At the latest meeting of the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education, the board took a vote on whether to join districts across the nation—including nearby Glendora Unified School District—in urging Congress to rescind across-the-board federal cuts to education.
Unless Congress is able to reach a last-minute compromise to stop sequestration, which would involve $1.2 trillion in cuts to federal funding for programs ranging from public education to the military to Medicare, schools across the nation will face a 6 percent slash in federal funding.
Two pieces of district property, the site of the short-lived La Puerta Intermediate School and the current Service Center site, were declared surplus on Thursday at the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education meeting.
The school board first voted unanimously to ratify the January 17 recommendation of the Surplus Property Advisory Committee, also known as the 7-11 Committee, to declare the La Puerta property surplus. It was an unsurprising decision, given the land, located at 2745 N. Forbes Ave., has been all but abandoned in recent years.
The fate of district property will be mulled at the next meeting of the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education, set for Thursday, February 21.
Board members will vote on whether or not to ratify the January 17 recommendation of the Surplus Advisory Committee that 2 parcels of district land be declared surplus, ideally in preparation for sale.
Two votes will be taken, one regarding the site of the short-lived La Puerta Intermediate School, 9.7 acres located at 2475 N. Forbes Ave., and a second regarding the 3.5-acre site of the district’s current Service Center (700 W. Base Line Rd.).
It was all good news when President Barack Obama appointed Pitzer College President Laura Skandera Trombley to the 12-member J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
In this prestigious position—for which she was sworn in at a February 11 ceremony in Washington, DC—she will not only be expected to meet quarterly to help establish policies for Fulbright selection and operating procedures. Ms. Trombley is also encouraged to travel as much as possible, serving as an ambassador for the program.
If you have a little bit of talent and a lot of dedication, greatness is within your grasp. This was the message delivered by Lincoln Peirce, author of the popular Big Nate book series, when he stopped by Foothill Country Day School on February 8 to talk about his journey from doodling kid to comic strip creator to best-selling author.
As a boy, Mr. Peirce loved the “Peanuts” comics, so he was inspired when he read this piece of wisdom in an interview with the legendary Charles Schulz. “To be a cartoonist, you need to be a good writer, not a great writer, and a good artist, not a great artist.”
COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
Cartoonist and author Lincoln Peirce demonstrates the scribble game during a talk at Foothill Country Day School on Thursday. The game involves closing one’s eyes, making a scribble and then trying to make it into a cartoon character. On Thursday Mr. Peirce made a clown out of his scribble. More in our next edition. COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
The Thursday, February 7 meeting of the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education started with the swearing-in of 2 new student board members and the acceptance of a second petition by a potential Claremont charter school, the Embracing the Whole Child Arts and Technology Academy.
Claremont High School student Carolyn Bird and San Antonio High School student Aimee Orcasitas got started right away, delivering reports on the activities of local schools later in the meeting. The petition for Embracing the Whole Child Academy, proposed by Lynette Lucas, will be reviewed at a public hearing at the May 17, 2013 gathering of the school board.
Contrary to appearances, there was no time machine involved in this blast-to-the-past. Instead, it was just another night where they made an attempt for a group photo in a longstanding dance class taught by retired Claremont High School show team coach Michele Allen. The program, which is offered through the El Roble PFA and which Ms. Allen has led since the late 1980s, allows kids on the brink of their teenage years, to have fun and blow off steam while learning to engage with the opposite sex. COURIER photo/Steven Felschundneff
A busy agenda is on tap for the next meeting of the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education, set for Thursday, February 7 at 6:30 p.m.
The school board will be presented with a revised petition for a proposed charter school within the district, the Embracing the Whole Child Arts and Technology Academy. The first petition for the academy was presented, and accepted by the school board, on April 19, 2012. At a subsequent hearing, the following petition was denied.
Bonnie Bell, assistant superintendent of business services, asked the school board last meeting to approve and release the district’s School Accountability Report Cards (SARC).
Since 1998, every California school that receives public funding has been required to prepare a SARC, detailing its status in crucial areas like student demographics, academic achievement and the condition of facilities.
As noted in the most recent batch of SARCs, virtually every school in the district has made steady progress in academic achievement as measured by students’ results in STAR standardized tests.
There was a moment of tension at Thursday’s meeting of the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education when the board was called upon to approve a report by the Surplus Advisory Committee, also known as the 7-11 Committee.
In December of 2010, the school board approved the formation of the committee, which is comprised of a group of real estate-savvy volunteers, to discuss the potential sale, lease or use of surplus district property. See other school board news inside.
Claremont plays host to 5 undergraduate colleges, plus Claremont Graduate University, Keck Graduate Institute and the Claremont School of Theology. With all that higher education going on, it would be easy to mistake the Claremont Institute for another college. It is not, however, an institute of higher education, but instead a conservative think tank with a surprisingly wide national reach. The nonprofit’s organization aims are ambitious, according to their website.
Kathy D. Webster, PharmD and PhD, has been appointed founding dean of Keck Graduate Institute’s new School of BioPharmacy. The school, which is scheduled to admit its first class in fall 2014 pending accreditation, is being designed to meet future needs in the US healthcare system and to take advantage of KGI’s expertise in biotechnology education.
