School Notebook

Just wanted to post a brief note to readers of the School Notebook blog. I have left the Daily Breeze after 4 1/2 years covering schools in San Pedro, Carson, Wilmington, Gardena, Lomita and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

As the Breeze looks in other directions for education coverage of these areas, I'll just note that I've had a blast reporting on these schools. I've learned a lot from the teachers, administrators, parents and others who provide the daily sweat to educate the area's diverse community of students.

Other opportunities lay ahead for me, which I'm excited to tackle.

Thanks again.

Paul Clinton

Posted by Paul Clinton at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Check out Paul's story that ran over the weekend about the Carson High School students who are connecting Presidential frontrunner Barack Obama with other African American trailblazers during Black History Month.

Here's an exerpt:

For Stevens and many other local black students, 2008 has been an awakening of involvement in a political system.

As members of the newest generation of post-civil-rights-era African-Americans, they're inspired by Obama's hopeful optimism.

Sheryl Harris, a math teacher and adviser to Carson High's Black Student Union, said she has noticed her students' heightened engagement in politics.

"It's the same as Tiger Woods winning his first Masters (Golf Tournament)," Harris said. "It opened up that door to a lot of students thinking maybe it might be me."

Posted by Paul Clinton at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EL SEGUNDO: Students from 28 schools learn about engineering at Raytheon

Middle-school students from 28 local schools participated in Raytheon's annual Engineers Week event at the company's El Segundo headquarters last week.

The students participated in a Lego League robotics demonstration, traveling space museum and video game challenge.

NASCAR driver Kevin Conway spoke about the importance of math and science education.

More than 250 students from Los Angeles Unified School District campuses, such as Curtiss Middle in Carson, Dana Middle in San Pedro, Peary Middle in Gardena and Fleming Middle in Lomita joined students from Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach and Lawndale.

Students from Lennox, Inglewood, Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes also attended.

TORRANCE: Special session will explore school budget-cut options

Staff of the Torrance Unified School District will present budget-cut recommendations to the Board of Education in a special workshop on Tuesday.

The public session is set to address the estimated $8.7 million district deficit for the 2008-09 academic year that's being created by the proposed state budget, which may cut education funding by more than $4 billion.

Public comment will be taken at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of J.H. Hull Middle School at Levy, 3420 229th St., Torrance.

CARSON: Forum offers parents guidance on importance of education

The Los Angeles Unified School District is hosting a forum in Carson on Wednesday to boost college attendance and parent engagement.

The event, Create a College Bound Culture, will offer parents informative handouts, speakers and an educational marketplace. Any parent with a student in LAUSD is eligible to attend.

The event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Carnegie Middle School, 21810 Bonita St. Parking is available at the DoubleTree Hotel on Carson Street.

Registration is required. Call 213-241-6900.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Los Angeles Unified School District is hosting a forum in Carson on Wednesday (Feb. 27) to boost college attendance and parent engagement.

The event, “Create a College Bound Culture,” will present parents with informative handouts, speakers and an educational marketplace. Any parent with a student in LAUSD can attend.

The event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Carnegie Middle School, 21810 Bonita St. Parking is available at the Double Tree Hotel on Carson Street. Registration is required. Call 213-241-6900.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The California Linguistic Minority Research Institute released a report with a list of 100 high schools that account for the largest share of students who leave a high school before collecting a diploma.

Based on each institution's number of dropouts for the 2005-2006 academic year, five South Bay high schools landed among the study's 100 worst offenders.

Narbonne High in Harbor City ranked 70th, with 166 dropouts or a dropout rate of 4.7 percent; Banning High in Wilmington sits at 77th with 158 dropouts or 4.5 percent of its enrollment that year.

With 154 dropouts and a dropout rate of 4.2 percent, Carson High landed at 81st place; Leuzinger High in Lawndale was at 88 with 145 dropouts (4.3 percent); and Gardena High hit 93rd with 141 dropouts, or 4 percent of its 2005-2006 enrollment.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out Paul's story about two Carson sisters and educators who want to open a charter school in the fall that would offer hip hop classes:

Hoping to make school more attractive to low-performing teens, a new charter school in Carson plans to lure them with bait they won't be able to resist: hip-hop.

Millennium High School, which would open in the fall in the shadow of the Harbor Freeway on Hamilton Avenue, would use textbooks such as "Hip Hop History," "Back in the Days" and "Yes Yes Y'All," a compendium of oral histories of the urban art form.

Upperclassmen would use professional editing and production technology and software to create audio tracks and music videos.

The school also would offer the usual battery of high school equivalency courses in English, algebra, U.S. history and other core subjects, co-founder Lisa Edwards said.

"Hip-hop is the biggest music that students in the area listen to," Edwards said. "No matter how much we try to use standardized English, we cannot ignore or deny the language they bring into the classroom."

Posted by Paul Clinton at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eight Carson High School students were cited Wednesday for their involvement in a racially tinged fight on campus, LAUSD spokeswoman Nadia Gonzalez said.

The students were briefly detained, then released, for their roles in the fights that broke out at various locations at Carson High. School police are investigating the incidents, which may have stemmed from racial tension earlier in the month, Gonzalez said.

Additional security was in place at the school today (Feb. 14), Gonzales said. Students who were involved the fights could be required to perform community service or pay a $250 fine.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the next few days, look for Paul's story about a new charter school set to open near Carson in the fall that would offer hip hop classes, music education and video production.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Los Angeles Unified School District announced final results of its Academic Decathlon competiton of 64 high schools at UCLA on Saturday. Local LAUSD schools didn't fare as well this year, as none will move ahead to the state competition. Palisades Charter High School won the competition with 50,121 points.

Narbonne High in Harbor City finished highest, at No. 10, with 40,593 points. The school also finished in the top 15 in the Super Quiz and top 10 in essay and math categories.

Other teams from local schools:

No. 40: Gardena High, 29,435 points
No. 48: San Pedro High, 26,541 points
No. 50: Carson High, 26,229 points
No. 51: Banning High, 26,159 points
No. 53: Westchester High, 25,480 points

Here are the top students from the local schools:

Jenivee Elloran, Banning High School (Wilmington)
Jan Victor Andasan, Carson High School
Tri Huynh, Gardena High School
James Veil, Narbonne High
Cosmin Barbu, San Pedro High School
Chris Onwuka, Westchester High School

Also, Narbonne's Carlos Ortego had a perfect score on the Super Quiz.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read Paul's story about Antwan Herron's one-man performance celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech...

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Los Angeles Unified schools could lose up to $20 million - and be forced to close many of the region's school-based health clinics - under a plan by the Bush administration to stop reimbursing districts for certain Medicaid costs.

Local programs - including clinics at Carson High and Gardena High, coordination of asthma treatment or mobile medical vans that visit elementary schools - could be scaled back or eliminated, the district said.

Read the full story here.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Carson Sheriff's deputies arrested five teenagers early Wednesday suspected of several tagging incidents, including a large graffiti job on the front wall of Carson High School a few months ago. The boys will be charged with felony vandalism. Deputies served warrants at five locations, and pulled one boy out of school. Full story by Gene Maddaus in tomorrow's Breeze.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new high school planned for the Carson-Long Beach border has prompted concern from environmentalists and a school board member about the facility's proximity to a freeway and container storage yard.

The school's quarter-mile distance from the Long Beach Freeway would place it on a watch list that could be created Tuesday.

Under an initiative proposed by Los Angeles Unified board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, the district would identify planned schools that sit within a half-mile of freeways, diesel truck hubs, ports, refineries and rail yards.

Read the rest of Paul's report here.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Work is scheduled to begin later this month on a high school for Carson students at the site of a Long Beach warehouse once used to store rubber and produce above-ground pools and spas.

While the school has yet to win plaudits from neighbors or the two cities, it would reduce crowding at maxed-out Carson High and Banning High in Wilmington.

At a community meeting scheduled Wednesday, district planners will discuss demolition of the 330,000-square-foot building at Carson Street and Santa Fe Avenue.

A high school with 67 classrooms and a sports stadium with 1,500 seats would be built at the 14-acre site. The district would open the doors to 1,900 students in fall 2012.

Read Paul's full report here.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About 350 Carson eighth-graders participated in a three-day leadership retreat this month in the San Bernardino Mountains.

The students learned to forge strong friendships, deal with peer pressure and set goals to help them prepare for college.

"It challenged me mentally, physically and socially," said 14-year-old Michelle Nguyen from Caroldale Learning Community, a K-8 school. "The restrictions of the classroom would have made this learning impossible."

Students from Curtiss Middle and White Middle schools climbed trees, hiked at night, and learned about astronomy at the Pali Institute near Lake Arrowhead.

Read the School Notebook story for more.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Carson contractor began his business more than a year ago, looking to "fix and flip" houses. That was still the plan until this fall, when Lamora Wilson signed up for a small business boot camp offered by LAUSD.

During the eight-week course offered one evening a week, Wilson learned a bevy of information about how to submit a winning bid for a public works project. For Wilson, the course lowered his fear quotient about bidding for work on LAUSD's $20 billion construction program that's scheduled to build 132 schools by 2012.

"It'll take years to obtain this information any other way," Wilson said. "Because a lot of times you learn it the hard way."

The classes resembled an apprenticeship program, said Wilson, a carpenter who has build bridges, carports and other structures in the past 25 years. He learned step-by-step instructions for submitting the bid, proper paperwork, insurance liability requirements and the bonding process.

Wilson completed the boot camp a week ago with 74 others from across Southern California. The district hosted a "graduation" ceremony Nov. 29. LAUSD uses the program to cultivate new contractors, having awarded $50 million to contractors who've completed it.

"These graduates represent our continued partnership with local businesses to attract the skilled labor necessary to complete our building program's mission of providing a neighborhood school on a traditional two-semester calendar for every student," said Guy Mehula, the district's chief facilities executive.

In total, 550 small businesses have completed the program, which also teaches contractors how to obtain public works contracts with other agencies.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Four South Bay schools have landed on U.S. News & World Report's first ever-ranking of the 100 best high schools in America.

The California Academy of Math and Science, a charter of Long Beach Unified but housed in Carson at CSU Dominguez Hills, topped the local presence with its 21st place ranking nationwide. The Animo Leadership Academy in Inglewood landed at No. 31, while Palos Verdes Peninsula High came in at No. 89. Palos Verdes High School also made the list, at No. 93.

The magazine, which for years has been so ranking colleges and universities, teamed with analysts from School Evaluation Services to develop the methodology to analyze how well high schools serve their students. They factored in poverty and economic status, including disadvantaged students, average students, and college-bound students to make those measurements.

According to the methodology, a best high school is one that succeeds at the following:

1) Attains performance levels that exceed statistical expectations given the school's relative level of student poverty, as measured by state accountability test scores for all the school's students in the core subjects of reading and math;

2) Achieves proficiency rates on state tests for their least advantaged student groups (e.g., black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students) that exceed state averages; and

3) Prepares its students for college, as measured by student participation in and performance on Advanced Placement (AP) tests, which are administered by the College Board.

Using this methodology, more than 18,500 high schools in 40 states were analyzed for inclusion.

The issue hits newsstands on Monday, but the "America's Best High Schools" package is available now online.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Los Angeles school board member Richard Vladovic is hosting a field event in Carson on Wednesday to answer questions or concerns. The meetings will take place one on one.

From 8 to 11 a.m. Wednesday, Vladovic will meet with community members in Room 111 of the Carson Community Center, 801 E. Carson St.

Questions should be directed to Lyle Tooks, Vladovic’s Carson field representative, at 213-241-5693.
Similar events are planned for Carson in the coming months.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 6:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kristin Mae Albaniel, a fifth-grader at Bonita Street Elementary School in Carson, was named one of 20 finalists of a science competition sponsored by KOST 103.5 FM.

For the competition, students were asked to invent a toy and describe it. Albaniel invented a board game called "The 50 States Game." She won a $100 gift card to purchase materials to build the game. On Sunday (Nov. 18), she'll participate in the Excitement of Science Fair in Los Angeles to show off her invention.

Following the fair, students will watch Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium during a private screening.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Players from the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team headed two blocks south of their Home Depot Center base to Leapwood Avenue Elementary School to read and distribute books to students.

The event is a partnership between the Wonder of Reading organization, the L.A Galaxy Foundation and the Reading is Fundamental of Southern California, all of which work to promote family literacy
programs and a life-long love of learning, according to an LAUSD release.

In this picture, forward Edson Buddle greets a student at a reading table.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 6:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the defeat in Carson of an initiative that would have allowed Carson to break away from Los Angeles Unified, something no area has done since Torrance in 1948. We circled back with the backers of Measure D (which lost 3-to-1) and the teachers union leaders who defeated it.

Here's an excerpt from Paul's story:

Six years ago today Carson voters decided not to take a leap of faith. As unhappy as many were with the Los Angeles Unified School District, residents nevertheless rejected a bid to carve out their own independent school system.

It was an overwhelming victory for the district's teachers union, which spent almost $500,000 to ensure Carson would not be the first city since Torrance in 1948 to defect from the massive LAUSD.

Six years later, much has changed. And little has changed. A reform-minded Los Angeles mayor has put his imprint on the school board and is about to take over some low-performing district schools, though none is in Carson.

A new superintendent has vowed to partner with the mayor to stem the district's high dropout rate, though there is evidence that more Carson kids than ever are not staying in high school.

And the district has embarked on a massive school building program, though no new schools or classroom additions have been built in Carson yet. A new high school is on the boards for 2011.

Perhaps most frustrating, especially to supporters of Measure D in November 2001, the Carson community still has little direct say in school management, curriculum or funding.

Those are among the reasons two groups next fall plan to open charter high schools, which give them more autonomy than traditional schools.

Continue reading "Carson Unified School District: Defeated 6 years ago" »

Posted by Paul Clinton at 5:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paul Clinton writes about two groups who want the same name for their Carson charter schools: Millennium.

One of the groups would need to pick a different name, said Greg McNair, the chief administrative officer for LAUSD's charter school division.

"We will definitely try to convince them to change their names if they choose a name that is similar to an existing school," McNair said. "The person who will have to change is the person who comes in second in terms of getting the charter approved."

The New Millennium group plans to open in the fall with 150 ninth-graders. Backers haven't chosen a location but would rent space.

The Millennium High group plans to open in the fall with 215 ninth- and 10th-graders.

Go here for the whole story.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's foundation has had a hand in the planning of a new charter high school set to open in Carson for the 2008-09 school year. They still haven't submitted a petition to LAUSD -- that's set for mid-November -- and have yet to hook local political support. But they do have a fairly clear framework laid out in Paul's story.

There's not much on the school's Web site yet.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A multi-agency task force swept through Carson, Harbor City, San Pedro, Torrance and Wilmington today, citing 163 teenagers for truancy and arresting 10 others.

The students had ditched classes at Banning High, Carson High, Narbonne High, San Pedro High and Torrance High. Read our story.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two area students were among 18 winners of the 2007 Latino Heritage Month poster contest honored by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Viviana Vela, from Wilmington Middle School, and Ana Vargas, from Carnegie Middle School in Carson, created the winning posters at the Banning Recreation Center.
Villaraigosa announced the winners Sept. 22 during an event at the Pico House Monument at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Park in Los Angeles.
The 18 Los Angeles Unified students were presented scholarships.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier this week, California's Secretary of Education David Long used Bunche Elementary School (a Carson school that's in Compton Unified) to illustrate his point that schools in poorer neighborhoods can stop using that as an excuse for low test scores.

"There are a number of California schools with predominately poor, minority and English learning students that are achieving at high levels, like Ralph Bunche Elementary in Carson and The Preuss School in San Diego," Long said.

Bunche Elementary's students are 99 percent black or Latino, 40 percent English language learners and 95 percent economically disadvantaged. The school has raised its API score from 445 to 846 since 1999. Mikara Solomon is the school's principal.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)