School Notebook

Heads up, Westchesterians: LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer will be at Cowan Avenue Elementary School at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, hosting a meeting in the wake of what tipsters tell us was an acrimonious campus vote to join the district's new Innovation Division.

More commonly called iDivision, the reform initiative aims to give schools get more autonomy from LAUSD in exchange for increased accountability.

Teachers and parents alike must buy in to the plan with majority votes among both groups. The Cowan community greenlighted participation in iDivision but we've heard through the grapevine that it's been a polarizing issue there.

Posted by Shelly Leachman at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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)

The 18-year-old man shot Wednesday evening after the Westchester Fairfax game was Ray-Anthony Rolison, a 12th-grader at the school. The info comes from a Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman.

Read more courtesy of Paul and Sandy Mazza.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A man was shot and wounded outside Loyola Marymount University after watching a high school basketball game between Westchester and Fairfax at the university's campus, authorities said this morning.

The shooting occurred around 10 p.m. Wednesday just outside the gates of the university at West 80th Street and Loyola Boulevard in Westchester, said Sgt. John Martin of the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Station.

He said the shooting occurred shortly after the game had ended.

The man was hospitalized in stable condition with a shoulder wound, Martin said.

"We've gotten conflicting reports about the shooter being in a vehicle or on foot," Martin said. "We're just not sure right now."

There were no immediate arrests.

The suspects fled in a compact car and a Hummer sport-utility vehicle, KNBC Channel 4 reported.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:45 AM | 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)

A parent group is looking to increase participation in the Parent Teacher Student Association at Westchester High, and will host elections in March for nine seats on the school support committee.

The Parents of Westcester With Orville Wright has been advertising the panel, and encouraging parents and students to seek seats. Elections will be at 6 p.m. March 10 at Westchester High's library, 7400 W. Manchester Ave.

Membership in the group costs $10. All positions are open for aspiring volunteers. Candidates interested on the association's board should contact Ilene Ashcraft at 310-645-7006. Applications are due Friday (Feb. 1).

Posted by Paul Clinton at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paul Clinton reports:

Parents and teachers at Westchester High School have voted to put themselves in charge of academic reforms in an effort to take the low-performing school where Los Angeles Unified couldn't.

Working with Loyola Marymount University under the banner of the district's new Innovation Division, they will try to turn around a school that ranks in the bottom fifth of the state academically.

Read the story.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A semester after parents resisted the arrival of Bright Star Academy at their Westchester middle school, the charter school is looking for a new home.

But if Bright Star can't find a new school site for the fall, the charter could return to Wright Middle School, said Jeff Hilger, executive director.

The group wants to consolidate its three campuses at one location in the Adams-La Brea neighborhood of Los Angeles, where many of the students live, Hilger said.

"If we can get closer to home, that's our preference," Hilger said. "Our plan is to buy a building that can house 1,000 kids."

Read Paul's full report here.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hoping to stem the tide of sixth-graders abandoning Los Angeles Unified elementary schools on the Westside for private schools, trustee Marlene Canter is stepping up recruiting efforts for seven middle schools.

Canter wants local parents to take another look at LAUSD, so she's offering tours of higher-achieving magnets, hosting an open house and extolling the virtues of Los Angeles public schools in speeches.

"Many families in the areas that I represent send their children to LAUSD elementary schools, but opt for private schools when their children get older," said Canter, who represents schools from Westchester to the San Fernando Valley.

"But as the district opens new schools in overcrowded areas, we now have the opportunity to increase local resident enrollment."

Read Paul's story for more news analysis.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Parents and teachers at Westchester schools opted out of the Los Angeles Unified School District's chain of command in landslide votes that could augur more defections in January.

The schools are signing up for a five-year partnership with Loyola Marymount University - known as the Family of Schools - to improve achievement and draw local students back to LAUSD classrooms.

The district would still collect per-pupil funding, but schools would gain more decision-making powers over curriculum, budget and hiring.

Also, the schools would not answer to administrators at Local District 3.

For more, read Paul's story.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A student at Loyola Marymount University will face charges for posting a terrorist threat on a collegiate message board over the weekend, triggering additional security at the Westchester campus over the weekend. The school also sent out text-message notifications to students using a communications system.

Here's the Breeze story based on wire reports.

The university's award-winning student newspaper The Loyolan was on top of the story with several reports over the weekend.

Also, here's a link to JuicyCampus, the message board that has been the subject of university hand-wringing in recent weeks for its racy content. The university has labeled its contents hate speech.

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

Wright Middle School opened a new flight lab that will provide advanced training for aspiring preteen pilots.

The school converted an old metal shop classroom, adding 22 high-tech computers with flight simulators that allow students to fly solo or in formation with their peers.

The new lab complements a beginning flight program now in its second year at the school. The 400 students signed up for the Wright Math, Science Technology and Aviation Magnet have access to the labs, Principal Stephen Rochelle said.

“This allows us to further the kids along the career pathway,” Rochelle said. “These are the kids who will take the beginning class to another level.”

Read Paul's story for more.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Loyola Village Elementary School in Westchester will open the doors of its new Wonder of Reading library Friday (Dec. 7).

“For us, our Wonder of Reading library will become the literacy heart of our learning community,” Principal Melinda Goodall said.

Goodall, teachers and parents at Loyola Village agreed to renovate and expand library with the help of Wonder of Reading, a nonprofit group that partially donates libraries to urban schools.
The group usually splits the cost of the work with school fund-raising.

At Loyola Village, the school raised $50,000, which included a $30,000 gift from Playa Vista Capital and Playa Vista Educational Trust. The library will open following the 10 a.m. event at the school, 8821 Villanova Ave.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Los Angeles Unified's seven Westchester-area schools will decide next month whether to join a reform effort led by Loyola Marymount University.

LMU's "family of schools" reform blueprint is moving closer to shifting more power locally. In the coming weeks, votes will be taken at the five elementary schools, Wright Middle School and Westchester High School.

Read Paul's story for more.

To learn more, attend a town hall meeting at 5:30 p.m. today at LMU's Ahmanson Auditorium. A second is set for 9 a.m. Dec. 8 at MacIntosh Center.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Students enrolling in Westchester High School's aerospace magnet can expect to take two extra mathematics and science classes. What they shouldn't expect are courses in satellite technology, flight training or engineering.

Although some people may infer the school's curriculum focuses on space technology, its name is actually something of an outdated misnomer.

However that hasn't stopped the magnet school's Web page from advertizing it as such.

Read Paul's story for the full details.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two Daily Breeze staff members played key roles in improvements to The Los Angeles Loyolan, the student-run newspaper at Loyola Marymount University, that helped the paper win the 2007 Newspaper Pacemaker award for exceptional college journalism. The paper won the award for the first time in its 86-year history.

Natalie Nordseth, a copy editor and designer, and Rachel Jones, a reporter with sister-publication More San Pedro, were editor in chief and opinion editor respectively.

"We're so honored to receive the award not only because it's our first time, but also because we beat out our arch-rival Pepperdine," Nordseth said.

Nordseth oversaw the paper's transition from a weekly to a twice weekly with the help of Jones. The two brought speakers to campus such as conservative pundits Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, Democratic consultant James Carville and blogger Arianna Huffington.

They also presided over daily stories and editorials meant to provoke discussion on campus.

"I think we made people care about what was in it," Jones said Monday. "I think we made it relevant about telling them about student government and making it entertaining."

The paper won in the four-year, non-daily category based on "coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design, photography, art and graphics" for the 2006-07 academic year. The college accepted the award on Oct. 27 at the National College Media Conference in Washington D.C.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new state law helped police arrest a registered sex offender who was allegedly hanging around elementary schools in Manhattan Beach and Westchester.

While sex offender Richard Gibbons was under police surveillance for about six hours this week, he drove to about a dozen elementary schools, including two in the South Bay.

He usually parked his car outside the campuses and stayed inside, authorities said. But on Tuesday, when he allegedly parked his car in the school lot at Cowan Elementary School in Westchester, Gibbons violated a new state law.

The Sex Offender Control and Containment Act, enacted last year, makes it a misdemeanor for anyone required to register as a sex offender to go onto school grounds without reason and written permission. The law also bans sex offenders from parks and other places where children congregate.

Here's the rest of the story by our court reporter Denise Nix.

Posted by Toni Sciacqua at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Parents of Westchester With Orville Wright (POWWOW, for short) will get together for their first meeting of the year. The newly revived group has been providing regular volunteers to increase parent involvement at Westchester High School and Wright Middle School.

The topic of the meeting, "The Purpose Driven Parent," may be an allusion to Rick Warren's biblical bestseller "The Purpose-Driven Life."

The group is led by Crissina Johnson, an author and pastor who founded A Christ Centered Faith World Harvest Church in Westchester in 1994.

Parents are invited to attend a meeting that starts at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the social hall at Westchester High School, 7400 W. Manchester Ave.

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

A team of current and former students from the school's art therapy masters program headed to Louisiana to aid hurricane victims. The students used art as a cathartic process to help Louisiana residents come to grips with their painful memories.

"I'll keep going back as long as they'll have me," said Lesly Van Sloten, who graduated from Loyola in 2006 and works locally with at-risk teenagers.

It was tough at first convincing the residents that art could help them sort out what happened, the women said. They used media such as drawing, painting, construction and photography to get the survivors to confront what they went through.

Check out the rest of Melissa Evans' story.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apologize for the short notice, but if you're reading this before 5 p.m. today, you may still have time to head to Loyola Marymount University for a screening of "Left Behind - the Story of New Orleans Public Schools" written and directed by alumnus Vincent Morelli.

The 90-minute doc tells the story of three African-American high school seniors navigating 12th-grade. The students attend school in Louisiana, a state ranked as one of the poorest and most violent in America. The film includes an interview with Rep. Maxine Waters, who represents Gardena, Hawthorne and Lawndale.

The film will be shown at the Huesman Lounge, at LMU, 1 LMU Drive. Call 310-338-5133 for more info.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nigerian-born playwright and peace activist Wole Soyinka has accepted a teaching position at the Westchester university. Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. He's the first African to receive the honor.

Soyinka has published more than 20 literary works and taught at Harvard, Cambridge and Cornell universities. He was imprisoned in solitary confinement from 1967 to 1969 for writing an article that called for a cease-fire in Nigeria.

"Through his words and actions, Mr. Soyinka has transformed the world and embodies our university's mission," said President Robert Lawton. "It is an honor to have Mr. Soyinka at LMU."

As an LMU professor, Soyinka will be "interacting with students, faculty, staff and the community through a variety of events, ranging from small-group classroom visits to campus-wide discussions," according to a statment from LMU.

Posted by Paul Clinton at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)