For Los Angeles Unified School District
Superintendent John Deasy,
improving the state of public education
is an important civil rights issue.
Until all students have access to AP and honors
courses, effective teaching, successful schools and
counselors intent on preparing them for college, the
promise of Brown vs. the Board of Education—the
landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared
school segregation unconstitutional—has not yet been
fulfilled.
Claremont High School Chamber
Singers got a taste of paradise when
they headed to Hawaii for the prestigious
Pacific Basin Music Festival, held
March 24-31 in Honolulu.
The event brought 42 CHS students together with
members of 10 choral and instrumental ensembles
from the US, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.
Their acceptance to the festival places the local vocalists
among the top 5 percent of high school-aged
choirs.
Claremont High School vocal music director Joel
Wilson learned that his students would be attending—
on the strength of a CD audition—at the end of
the last school year.
Seeing a blue-tongued skink or an
American alligator in Claremont isn’t
your everyday, run-of-the-mill experience,
let alone touching them. But last
Monday, clients at AbilityFirst had the opportunity
to meet and feel these reptiles as
well as a rosy boa snake, a desert tortoise
and a couple of frisky schnauzer-mix pups.
The animals’ visit to AbilityFirst was made possible
by 2 of America’s Family Pet
Expo community partners,
Barks of Love Animal Rescue
and Forever Wild Exotic Animal
Sanctuary.
All 52 sixth graders
from Sycamore departed
Monday for a stay at the
Los Angeles County
Outdoor Science School
(OSS), a weeklong educational
experience in
Big Bear. The OSS curriculum
focuses on the
study of ecosystems utilizing
the "outdoors as
the classroom and the
natural environment as
the laboratory."
Sycamore School office
manager Damaris
Hankins reports that the
students "arrived at
camp, safe and sound,
without a single incident
of car-sickness."
Sixth grade students
from Vista Elementary
School met up with the
Sycamore kids in Big
Bear. The 2 schools will
share cabins and study
together until their return
this Friday. COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
Lately, news from educational institutions
has been grim, with budget
concerns, cutbacks and layoffs
dominating headlines.
This climate makes Claremont McKenna College's
latest achievement, the successful conclusion of its
George R. Roberts Faculty Leadership Initiative, especially
encouraging.
Planning for the Claremont school
district’s financial future while not
knowing what funding may come
from the state, Claremont’s board of education
approved its second interim report
Thursday night certifying that it is financially
solvent.
A second step in the process was the adoption of a
resolution authorizing the school district to issue
TRANs (Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes) for the
2012-2013 school year, enabling the district to borrow
up to $10 million.
"Maintain contact.
Get in
their face.
Make them respond to you,"
advised State Senator Carol
Liu (D-Glendale), as one of 5
members of the California
Legislature taking part Saturday
at El Roble Intermediate
School in a program called
What (About Our) Future?,
presented by Region 23 of the
California School Board Association.
Senator Liu was advising Californians
to make their views clear to all
members of state government at all levels.
President Lori Bettison-Varga recently
announced a $2 million gift
to Scripps College. Trustee emeritus
Frank R. Miller, Jr. dedicated $2 million
to the college, prior to his death in
January, to honor his late wife, Katharine
Howard Miller, Scripps alumna, class of
1955.
Golden State Water Company will begin repair to the Claraboya Reservoir
this Monday, March 12, part of a $3.1 million plan to improve the water company’s
infrastructure within the city of Claremont.
The Claraboya maintenance project, which Golden State Water projects at
an estimated $286,500, will improve the reservoir’s current structure and recoat
the steel tank both internally and externally.
Community colleges throughout California
braced for state trigger cuts in January.
But additional cuts in February have
caught the junior colleges by surprise.
With $313 million in cuts for community
colleges budgeted for 2011-12 and
another $102 million in trigger cuts in January,
California'??s community colleges
took another $149 million hit in February.
Citrus College had already received $3.2
million less according to the enacted
2011-12 budget and took on a $735,000
trigger cut in January. The February reduction
of nearly an additional $1.5 million
boosts the total amount for Citrus to
$5,706,000.
Sycamore Elementary
School teacher Ann
O’Connor put her $250
Best B.E.T. (Business and
Education Together) grant to
use on Wednesday to give
second and third graders an
authentic California Native
American experience.
Making seashell necklaces, learning
about Native American hip-hop, helping
to design a wickiup (dwelling
place), creating clay pots and grinding
corn were a sampling of activities
available for students in the school
courtyard throughout the morning.
Food choices included buffalo sausage
and flatbread.
The Claremont Unified School District Board of
Education gave its approval to the superintendent
recruitment prospectus created by consulting
search firm Dave Long & Associates at Thursday’s board
meeting.
The recruitment prospectus contains input from the
board, as well as employee and community stakeholders regarding
the characteristics and qualities
desired in the new CUSD superintendent.
Dave Long & Associates representatives
Bill Diedrich and Pat Novotney met with
approximately 100 people through community forums and
private meetings last week.
Technology is not only
drastically changing the
way our world gets its
news, it may be helping fuel our
country’s political divide, CBS
news correspondent Lesley
Stahl said Thursday night during
a speech at Garrison Theater.
The award-winning journalist came to
Claremont from her home state of New
York as a guest of the Claremont Graduate
University’s transdisciplinary program.
She arrived to speak to an audience mostly
composed of town dignitaries, university
trustees and a few college students about
the role of technology and how it has
shaped current events and today’s culture. COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
More than $366,000 in annual youth programs run
through the city of Claremont and the Claremont
Unified School District have helped over 51,000
of the city’s youth foster their educational, mental, physical
and social well-being, every year according to staff reports.
