Education
RAINEY HIRES LAW FIRM TO REMOVE HER NAME FROM SCHOOL BOARD BALLOT
Former Board of Education candidate Naomi Rainey announced via e-mail today that she has hired a specialized law firm to “do everything legally possible” to save the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) the expense of running an election by having her name removed from the ballot. Rainey announced the withdrawal of her candidacy for [...]
DON’T EXPECT DRAMA IN SCHOOL BOARD SEARCH TO REPLACE BARTON
Dr. David Barton’s resignation Wednesday from the Board of Education of the Long Beach Unified School District puts an unexpected item on the agenda—and perhaps atop the list of priorities—at the Board’s next meeting on Feb. 7: finding a replacement. Although there is a Board of Education election scheduled for April, voters will not determine [...]
DOWNEY SPACE CENTER’S SMITHSONIAN EXHIBIT OPENS TODAY
"Suited For Space," an exhibit borrowed from the Smithsonian Institution, opens at the Columbia Memorial Space Center on Feb. 1. The Center's focus on space flight and engineering is a perfect fit with the Smithsonian, which has a huge collection of space-and-flight related material.
PRETTY GOOD, FOR HUMANS: WARREN HIGH ROBOTICS TEAM BEGINS WITH A WIN
During their first major tournament, one of three robotics teams from Warren High School in Downey has won top honors at a Las Vegas tournament and qualified for the world tournament. Warren’s Columbia 1 Team captured the Nevada Winter Championships on Dec. 3 and earned entry to the VEX Robotics High School World Championship in [...]
YES, COMPTON SCHOOLKIDS LOOKED AT SASHA GREY—BUT ONLY FOR THE STORIES
Officials at Emerson Elementary School in Compton are being asked to do some explaining as mortally offended parents demand to know why former porn star Sasha Grey was allowed to commit the sin of reading to a classroom of first-graders. Grey visited Emerson on November 2 as part of the Read Across America program. At [...]
BELLFLOWER’S LATEST STAMPEDE FOR SCHOOL BOARD ENDS TODAY
Eight candidates are seeking three seats on the school board of the Bellflower Unified School District, but incumbents in the Downey and Paramount Unified School Districts are unopposed. The flurry of interest surrounding the available seats on the Bellflower Unified board is rather typical for the district, which has a history of campaign histrionics that [...]
ONE QUESTION … FOR LAKEWOOD HIGH CIVICS TEACHER WENDY SALAYA
Last year she and Assemblymember Warren Furutani helped her senior students conceive, write and lobby a bill through the California Assembly. This year's senior were supposed to take the bill through the state Senate and the Governor's desk. But Furutani is running for LA City Council who knows if the new kids will be into it. What's Salaya going to do?
FARMWORKERS PLANT THE SEED OF KNOWLEDGE AT WILSON HIGH
September 10 was the culmination of Project Avanzando’s six-month program, which shepherds farm workers through the process of getting their GEDs. “Pomp and Circumstance” swelled throughout the school theater for 65 men and women who were receiving high school diplomas.
NO MORE $100,000 RAISES: BILL WOULD LIMIT SALARIES OF CSU PRESIDENTS
Responding to the $400,000 salary recently awarded to the incoming president of San Diego State—over widespread objections led by the governor and at the same meeting where tuition was again sharply increased—state Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) has introduced a bill that would limit the salaries that California State University trustees can pay to campus presidents. [...]
IS LAKEWOOD STUDENTS’ BILL AN AFFRONT TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT?
Which is worse: Teachers and administrators abdicating their responsibility to use the picketing and protests as teachable moments about the First Amendment, or students and parents with such thin skin, they can’t face issues they find disagreeable or distasteful?
LEGISLATION BY LAKEWOOD HIGH STUDENTS PASSES ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE
Leaders of Lakewood High's so-called Sacramento Seven---from right to left, Terrell Snead, Assemblyman Warren Furutani, Kaitlyn Miller and Brandon Perez---testify in favor of their bill, AB 1174, Wednesday afternoon before the California Assembly's Education Committee.
DOWNEY’S WARREN HIGH ADDING A MOVIE BACK LOT FOR FILMMAKING CLASSES
The $11,200 grant that Warren High School just received from Lowe’s was the result of the combined efforts and priorities of construction teacher Kent Kiess and film teacher Andy Lundsberg. It shows. The Downey school is using the money to convert an old weightroom into a warehouse for construction classes—and a movie back lot modeled [...]
LAKEWOOD HIGH’S “SACRAMENTO SEVEN” TO TESTIFY IN CAPITOL BUILDING WEDNESDAY FOR THEIR ASSEMBLY BILL
Nearly eight months after 45 students in a Lakewood High School civics began their final year at the school by batting around ideas for a worthwhile senior project, seven of them will spend Wednesday in the state Capitol Building lobbying and testifying in favor of a bill they have proposed. The Sacramento Seven, they are [...]
STATE SENATE TO CONSIDER WIDENING THE PERSPECTIVE OF HISTORY CLASSES
A bill requiring California schools to widen the perspective of history classes so as to include the role and contributions of many ethnic groups, sexual orientations and persons with disabilities has been approved by the state Senate Judiciary Committee and will now be considered by the full Senate. Awkwardly acronymed the FAIR—that’s Fair, Accurate, Inclusive [...]
STUDENT MARCHERS MADE A DIFFERENCE–BUT ONLY TIME WILL TELL WHAT KIND
On the steps of the Capitol Building, with chants and cheers echoing off its walls, I realize I am really here---hundreds of miles from home, soaked to the bone, representing thousands of students whose futures may be on the line.
SCHOOL BOARD KEEPS ON CUTTIN’: THREE GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS SCRAPPED
The elimination of three graduation high school graduation requirements for Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) students—computer literacy, health and service learning—has been unanimously approved by the school board in the latest of a series of drastic budget cuts. During public testimony, a number of teachers and parents pleaded with the board not to cut [...]
WARREN FURUTANI LAYS DOWN THE LAW-MAKING FOR LAKEWOOD STUDENTS
“Who’s got a vote? That’s what counts,” Assembly member Warren Furutani told a group of Lakewood High students during a strategy session for a bill they have introduced in Sacramento. "Other questions are important only to the extent that our answers will help us secure the votes of committee members that will get our bill to the floor.”
LBUSD BOARD UNANIMOUSLY APPROVES POTENTIAL LAYOFFS, PROGRAM CUTS
A unanimous, 5-0 vote by the Long Beach Unified School District’s Board of Education approved roughly $30 million in budget cuts—with more expected—Tuesday afternoon before an overflow crowd. The action authorized LBUSD management to send notices of potential layoffs to 777 certificate-holding employees, mainly teachers, but also including librarians, counselors, and others. The action would [...]
LBUSD SEEKS APPROVAL TO LAY OFF 772 TEACHERS, MAKE BIG CUTS IN PROGRAMS
Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) management will ask the school board today for authority to send layoff notices to 772 employees holding teaching certificates (mainly classroom teachers but also including librarians, counselors and the like). Board approval would effectively let management implement the layoffs in June if Gov. Brown’s state budget proposals [or some [...]
LBUSD BOARD BALANCES BUDGET BY CLOSING SCHOOLS, CUTTING TEACHERS
The Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education voted Tuesday (Feb.1) to balance its next budget by closing two elementary schools, increasing class sizes and eliminating 429 teachers—a savings of $53 million that will be imposed regardless of whether voters approve tax-extension ballot measures. Oh, and it signaled that even bigger cuts may be [...]
LBUSD BOARD TO HEAR DETAILS OF BUFFUM/BURROUGHS CLOSURE PLAN
The Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education will hear a budget-cutting proposal to close Buffum and Burroughs Elementary Schools at the end of this (2010-2011) school year when it convenes Tuesday. According LBUSD spokesman Chris Eftychiou, the proposal by district management staff is in response to the state’s repeated and massive reduction in [...]
A SPECIAL TRUSTEE TAKES ON COMPTON COLLEGE’S SAME OLD PROBLEM
Genethia Hudley-Hayes has been appointed special trustee to the Compton Community College District (CCCD), replacing Peter Landsberger, who is retiring after more than four years in the post. Hudley-Hayes arrives as a former president of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and the used-to-be executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and [...]
DO YOU MIND THIS GUY WAITING FOR KIDS OUTSIDE THEIR SCHOOL?
Some Lakewood High students want a law against adults---like this man, covering his face with the religious booklets he was foisting on children outside Rogers Middle School last month---soliciting minors within 100 feet of public schools. Assemblyman Warren Furutani has agreed to take their proposal through the legislative process.
PRESSURE FROM AQUA-OLDSTERS SAVES THEIR WATER AEROBICS CLASS
The 315 seniors who packed a meeting of the ABC School Board earlier this month have stopped the cutback of their water aerobics program. Superintendent Gary Smuts, who had promised the aqua-oldsters that he would explore all possibilities to save their program, came through after considerable discussion with the City of Cerritos. According to Smuts, [...]
THEY RIDE 2 1/2-HOURS TO SCHOOL FOR THE NEXT-BEST THING TO HOME
Under federal law, when children become homeless and are forced to move to a different district, they are still permitted to attend their original school. To make that work, Quantrell and Derendo will travel nearly two and a half hours to school in Paramount---once in the morning, again in the afternoon.
OH CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! UHH … COULDYA PLEASE SAVE THE SENIORS WATER AEROBICS PROGRAM?
Like a ship’s captain steering bravely into dangerously angry whitecaps, ABC School District Superintendent Gary Smuts promised a roiling sea of 315 white-haired seniors this week that he would explore all possible avenues to save their water aerobics program. The adult water aerobics class—one of the ABC Adult School’s best-attended but most-expensive classes—is among several programs threatened [...]
HAS DOWNEY CREATED THE WORLD’S MOST-INSPIRATIONAL PARKING LOT?
The entrance to an executive parking lot behind Downey City Hall—which is also a route of much foot travel by students of Downey High School—has been named “Responsibility Row” by a 4-1 vote of the Downey City Council. That’s pretty heavy, man. But it gets even heavier. The idea behind calling the stretch of pavement [...]
TOY LOAN CENTER—LIKE A LIBRARY, BUT WITH TOYS—OPENS IN COMPTON
The program allows registered children to borrow toys much like they would a library book. Lending centers are housed at parks, schools, recreational facilities, libraries, housing projects and even a homeless shelter.
VALLEY CHRISTIAN SECOND-GRADE TEACHER RECEIVES NASA AWARD FOR SPACE-STATION HOOKUP
Pam Leestma, a second grade teacher at Valley Christian Elementary School, and a New York teacher named Neme Alperstein have received the 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The two elementary school teachers teamed up last year to conduct the first coast-to-coast television hookup via the International Space Station, [...]
FIRST CHANGE AT DOWNEY SPACE CENTER—LONGER HOURS
The new director of the Columbia Memorial Space Center has announced his first change—expanded hours of operation—since taking over for his fired predecessor. Beginning July 6 the glistening tribute to Downey’s space heritage will be open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission prices will remain the same at $5 per person, groups of 10 [...]
link=”http://greaterlongbeach.com/22/06/2010/summertime-its-enough-to-make-some-kids-lose-their-lunch”]
SUMMERTIME: IT'S ENOUGH TO MAKE SOME KIDS LOSE THEIR LUNCH
Most children jump for joy when the final bell rings on the last day of school. For them, summer means freedom. It means camp, vacation and popsicles. But summer also means hunger and stagnation for too many American children. Schools begin letting out over the next week, and many children are facing a summer of [...]
DISQUALIFIED FOR HER FRIENDSHIP BRACELET? THAT’S MY STORY (ON SPORTS ILLUSTRATED WEBSITE)–AND I’M LINKING TO IT
BY DAVE WIELENGA / SI.COM Remember the story of the college softball player who hit the game-winning homer and blew out her knee as she trotted around first base, but was carried to second, third and home by opposing players — even though she represented the decisive run in a game that determined the championship? [...]
WHILE LOCAL TEACHERS TWIST IN THE WIND, DOWNEY DISTRICT APPROVES A LAYOFF-LESS CONTRACT
While top officials of public school districts in Long Beach and Compton dangle doomsday letters over the mailbox, the Downey Unified School District has reached a three-year contract with its teachers union that avoids layoffs, furloughs, salary reductions or loss of medical benefits. Instead, class sizes will increase slightly. Meanwhile, Long Beach Unified’s Board of [...]
THE LESS-THAN-MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
COMPTON–Seven local schools have been named to a state list of public school campuses that consistently have the lowest test scores in California. An updated list released Thursday, March 11, features the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools statewide. The local schools on that list are Davis Middle, Dominguez High, Martin Luther King Elementary, Vanguard Learning [...]
