Tag Archives: Hacienda La Puente Unified School District

It has begun

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The first of what could be several children opting out of California Standards Tests at various Hacienda La Puente Unified School District schools has begun. The group, Concerned Parents of the HLPUSD, seem to have targeted Los Molinos Elementary School. They are objecting to the early calendar, whereby school would start on Aug. 8 this year and Aug. 7 next year.

Here’s an email they sent to the news media today: It appears to be a copy of an email or a letter sent to Angela Lin, principal of Los Molinos School:

 

Dear Principal Angela Lin of Los Molinos Elementary School,
 
As a demonstration of protest against the Superintendent and School Board Members’ decision to approve the early start calendar year, despite all the parents’ cases stated against this decision and the evidence presented on how detrimental this would be for children at all grade levels, my husband and I will be exercising our right to opt-out of state testing this year for our 3rd grader, Nathan Pelayo (who scored ”advanced” in all areas last year).
 
It is apparent that our School Board is not a board that values transparency nor a board that seeks to earn the trust of parents they are elected to represent. This Early Calendar change was not developed to benefit our students, but rather to appease special interest groups.
 
Whittier Daily News: “Hacienda La Puente parents against early start calendar, survey says ”
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_20092405 
 
Thank you for your attention.
 
Respectfully,

 
Lissette and David Pelayo

A forgotten milestone

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In Jay Chen’s 2011 Year-in-review, he mentioned various milestones from 2011 for the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. These included a failed recall attempt against him, a HLPUSD board member, and his free college application seminars.

But what he did not mention may be more important:
The changing of the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years. School will start three weeks earlier and end three weeks earlier. The change was controversial and may be trend-setting.
Here’s a section from our story which ran in December:

The Hacienda La Puente Unified School District board voted 4-1 Thursday night to start the next school year on Aug. 7, three weeks earlier than usual. It is the first local school district to adopt an early start calendar for the entire PreK-12 population.

School will let out May 21, 2013, instead of in late June. A similar calendar was adopted for the 2013-14 school year. </em>

Some may call that decision of the San Gabriel Valley’s largest school district one that affects the most people — parents and children.It affect thousands of families in La Puente and Hacienda Heights. It could also lead to other districts doing the same thing.

Quite a milestone.