, how things work. I am trying to prompt the kids. I give them resources such as practicing mapping out programs and being able to walk through their steps, and [I] just toss some problem-solving activities at them all the time.”

Although he has only been at Westwood for four weeks thus far, Mr. Kluge knows he enjoys the students’ dedication for education. He plans on making programming engaging by providing fun activities.

“[My students are] funny. I like how invested they are in their education,” Mr. Kluge said. “They make sure they know exactly what they need to do to be successful. We try to provide game-based coding and hands-on activities, like the building blocks activity.”

As the school year progresses, Mr. Kluge is prepared to embrace the challenges and work alongside his students on problems they face. He deeply desires to impact his students, cultivating applicable programming skills beyond preparation for exams and assignments.

“Ideally, I’d like them to leave [the class] learning how to code something, and that’s becoming super relevant in the marketplace right now in terms of jobs,” Mr. Kluge said. “I want them to leave the class being able to have skills that they can use outside of computer science, such as being able to think logically and decompose problems, and [I want to] help with general problem-solving concepts beyond standard programming.”

A hackathon is a timed event, often lasting 24 or 48 hours, in which individuals or teams develop innovative software or hardware to solve given problems. Unique from existing competitions, ReverieHacks is a student-led hackathon created with the mission of inspiring the future generation to think more creatively. It consists of six sections in which participants can compete in: ideathon, machine learning prompt engineering, software development, datathon, embedded systems, and application development.

“Something unique about our hackathons compared to [others] is [that] we have a track for people who can’t program,” Chief Operating Officer of ReverieHacks Ritvij Sharma ‘27 said. “What happens is we try and give everyone the opportunity to compete, even if they don’t know how to code.”

Striving to expand their participation, the ReverieHacks team decided to raise the stakes this year with new prizes. These new additions have led ReverieHacks to become one of the biggest student-led initiatives by Westwood students, attracting competitors from America all the way to Pakistan. The hackathon was not always this widespread, though. Last year, gaining participants was a challenge, since the prize was a Wolf Fern gift card.

This year, the ReverieHacks team decided to award cash prizes up to fifty thousand dollars to attract more participants. To secure the funds for the large monetary prizes, the team emailed over 40 sponsors globally and hosted a fund within their group. Although it was challenging to raise this money, the team made a cash pool for all six tracks of coding to incentivize people to compete.

“The other issue was getting sponsors because you can’t find a lot [of sponsors for hackathons],” Chief Executive Officer of ReverieHacks Aditya Rayapeddi ‘27 said. “It was really hard getting them, but in the end, we managed to get a substantial price pool.”

The last day of the hackathon started with the opening ceremony, which was followed by the judges being given the projects to grade. Seeing the hackathon posted in Devpost, judges from various backgrounds came to judge in the hackathon.

“The judges all came back after [giving] feedback,” Rayapeddi said. “They said that it was a great experience judging the hackathon. They said they thought the projects submitted were really innovative.”

Hosting ReverieHacks wasn’t just a learning experience for the participants, but also for the student organizers themselves. From reaching out to sponsors to coordinating hundreds of submissions, the team gained valuable lessons in leadership, communication, and problem-solving that they now hope to carry into future projects.

“I would say that [we] get a lot of leadership experience and experience in collaborating and sort of getting in touch with businesses and individuals that you’ll probably use in the real world to get jobs and such,” Sharma said.

With this year’s growth, ReverieHacks aspires to continue expanding in both size and impact, inspiring more students worldwide to embrace innovation and creativity. Planning for next year’s hackathon is already underway, with the team aiming to make the event bigger, more inclusive, and more rewarding than ever.

“I’m really excited that those who participated really got to have a taste of what ReverieHacks is like,” Rayapeddi said. “Our intention is to inspire other high schoolers to do more and to think out of the box, and [we] hope that they keep innovating in the future.”

• SB 10: Requires the display of the Ten Commandments in every elementary or secondary school classroom.
• SB 11: Allows school districts and charter schools to adopt a policy permitting students and employees to participate in prayers and reading of the Bible or other religious text.
• SB 12: Prohibits Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in K-12 public schools.
• SB 13: Gives parents control over the school district’s library materials that are available to students.

SB 10 passed the Texas Senate on Wednesday, March 19 with a 20-11 vote. While some see it as a way of promoting faith in school environments, others see it as an infringement upon the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which establishes freedom of religion. In fact, a case like this was brought to the Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham (1980), in which the Supreme Court ruled this law of displaying the Ten Commandments in every public classroom as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. However, looking at a more recent case in Texas, Van Orden v. Perry (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that the depiction of the Ten Commandments in one of Austin’s public parks did not violate the Establishment Clause. 

“This bill doesn’t follow our First Amendment, and the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution says that the federal law is supreme over state law,” Government teacher Ms. Virginia Dixon said. “Because of that, the First Amendment is paramount. Posting the Ten Commandments is not honoring all the students’ different religious and spiritual beliefs.”

Following the passage of SB 10, SB 11 was passed. SB 11 allows prayers in public schools, but takes into account students of different religions by allowing them to opt out. SB 11 was passed with a stronger majority than SB 10, with a vote of 23-7. During debates over the passage of this bill, the decision made in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) — the Kennedy decision — and the Lemon test were used as foundational arguments. The Kennedy decision deemed that a coach can privately pray after football games, shifting away from the traditional Lemon test. The Lemon test, which is usually a legal guiding principle, prohibits the government from advancing a religion. The Kennedy decision did allow a coach to pray privately and hence was argued to be relevant in terms of allowing prayers in school for anyone. 

“Senate Bill 11 sets a dangerous precedent that Christianity is going to be forced on the people,” Brijnandan Saranu ‘27 said. “It said [the bill] would be a policy requiring Bibles to be distributed and for prayers to be done, which is inherently unsafe because there [are] all sorts of people in America, and there’s a lot of people who aren’t Christian.This makes it feel like they’re being denied their faith, which leads to lower morale, and it’s straight up violating their freedom.”

SB 12 was passed by the Texas Senate with a 20-11 vote. This bill prohibiting DEI would apply to hiring and employment decisions as well as student organizations. For example, student organizations that primarily focus on race, gender or sexual orientation, such as Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) and Black Student Union, could face a complete ban. Debates over how this is going to change schools were intense from opposing sides in the senate.

“The job of the education system is to prepare students for a successful life,” Vedant Desai ‘26 said. “You’re impacting the very future of America [by implementing DEI initiatives]. You have to have the best teachers possible. DEI has its place. You want equity and you want inclusion. Education is not that place.”

Under SB 13, school library advisory councils consisting mainly of parents would be created. The power that librarians currently have would be shifted to parents. These advisory councils would get to choose which books can stay in school libraries and which ones cannot. Library content that contains indecent and profane content would not be allowed in school libraries either under this bill. Another bill that has some relevance to SB 13 was House Bill (HB) 900, which prohibited materials containing sexual content from libraries. HB 900 was enacted in 2024, and this bill faced opposition upon its implementation. Georgetown High School, librarian Ms. Susan Cooper, spoke out against the passage of this bill and refused to remove the more than 150 books that were supposed to go. Georgetown High School threatened to fire her after her refusal to remove the books.

“[SB 13] will hurt morale,” Desai said. “It will be very demoralizing if half [of the librarian’s] job is gone, because they don’t have any decision-making power. A lot of the books that they are banning are against the LGBTQ [community] and against CRT [Critical Race Theory].”

Overall, these bills are sparking controversy. As of April 2025, all these bills have passed the Texas Senate and have been sent to the Texas House of Representatives. If enacted, the bills would take effect starting in the 2025–2026 school year. Students could see significant changes to their schools environments, such as stricter libraries and fewer DEI programs. Several opposition groups are exploring legal challenges while other opposers are finding ways to voice concerns in their school board meetings. These bills will be very important to watch in the next several months.

In the Warriors final district game of the season, the JV Orange boy’s soccer team narrowly defeated the Vista Ridge Rangers with a score of 1-0 on Friday, March 14. In a very tight match, the Warriors nearly failed in carrying out their gameplan, but fortunately finished out their season on a high note.

“We just stuck with what we did in practice. [The] game plan was to not let them score and score more than them” Beck Brenneman ‘26 said.

In the beginning, both teams showed strong defenses, keeping the scoreboard unchanged for almost all of the first half with aggressive shifts and narrow margins for error for the enemy offense. This shutout defense forced the  Rangers to attempt several attacks but faced constant resistance from the Warrior defense.During the Warriors’ reign on defense, Joshua Wu ‘26 received a pass in Ranger territory and found his hole, jamming in the first and final goal of the game.

“It all happened really fast,” Wu said. “There wasn’t much thinking, it was just kind of putting myself in the right place and then there were all instincts.” The Warriors found opportunities on the open midfield spaces, allowing for perfect ball control.

As the second half began, both teams intensified their pressure on both sides of the ball, looking for weaknesses in the other team. Throughout the rest of the game, the Warriors successfully maintained their lead through midfield control and careful defensive play.

“Today was awesome. I really executed the plan that we came out here to do” Noah Cush ‘26 said. “We really just had fun as our last game, and I think it was a great way to end the season.”

With this victory, the Warriors concluded their season strong, demonstrating teamwork and tactical execution with a 9-2-2 record