You might say that the students, teachers, parents, and friends really had a blast at the 15th annual BLAST (Best Learning After School Time) Super Bowl football game on Wednesday between Oakmont and Sumner Elementary schools.
If you think this was a low key, informal event, think again. This game had all the trimmings of a big football game with uniforms, coaches, referees, cheerleaders, signs, trophies, pizza, cake and even the Claremont High School band playing at halftime. Needless to say, this is a highly planned event that students and staff look forward to every year. COURIER photo/Peter Weinberger
Local therapist and clinical social worker Kirby Palmer was thanked for his ongoing support of mental health within the district, in particular for the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Assembly he leads every other year at Claremont High School.
The most recent of these was an emotional affair held in the CHS gymnasium in November that, among other poignant moments, featured a personal account from a student who lost a family member to suicide.
Local elementary school kids got an up-close and interactive look at the rich and varied culture of American Indians last Friday when they took a field trip to the Pomona College Art Museum.
One trip downstairs took the kids into a state-of-the-art depository of thousands of tribal artifacts, from clothing to cradleboards, housed in the lower level of Bridges Auditorium.
The visit to the college’s Native American Collection Study Center (NACSC), which was afforded to most of the third graders in the district, is part of the NACSC Community Outreach pilot initiative, now in its third year.
COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
Last week’s school board meeting started with an emphasis on the primary goal of the Claremont Unified School District: student achievement.
First, Michaela Moriarty and Robert Smith, who attend Claremont and San Antonio high schools, respectively, were sworn in as new student representatives to the board of education.
It’s a job that requires commitment.
During the 2014-2015 academic year, the Pilgrim Place community will offer two $12,000 Napier Awards for Creative Leadership to graduating seniors at the five Claremont Colleges.
The awards were established as a memorial to Davie and Joy Napier, longtime residents of Pilgrim Place, who in earlier years had remarkable careers as prophetic advocates for a just, peaceful and sustainable world.
The Scripps College Ceramic Annual, the longest continuous exhibition of contemporary ceramics in the United States, will open for its 71st year on Saturday, January 24 and will continue through April 5.
A selection of hybrid works, this exhibition represents both emerging and well-established artists and will feature an illustrated catalog with an essay by art writer Leah Ollman.
Some of the Claremont Unified School District’s youngest students are becoming very avid about going to college.
The increase in academic ambition comes after a move last year to bring the AVID college-readiness program—which was already at El Roble Intermediate and Claremont High School—down to the elementary school level.
AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a program dedicated to closing the achievement gap.
In May, Vista del Valle won Grades of Green’s third annual Trash Free Lunch Challenge, a kudos that comes with a $1,000 reward. Vista nabbed the award after reducing the amount of waste produced at the school by 95 percent, going from nearly 1,000 bags of trash per year to less than 100.
Vista shared the top honors with Parrass Middle School in Redondo Beach, with both schools beating out 22 other K-12 schools in Los Angeles County.
It is an exciting time to be part of the Claremont Unified School District! Although we are coming to the end of the 2014 calendar year, CUSD is in the middle of another very exciting and productive school year.
It was a busy and packed school board meeting last Thursday, with the first order of business being a tendering of applause for outgoing school board president Steven Llanusa. After a quick election, Mr. Llanusa’s seat was taken by school board member Hilary LaConte, which makes for her second term as board president.
School board member Nancy Treser Osgood will serve as the board’s vice president and Dave Nemer is now clerk. As always, Claremont Unified School District Superintendent Jim Elsasser will serve as the board’s secretary.
A row of students playing Santa’s reindeer sing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” on Friday during the Merry Everything holiday show at Sycamore Elementary School. The show was a joint effort from teachers Kelly Diaz and Jodi Erlinger-Irwin’s kindergarten through second grade students. COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
The Lions have something to roar about, because San Antonio High School has been named a Model Continuation School.
In order to nab the honor—which is awarded by the California Department of Education in partnership with the California Continued Education Association—the school submitted an application detailing the school’s strengths. These, according to Principal Sean Delgado, include the widespread use of technology, nurturing community partnerships and warm relationships between students and staff.
After more than 12 years, Laura Skandera Trombley will step down as president of Pitzer College on June 30, 2015, according to a press release from the college. Ms. Trombley has been named the president of The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.
“Pitzer is fortunate to have benefitted from President Trombley’s distinctive leadership and vision, as she shepherded the college through its 50th year,” Shahan Soghikian, chair of the Pitzer College Board of Trustees, said in the announcement.
It is the end of the first trimester in the first year of Common Core implementation. Report cards went out on Friday, gauging how students are mastering the new standards and how schools are doing at imparting them.
The Claremont Unified School District is having some growing pains when it comes to this next stage of the transition to the Common Core. Some teachers say the nearly two-page report cards pose a challenge for instructors to complete and parents to decipher.
