Hacienda La Puente Unified to evaluate superintendent on Jan. 3

The school board for the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District will hold a special meeting Tuesday, Jan. 3, at 9 a.m. to evaluate the performance of Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka.

The evaluation will be done in a session closed to the public, although the board is required to report on any actions taken during the closed meeting.
 

And audience members who wish to speak about the superintendent’s performance may address the board before it retires to the closed session.

Rowland Unified offers CHOICE of schools

Rowland Unified School District is now accepting applications for CHOICE Open Enrollment within the district for the 2012-13 school year from families that live within the Rowland Unified School District. 
TELESIS ACADEMY IS EXEMPT FROM THE CHOICE OPEN ENROLLMENT PROCESS.
TELESIS ACADEMY WILL HAVE AN APPLICATION PROCESS IN JANUARY OF 2012.
 
ONLY
if you wish for your child to attend another school within the Rowland
District you must complete the required CHOICE Open Enrollment Form.  The
form is available for pick up at any school site in the district or
from Pupil Services Office at: 1928 S. Nogales Street, Rowland Heights,
CA 91748.   One application per child must be submitted.
 

Diamond Bar city hall on the move

Diamond Bar City Hall will start the new year in
its new location at 21810 Copley Drive. The relocation of
files, furniture, and equipment is scheduled today and tomorrow.

Public counter services such as
recreation class registrations, transit pass sales, and planning and
building permit issuances will be temporarily transferred to the Diamond
Bar Center, 1600 Grand Ave.

Additionally, because the city’s servers and network
infrastructure will be down starting at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday until 7:30
a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 3, staff will not have access to their email,
and neither staff nor the public will be able to process online
transactions via the city website.

Anyone wishing to register for a class, purchase a transit
pass, or obtain a planning or building permit is encouraged to do so
after Jan. 3.

Walnut Valley offers transitional kindergarten

Walnut Valley Unified School District will offer a new Transitional
Kindergarten program at selected schools beginning next fall.
The program that will launch in the 2012-13 school year has been made
possible through recently passed legislation.

A new state law SB1381, called the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, gradually
changes the entry date for kindergarten students from December 2 to September 1.

Across the state of California, the kindergarten entry date will change
over the next three years. To enroll in kindergarten, a child must be five by:

2012-13:
November 1

2013-14:
October 1

2014-15:
September 1

Transitional Kindergarten is designed to meet the needs of students who
will turn five between September 1 and December 2.  For those students who have fall birthdays,
districts will be offering one year of Transitional Kindergarten followed by
one year of standard kindergarten.

California’s children begin kindergarten at a younger age than students
in almost any other state, often before they have the maturity, social, early
literacy and pre-math skills needed to meet the challenges of their
kindergarten year and beyond.

“Transitional Kindergarten will provide our young learners with ‘the
gift of time’ by giving them the opportunity to learn and grow in an environment
that is tailored to meet their developmental, emotional, academic and social
needs,” said Jackie Brown, Director of Educational Services.

“As educators we are pleased that we now can now give our youngest
students a bridging year to grow developmentally as well as academically to be
ready to meet the standards of kindergarten,” she said.

Parent Information
Nights
for Walnut Valley’s Transitional Kindergarten program will be held on
the following dates and locations:

      Walnut Valley
Unified District Office – Board Room on January 17 at 6:30 p.m.

      Castle Rock
Elementary on January 18 at 9:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

      Vejar Elementary on
January 19 at 9:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

For further
information about the program please visit our website at
www.wvusd.k12.ca.us. For additional questions, please contact Jackie Brown,
Director of Educational Programs at 909 595 1261, extension 31215.

High school students work on Rose Parade floats tonight

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The Kiwanis Club counts on thousands of high school volunteers to help finish the floral floats for the Tournament of Roses parade on Jan. 2.

Dave Wallach, president of the Hacienda Heights club, has his hands full scheduling the volunteer workers. Wallach is also district chairman of the Kiwanis International Rose Float Committee.

“We’ll be using 7,000 volunteers this year to work on the floats in Pasadena,” Wallach said. “I’ve been working on the floats for 11 years and every year is a new challenge.”

Tonight, hundreds of teen from local high schools, such as Wilson, Los Altos, Rowland and Diamond Bar will work on the floats.

“More than 90 percent of our volunteers are local high school and college students. The kids are fantastic; they really come through for us every year,” the Kiwanis officer noted.

High school students build floats for Kiwanis Club

This year, Kiwanis International is sponsoring a float called Winter Wonderland. The beautiful entry features a snow white horse pulling a sleek sled.

“More than 90 percent of our volunteers are local high school and college students. The kids are fantastic; they really come through for us every year,” the Kiwanis officer noted.

Volunteers spend eight-hour shifts working on 14 floats in the Rosemont Pavilion in Pasadena. The Rose Parade entries were designed by Phoenix Decorating Company.

The students will be working full time this week.

Diamond Bar senior honored by school board

Diamond Bar High School senior Troy Lanning was recognized by the Walnut Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees.

“When we first learned that we had the opportunity to honor one of our students I immediately thought of Troy Lanning,” said Principal Catherine Real. “He is such a great representative of what’s important at Diamond Bar High.”

Troy is is captain of the football team, leader of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and recently organized an event to feed the homeless with the football team. His wrestling coach Scott Usher describes Troy as having a quiet confidence that inspires his peers.

Culinary Arts Academy builds North Pole at Pacific Palms

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Students at the Baldwin Park Community Education Culinary Arts Academy assembled a 30-foot North Pole complete with reindeer, cottages and a river made of sugar.

The display at the Pacific Palms Hotel & Conference center was built by a dozen students from the academy, which meets at the closed Valencia Elementary School campus in Covina.

Students built the mock North Pole in one week, and they made everything from scratch.

Suzanne student honored by Johns Hopkins

William Widjaja, an eighth-grader at Suzanne Middle School, has been named among the 700 brightest young students by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth.
William received the Exceptional Talent Award for scoring above 700 on the SAT in mathematics before the age of 13.

He is among the select group chosen from more than 14,000 seventh- and eighth-graders around the world. William qualified for the prestigious award last year when he was in the seventh grade and is among the select group lauded for exceptional performance on the SAT or ACT — the same tests taken by college-bound high school students.

“Awards aren’t everything, but the will to achieve them is everything,” he said.
Since 1979, the center has sought the most academically able elementary and middle school students, and encouraged their enrollment in its annual talent search. In 2010-11, more than 50,000 students from 50 states, the District of Columbia, and some 120 countries including China, South Korea and Canada participated.

Diamond Bar senior gets golf scholarship

Diamond Bar High School senior Carly Simpson has received a golf scholarship from the University of Nevada, Reno.

The 17-year-old signed a national letter of intent to attend the college next year with her proud family and coaches at her side.

The senior is captain of the Brahma team. She practices two hours every other day, when she isn’t playing matches four days a week during the season.

She entered the Brahma program as a freshman, shooting close to 100, but has developed into a scratch golfer in three years.