September 2011 Archives

Rowland High will hold its fall sports rally today during lunch. Go Rowland Raiders!

They will also be having a Eunice Kennedy Day activity from 3:15-4:30. The Best Buddies Club will hold a special event on the tennis courts. The club pairs teens with special ed students. 

Wilson high student Joselin Pineda, 17, gets a Tdap shot during the last day to get a free vaccination at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights on Sept. 23.

Despite some dire predictions earlier this year, school districts in the San Gabriel Valley are so far reporting widespread compliance with state-mandated whooping cough vaccinations.

According to state law, all students in grades 7 through 12 must be vaccinated for whooping cough within the first 30 days of the school year. Parents who have a personal objection to vaccinations can request a waiver.

State law originally required students to be vaccinated before even setting foot in a classroom this year.

Read more in J.D. Velasco's story Vaccinations.

Mt. San Antonio College's fastest students got to meet the world's fastest man on Tuesday.
Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who holds the world and Olympic records for the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, stopped by Mt. SAC to participate in a sprinting clinic with the college's track and field team.

Despite sweltering weather that Bolt called "worse than Jamaica," his enthusiasm for the event was obvious, and matched by the crowd of hundreds.

"For me it's a pleasure being here," he told the audience to cheers and applause.
With the help of Doug Todd, head coach of the track and field teams, Bolt began the clinic by demonstrating some of his preferred warm-up exercises, but not before making sure the student-athletes knew who was in charge.

"A few of you guys might try to beat me -- it won't happen," he said with a mixture of humor and bravado.

It was a persona he maintained throughout the event, at times goading the students to improve their skills by comparing them to his own athletic prowess.

Read more in J.D. Velasco's story at Bolt.

Rowland Unified School District is starting a new way to discuss how to improve schools. The first of initiative launches today with a Districtwide Climate Survey. Rowland parents, teachers, staff, and community members may share their perceptions of the district and its programs.

"We are giving everyone the chance to provide feedback on how we can improve," said Superintendent Maria Ott. "Future initiatives will include this technology to increase community input. Upcoming studies will provide many opportunities for public involvement, including an invitation for high school students to share their perspectives."

To conserve resources and include as many people as possible, the school district has launched an initiative to collect email addresses from parents and community members. Those who provide their email addresses will receive email invitations to participate in the survey. The climate survey is accessible from Sept. 27 - Oct. 14, through a link posted on the "Your Voice" section of each school's website and the district's website, www.rowlandschools.org. It is also available in Chinese, Korean and Spanish.

Anyone without a computer may visit the district office (located at 1830 S. Nogales Street in Rowland Heights) or the local library to take the survey online. Residents may also call the school district at (626) 854-8352 and request a paper copy of the survey. The goal is to ensure that everyone can easily provide input.

"An important part of our job as school administrators is to listen to the opinions and values of those in our community so we can make informed decisions," said Ott. "Partnering with our community gives us direct access to the unique perspectives of every member of our district. The engagement process gives everyone a voice in all the critical decisions we make as we pursue excellence for our children."

As part of its plan to foster greater transparency and increase its presence in the community, the district will make the results of the current survey, as well as all future surveys, available on the district website shortly after the survey closes. The district also plans to communicate how it will use the collected data to provide the best education for Rowland USD's children.

Cal Poly Pomona was bustling with activity Thursday as its 20,784 full- and part-time students returned for the first day of the fall quarter.

Read more about the opening day in Cal Poly.

Staff photo by Watchara Phomicinda
Cindy Giang teaches first grade teacher at Quail Summit School in Diamond Bar.

"Walk to Read" and other innovative reading programs have earned two Walnut Valley teachers literacy awards from the American Literacy Corporation.

They will be among a handful of educators from across the state who will be honored on Nov. 13 at the Victoria Club in Riverside.

The nonprofit group rewards teachers who have significantly increased the literacy levels of their students. It gives $2,000 to teachers in kindergarten through eighth grade. Their schools also receive $500 for a reading related school event.

The group notes that this is the first time since 1992 that two winners have been selected from the same school district.

This year's winners include Cindy Giang, a first grade teacher at Quail Summit Elementary in Diamond Bar and Kay Hoard, a fourth grade teacher at Vejar Elementary in Walnut.

Read more in Rich Irwin's story Literacy.

This Saturday, a busload of advanced theater and visual arts students from Rowland High School will learn from professional improvisational studio musicians and L.A. legendary choreographer, Shirley Martin.

"Our students will get the chance to be exposed to studio musicians (including Big Black, who has worked for many years with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis), and choreographer Shirley Martin and her dance troupe, The Martin Dancers. This will enable our students to have a greater understanding of movement and different creative processes and approaches as they begin to work with 75 elementary students this fall in a comprehensive arts education program to expose elementary students to the arts," said Rowland High Drama Teacher, Patricia Doublet De Lion.  

Thanks to two grants from the Art Education Partnership Grant from L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe, and the FOR US Foundation, Doublet-De Lion and Mala Frank-Gavin are bringing Killian Elementary students to visit the Rowland High School campus two days a week for four weeks to learn theatre and visual arts.

Students will learn selections from "Seussical the Musical" from the instructors and their advanced high school students. It will culminate in a performance that parents of the elementary students can attend.

 "We aim to give students, both advanced and elementary, a comprehensive arts education through the integration of visual art, music, theatre and dance," said Frank-Gavin.

If you're having trouble reading this, you probably could have used teachers like this.

Cindy Giang, a first grade teacher at Quail Summit Elementary and Kay Hoard, a fourth grade teacher at Vejar Elementary, have won the American Literacy Corporation "Outstanding Contributions to Literacy Award."

 

They are among ten educators in the state that will behonored on November 13 at the Victoria Club in Riverside.

We visited with these outstanding teachers this morning and will report on their wonderful teaching in an upcoming story.

 

On Sept. 11, 30 Walnut High School students volunteered to place 2,997 American flags on the grassy hill at the front of the school.

The small red, white and blue symbols of patriotism made an impressive 50-yard long display spelling out USA, 911, and a star with a pentagon inside.

The project to commemorate all the lives lost a decade ago was the idea of the school's Teen Republican Club, said teacher advisor Brett Landis.

The poignancy of the project is roughly the same number of students attend Walnut High as those that were killed in the three locations on Sept. 11, 2001, Landis said.

"Our kids will be reminded on Monday when they come to school," Landis said.

Read more in Kelli Gile's report at Flags.

They were just babies when the attack on the World Trade Center in New York occurred. But these 10-years-old know a lot about 9/11, an event that changed their lives dramatically.

The fourth-graders at Collegewood Elementary in Walnut marked the 10th anniversary with a patriotic assembly on Friday.

"It was a significant event in all our lives, so we wanted to bring the whole school together to remember everyone killed in the attacks," said Principal Carolyn Wills.

Read all about the 9/11 events in Walnut Valley school in Rich Irwin's 9/11.

They were just babies when the attack on the World Trade Center in New York occurred. But these 10-years-old know a lot about 9/11, an event that changed their lives dramatically.

The fourth-graders at Collegewood Elementary in Walnut marked the 10th anniversary with a patriotic assembly on Friday.

"It was a significant event in all our lives, so we wanted the bring the whole school together to remember every one killed in the attacks," said Principal Carolyn Wills.

Read more about 9/11 events in Walnut Valley schools later today.

The federal government wants kindergartners to learn Mandarin. To accomplish this, it has given Walnut Valley Unified a $1.2 million Foreign Language Assistance Program grant.

"The government saw a need for more language instruction, especially in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Japanese and Korean," Walnut program specialist Jenny Kwan-Hata said. "So it decided to give school districts money to develop new language programs."

Walnut Valley calls its new program "Global Connections - Creating 21st Century Biliterate/Bicultural Children." The program's goal is to make students fluent in both English and Mandarin by the end of the fifth-grade.

Learn more about the innovative class in Rich Irwin's story Mandarin.

Getting adolescents to do anything is a challenge. Just ask their parents.

At Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, Al Clegg is trying to herd 10,000 middle and high schoolers into the local CVS pharmacy or county clinic so they can be immunized for whooping cough.

The challenge hasn't proven easy.

If students don't comply by Sept. 23, they will be excluded from school.

Read more in Steve Scauzillo's story Cough

Walnut Valley Unified was the only school district in the area to break the 900 mark in the 2011 API scores released on Wednesday. It rose five points from 898 to 503.

State Superintendent of Public Education Tom Torlakson announced that 49 percent of California's public schools now meet or exceed their Academic Performance Index (API) targets, a number representing a 3-point increase over last year. The 2011 API scores for schools and districts across the state were released Wednesday.

But at the same time, 913 additional schools in the state are threatened with being labeled as failures for not meeting federal NCLB standards, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

Read more in J.D. Velasco's story API.