Chris Moran

If one year gets you a car, what does 13 years get you?

chrismoran — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:24:34 +0000

In response to my article about a South County school district awarding a car to a student who had perfect attendance in his senior year, a reader told me about 167-year-old Vanna Sumontha. She’s about to graduate from Crawford High School without ever having missed a day of school. That’s 13 years from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Her reward? A certificate and a shout-out at a school assembly. The student who won the car for one year of perfect attendance was lucky enough to attend classes in Sweetwater Union High School District, which promoted the car giveaway this year as an attendance incentive. The district got the car donated by a local towing service.

Here’s another story about a North County student’s 13-year perfect streak of attendance, written by Union-Tribune freelancer.

Top high schools list out

chrismoran — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:04:19 +0000

The annual Newsweek list of top high schools is out. Several local high schools make the list, including Preuss School at UCSD at #10.

Other local schools that received recognition are the School for International Studies at San Diego High (#59), Westview High (#178), San Pasqual High (#188), San Dieguito Academy (#220), La Jolla High (#237), Torrey Pines High (#257), La Costa Canyon High (#286), University City High (#290) and Serra High (#297). There are others in the list of 1,480 high schools nationwide, which is a small percentage of the overall number of high schools.

The knock on this annual list is that it’s devised through one measure: the number of Advanced Placement tests taken divided by the number of graduating seniors. So it doesn’t give a full picture of a school’s performance, but it is one solid measure of how academically rigorous a school’s curriculum is.

Student happy to attend to his free car

chrismoran — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:19:34 +0000

Some kids get good citizenship grades for showing up early and often. Bernard Alexander got something much, much better.

SignOnSanDiego
June 10, 2009

CHULA VISTA – Bernard Alexander won a Ford Mustang GT convertible Tuesday just for showing up at school every day.

The Mustang is the latest and most extravagant giveaway local educators have used in hopes of encouraging students to come to school consistently and punctually.

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

Student accused of setting off bottle bombs to be released from jail

chrismoran — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:15:01 +0000

The district attorney says Elphbert Laforteza did not act alone in setting off bottle bombs in the San Ysidro High quad last week. The DA wants one prosecution of everyone involved, so Laforteza gets out of jail free while the other suspects are rounded up.

SignOnSanDiego
June 10, 2009

CHULA VISTA – A student arrested in connection with five bottle bombs that exploded in trash barrels at San Ysidro High School last week will be released from jail while investigators look for others who were involved, a district attorney’s spokesman said.

Elphbert Laforteza, 18, was arrested Friday evening on felony explosives charges. The bomb squad disabled three more bottle bombs, and officers said they found four more partially assembled in Laforteza’s backpack.

The honors student and all-league athlete had been held on $860,000 bail and had been scheduled for arraignment on Wednesday.

The decision to release Laforteza has nothing to do with the evidence, district attorney’s spokesman Paul Levikow explained. It merely puts off his day of reckoning.

“We think there are more defendants, Levikow said. “We want to be able to handle the case with all of them.” Levikow said he did not know how many defendants there might be.

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

High school senior facing charges in bottle bomb explosions on campus

chrismoran — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:09:21 +0000

A senior prank gone bad lands an honors student in hot water.

SignOnSanDiego
June 9, 2009

SAN YSIDRO — The San Ysidro High School community is struggling to make sense of the arrest of a popular scholar-athlete who will be arraigned at a future date on felony charges that he set off bottle bombs on campus last week.

San Diego police arrested Elphbert Laforteza, 18, on Friday after five bottle bombs exploded in trash barrels in the school quad during lunch. The bomb squad disabled three more devices, and officers found four more partially assembled in Laforteza’s backpack.

No one was injured.

In the fall, Laforteza was named to the all-league football team for the South Bay League and to The San Diego Union-Tribune’s all-academic football team.

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

All (young) hands on deck

chrismoran — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:19:22 +0000

The USS Midway Museum is five years old today. This aircraft carrier built during World War II has become a hotspot for kids who weren’t even born at the time of the Gulf War.

SignOnSanDiego.com
June 7, 2009

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO — Just five years after the USS Midway Museum opened on San Diego’s Embarcadero, the retired aircraft carrier has become one of the county’s field-trip hot spots.

More than 38,000 students visited the museum with their teachers last year. The number of students visiting the below-deck warren of four classrooms known as Midway University has exceeded projections by so much that the Midway is doing renovations to add three classrooms for the coming school year, when educators expect to host 50,000 students.

The curb appeal of a 1,001-foot ship has students agog before they even board. When Isaiah Medina and his fifth-grade classmates from Morning Creek Elementary School in Sabre Springs arrived on the Navy Pier last month, he took a look at the USS Midway Museum and just said, “Whoa!”

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

47-plus years at the head of the class

chrismoran — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:31:37 +0000

Sharon Kleinschmidt has been teaching in South County high schools since the Kennedy administration. She would keep going, too, but her school district’s golden handshake is an offer she can’t refuse.

SignOnSanDiego.com
May 31, 2009

Ms. K is the grande dame of Southwest High, a woman who has been teaching nearly a generation longer than her 34-year-old school has been in existence.

Her students know her as a lady who dispenses praise in winks and who always wears a hat.

The spangled visor she wore on a recent Monday topped an ensemble of green eye shadow behind granny glasses, a suit she proudly identified as a thrift shop purchase, support hose and crisp white tennis shoes.

At 72, Ms. K – also known as Sharon Kleinschmidt – doesn’t have the power in her voice she once did. She compensates with a referee’s whistle, which she toots to signal that it’s time to start talking about sex and drugs.

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

Guiding a journey of learning

chrismoran — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:23:01 +0000

A special education teacher uses technology and a human touch to help her students succeed.

SignOnSanDiego.com
May 30, 2009

LAKESIDE — The first few weeks of every semester, Katherine McNeil says, are hell.

Emotionally disturbed and learning-disabled students are diverted to her classroom in the East County Academy of Learning because of what are described as “behavioral issues.” Cussing. Knocking over furniture. Throwing school work on the ground. Walking out of class.

Those first weeks require McNeil to establish herself as the alpha member of a fragile group. That’s where technology such as Photoshop software is particularly handy.

McNeil sells her kids on what she calls the “wow factor” – control of their image through computerized creation, sculpting and enhancement. They can present the self they imagine instead of the one that got them sent to this small special education campus in Lakeside.

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

Pool of future teachers draining?

chrismoran — Sun, 31 May 2009 03:41:09 +0000

The hundreds of teacher layoffs finalized by local school boards this month would seem to indicate there’s a glut of educators. Recruitment experts warn, though, that if today’s headlines cause too many aspiring educators to enter other fields, there may not be enough new teachers in a few years to replace the retiring Baby Boomers.

SignOnSanDiego.com
May 19, 2009

Even with thousands of teachers statewide facing layoffs, recruitment experts are warning of an impending teacher shortage.

The numbers of teaching credentials issued and students majoring in education are in sharp decline. Experts warn that news of layoffs could exacerbate the trend by driving would-be educators into fields with better prospects.

If the pipeline of future educators slows too much, it may not refill the teaching pool quickly enough to keep pace with attrition.

“I really do see – two, three years out, depending on the economy – I do see a critical shortage,” said Chris Reising, who’s in charge of teacher recruitment for the San Diego County Office of Education. “The front end of the pipeline is not being loaded because of the public perception that there are no jobs out there, that they’re laying off teachers and not hiring them.”

Read more at SignOnSanDiego

Schools struggle with method to reduce teaching staffs

chrismoran — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:01:15 +0000

School boards issued more than 1,400 tentative layoff notices to teachers in March. They didn’t go to the least effective teachers — just the least experienced ones.

SignOnSanDiego.com
April 27, 2009

Mario Gonzalez started his 90-mile commute to Borrego Springs High School an hour early last semester to teach an extra section of honors history on his own time. He stays late to coach girls soccer, and led a squad that was winless last year to the league championship this season.

None of it saved his job.

Under state law, it doesn’t matter how well Gonzalez does his job. What matters is that as a second-year teacher at Borrego Springs High, he hasn’t done it long enough. The last-hired/first-fired system that governs layoffs prohibits school boards from saving a star teacher’s job by dismissing a more veteran teacher who may not be as effective.

Superintendents who issued tentative layoff notices last month to 1,400 teachers countywide lament that they have no choice but to target some of their brightest prospects.

“I need to save these new teachers, they’re the best ones,” said San Ysidro Superintendent Manuel Paul, who handed out tentative layoff notices to 39 teachers. “They’re coming out of the university much better prepared than me, than all of us.”

Read more at SignOnSanDiego