Five Long Beach teens arrested for allegedly groping classmates

Five Long Beach teens, including at least two football players, have been arrested for allegedly groping female classmates at Polytechnic High School, according to school district and police officials.

The boys, who are not being identified because they are minors, have been charged with misdemeanor sexual battery and were released to their parents, said police spokeswoman Jackie Bezart.

On Tuesday, a female student told school officials that the boys circled her and grabbed her body after lunchtime near the student store, said Long Beach Unified School District spokesman Chris Eftychiou. The district called police and two more alleged victims came forward, he said.

In addition to the criminal charges, three of boys were suspended for five days and two will be sent to alternative schools. At least two of the boys are football players at Poly, which is a powerhouse in the sport.

Poly Co-Principal Victor Jarels sent a letter to parents Monday informing them about the incident and noting that the school is arranging sexual harassment sensitivity training for freshman boys. He urged parents or students to report any safety concerns to school officials.

“Hopefully this is extent of it,” Eftychiou said. “But we just want parents to know they and their children should feel comfortable approaching the school if they even suspect anything like this occurring.”

-- Seema Mehta

Assault on Calabasas boy may be tied to Facebook message targeting redheads

Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives are investigating an assault on a 12-year-old middle school boy in Calabasas who may have been targeted after a Facebook group urged students to beat up redheads, a sheriff’s official said today.

The boy was kicked and hit in two separate incidents on the campus of A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas by as many as 14 of his classmates, Lt. Richard Erickson said. The students who participated in the attack may have been motivated by a Facebook message telling them that Nov. 20 was “Kick a Ginger Day,” Erickson said, but had few other details about the message.

A “ginger” is label given to people with red hair, freckles and fair skin. Erickson said the victim has red hair. He said the Facebook message stems from an episode of the animated show TV “South Park.” A show in 2005 focused on prejudice against "gingers."

The incident occurred about 8:30 a.m. Friday. The boy sought help from the school nurse, who contacted the principal. Sheriff’s officials arrived on campus shortly afterward.  “He was accosted by seventh- and then eighth-graders,” Erickson said. “He was kicked and hit with fists in various areas of the body.”

No arrests have been made yet. Detectives are investigating the incident as a possible assault with a deadly weapon. Erickson said he didn’t believe that the boy’s injuries were serious enough to require hospitalization. The victim's name was not released because he is a juvenile.

Deputies believe there may have been other victims but no other students have come forward.  The principal of A.E. Wright, Kimmarie Taylor, could not be reached for comment today.

One parent, Steve Bernal, said he was told that school officials made an public address announcement about discrimination and then teachers led discussions about the topic in their classrooms.

Bernal said he was upset about what happened but glad that the school responded so well. He said he was concerned about how the Internet may have motivated the students involved.

“How does this happen off of Facebook?” he said. “Doesn’t Facebook monitor these groups that are being created?”

Bernal said what happened prompted him to have a candid conversation with his daughter.  “First thing that I need to do is start talking to my daughter more,” he said. “It’s an eye-opener as a parent.”

Last year on the same day, several similar incidents occurred in Canada, according to media reports.  Anyone with information about the Calabasas incident is encouraged to call the sheriff's station at (818) 878-1808. 

--Anna Gorman

Hiltzik on KCRW: California school funding system 'ridiculously complex'

Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik took measure of California's system for funding education this week and found it lacking … to put it mildly. Here's an excerpt from Thursday's column:

Anyone who has spent time in or around government, from the deeply embedded bureaucrat to the young policy wonk, knows that there are two important issues in funding a public program.

One, is it getting enough money? Two, is the money being spent wisely?

On both counts, California's method of financing its schools gets a big fat F. On a per-pupil basis, our schools are among the most poorly funded in the country, and no one can be sure that the money they do get serves its purpose.

Ask those who have devoted time to examining the system: The way this state doles out money to K-12 education isn't merely inefficient and ineffective, it's insane.

Hiltzik spoke about the issue with Warren Olney on KCRW-FM's "Which Way, L.A.?" Thursday. Click link below to listen.

 Michael Hiltzik on "Which Way, L.A.?"

UCLA students end a day of protest over fee hikes

After a day of protests over student fee hikes that roiled the UCLA campus, a final group of students who had taken over Campbell Hall left the building peacefully this evening.

There were about 25 students when the group dispersed shortly before 7 p.m. Students had been occupying the building since about 12:30 a.m. Students used a bike rack to block hallways and desks to block doors. Pizza boxes were strewn in the third-floor hallway.

"This is only the end of this moment," said Patricia Torres, 30, a first-year graduate student in the School of Urban Planning. "We are still dialoguing, but not stopping."

Castaic finally closing in on getting its own high school

Plans to build a long-awaited high school in Castaic have moved one step closer to fruition, after a decision to conduct simultaneous environmental impact reports on two potential sites.

“This has been an emotional and political issue in our valley; more political than it should have been,” Dennis King, an outgoing board member for the William S. Hart Union High School District, told a standing-room-only audience Wednesday. “I think it’s time to start . . . moving forward on this.”

The decision to spend up to $250,000 and potentially 18 months on the two environmental impact reports breaks more than a decade of gridlock that has prevented residents of Castaic, a semirural canyon community on the far northwestern edge of Los Angeles County, from getting a high school to call its own.

“Moving forward on two choices for the school site is the best option we’ve seen in a while,” said John Kunak, a 22-year Castaic area and president of the Castaic Union School District board, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Past efforts to find a campus site were stymied by various roadblocks, including developer money problems, disagreements over designs, traffic and noise concerns, and fear of urban encroachment.

Inglewood school board member charged with embezzlement

An Inglewood school board member is scheduled to be arraigned on charges she embezzled several thousand dollars from the Inglewood Unified School District.

Trina Williams, 49, allegedly overcharged the district $7,500 for training and traveling expenses over the span of more than a year beginning in June 2007, according to the L.A. County district attorney’s office. If she is convicted, she faces up to four years in prison.

An audit by the Los Angeles County Office of Education submitted in July exposed the alleged crime.

Williams, who was arrested earlier this month, will be arraigned Dec. 4 on one felony count of misappropriation of public funds. She is free on bail.

-- Robert Faturechi

UC regents approve fee hike amid loud student protests [Updated]

Amid loud student protests that roiled the UCLA campus, the UC Board of Regents this afternoon approved a 32% increase in student fees.

The fee hike of $2,500, or 32%, will come in two steps by next fall. That would bring the basic UC education fees to about $10,300, plus about another $1,000 for campus-based charges, for a total that would be about triple the UC cost a decade ago. Room, board and books can add another $16,000.

Only student regent Jesse Bernal voted against the undergraduate fees.

The noise of protesters came through the window as the regents voted. It was only lightly discussed, with UC President Mark G. Yudof urging that students explore all the financial-aid possibilities so they don’t get scared away or drop out.

Groups of UC students from several other campuses arrived in Westwood to join a demonstration against the fee hike, and a group of protesters was occupying a UCLA classroom building.

UCLA officials declared Campbell Hall, where the sit-in continued, closed for the day. Inside, about 40 to 50 students who had chained the doors shut shortly after midnight were issuing e-mail statements.

“We choose to fight back, to resist, where we find ourselves, the place where we live and work, our university,” their statement said. Campus police surrounded the classroom building, but no arrests were made.

Amid loud student protests that roiled the UCLA campus, the UC Board of Regents this afternoon approved a 32% increase in student fees.

The fee hike of $2,500, or 32%, will come in two steps by next fall. That would bring the basic UC education fees to about $10,300, plus about another $1,000 for campus-based charges, for a total that would be about triple the UC cost a decade ago. Room, board and books can add another $16,000.

Only student regent Jesse Bernal voted against the undergraduate fees.

The noise of protesters came through the window as the regents voted. It was only lightly discussed, with UC President Mark G. Yudof urging that students explore all the financial-aid possibilities so they don’t get scared away or drop out.

Groups of UC students from several other campuses arrived in Westwood to join a demonstration against the fee hike, and a group of protesters was occupying a UCLA classroom building.

UCLA officials declared Campbell Hall, where the sit-in continued, closed for the day. Inside, about 40 to 50 students who had chained the doors shut shortly after midnight were issuing e-mail statements.

“We choose to fight back, to resist, where we find ourselves, the place where we live and work, our university,” their statement said. Campus police surrounded the classroom building, but no arrests were made.

Hundreds rally at UCLA to protest expected 32% increase in student fees

A second day of protests roiled the UCLA campus today as the UC regents prepared to approve a 32% increase in student fees.

Groups of UC students from several other campuses arrived in Westwood to join a noisy demonstration against the fee hike, and a group of protesters was occupying a UCLA classroom building.

UCLA officials declared  Campbell Hall, where the sit-in continued, closed for the day. Inside, about 40 to 50 students had chained the doors shut shortly after midnight and were issuing e-mail statements.

“We choose to fight back, to resist, where we find ourselves, the place where we live and work, our university,” their statement said. Campus police surrounded the classroom building, but no arrests were made.

Meanwhile, across campus, a crowd of several hundred gathered outside Covel Commons, where the regents were meeting.  Students and UC employees chanted such slogans as “Whose university? Our university!”

Among them was Tommy Le, a fourth-year student at UC Santa Cruz, who left his campus at 3 a.m. today in a convoy of two buses headed south. Le, 21, an American studies major from El Monte, said he was worried about how he being able to afford the higher charges, starting with an additional $585 for the rest of the school year.

“It’s adding more stress and more burden,” said Le, who said he works two part-time jobs and sends.money home to help his family. The fee increase, he said, would be “a lose-lose situation.”

L.A. charter schools win Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant

A consortium of Los Angeles-area charter schools has won a $60-million grant to develop a new teacher evaluation system based at least partly on student test scores. The grant, part of $335 million in related awards announced today by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, represents the largest private funding for an initiative of this sort.

The local winners are five charter management organizations that specialize in opening schools that serve low-income minority communities. The charter companies are Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, ICEF Public Schools, PUC Schools and Aspire Public Schools. All are based in Southern California except Aspire, which is headquartered in Oakland and expanding its L.A.-area operations.

Veteran substitute teachers win back seniority rights in L.A. Unified

Veteran substitute teachers in Los Angeles will get more work and a shot at keeping their health benefits after the teachers union approved an agreement restoring their seniority rights.

The agreement approved Wednesday night puts back in place a system that gives the most experienced substitutes the first shot at jobs when regular teachers call in sick within the Los Angeles Unified School District. That traditional system had been altered in June under a one-year pact between district officials and A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the district’s teachers union.

That pact gave priority in substitute assignments to former full-time teachers who had been laid off July 1 because of budget cuts. About 1,800 laid-off teachers signed on as substitutes; the district uses about 2,200 substitutes per day. The specifics of the deal, which came to light two months later, caused immediate outrage among veteran substitutes and also among many full-time teachers. They said they objected both to the treatment of their part-time colleagues and to the idea that seniority rights could be so easily and quickly abrogated.

Students storm UCLA building to protest expected UC system fee increase [Updated]

About 30 students stormed UCLA’s Campbell Hall and barricaded the doors with chains and bike locks early this morning to protest a student fee increase that is expected to be endorsed by the University of California’s Board of Regents today.

[Updated at 8:39 a.m.: The UC Regents have started to meet, and hundreds of students have surrounded the building, protesting the proposed fee hike.]

Students who spent the night were sprawled outside Campbell Hall in sleeping bags. They carried posters and signs that read, “Don’t take our education away” and “Don’t privatize, democratize.” Many wore bandannas over their faces.

Dozens of other students spent the night camped out in tents on top of Parking Structure 4. Hundreds of other students are expected to join the protesters and demonstrate at the UC Regents meeting that will take place later today.

The proposed two-step student fee increase would raise UC undergraduate education costs more than $2,500, or 32%.The annual cost of a UC education, not including campus-based fees would rise to $10,302.

Donuts for Dads: 250 men read to students at Watts elementary school

More than 250 men, including LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, participated in a program this morning at 99th Street School in Watts aimed at getting fathers involved in their children's  education.

Called Donuts for Dads, the program was the brainchild of Principal Sherri Williams, who found that almost every time she called the homes of her students, she would talk to mothers. If a male would answer, he told her the mother was the spokesperson for the family.

After doing some research, Williams found that 50% of students at her school did not have a father living in the same household. In response, she started the program, in which men read to students at the elementary school for an hour.

“I wanted to create a forum where the fathers would feel comfortable,” Williams said.

UC Regents committee approves student fee increases; at least 14 protesters arrested at meeting at UCLA

A University of California Board of Regents committee today approved a series of controversial increases in student fees that, if passed by the full board, will raise UC undergraduate education costs by more than $2,500, or 32%, in two steps by fall 2010.

The finance committee vote is expected to be endorsed by the full Board of Regents on Thursday. The two-day meeting is being held at UCLA, where today's session has been marked by raucous protests with at least 14 arrests.

The first step of the fee hike, costing undergraduates an additional $585, will take effect in January. Next fall, students will see another $1,344 increase, bringing the UC education fees to $10,302, along with about $1,000 in campus-based charges. That does not include room, board and books, which can add another $16,000.

Demonstrations broke out inside the meeting hall at UCLA's Covel Commons soon after the meeting began this morning.  A presentation on the budget and fee increase proposal by UC President Mark Yudof was interrupted.  Police cleared the public from the hall but a group of protesters refused to leave, standing and singing “We Shall Overcome.” 

They were escorted out and handcuffed and police said they would be cited for misdemeanor unlawful assembly. It was not clear whether they were students.

Outside the hall, meanwhile, an estimated 300 students and union activists faced off against a large contingent of UC police in riot gear and carrying non-lethal weapons.  At one point, bottles were thrown and police pushed the crowd away from the front door.  There were no reports of serious injuries or additional arrests beyond the 14 people arrested inside.

-- Larry Gordon at UCLA

Photo: UCLA students, from left, Frances Clark, 20, a history major, and Amanda Bahamonde, 20, a biology student, protest student fee hikes today at UCLA. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times.

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Cal State trustees approve budget; protesters rally outside Long Beach headquarters

Cal State trustees approve budget; protesters rally outside Long Beach headquarters [Updated]

The California State University's Board of Trustees today approved a 2010-11 budget that seeks $884 million in state support to bolster a system struggling to recover from severe funding shortfalls.

The trustees, who were meeting in Long Beach as their UC counterparts gathered at UCLA, adopted the budget plan with little discussion, a day after it was approved by their finance committee. About 100 protesters gathered outside the Cal State headquarters, marching in a circle, chanting and carrying signs urging the trustees to "Stop the Program Cuts Now" and "Stop the War on Higher Education." The demonstrators did not disrupt the meeting.

The budget plan requests $305 million to restore one-time cuts imposed in 2009-10; $283 million to restore money for collective bargaining agreements not funded in 2008-09 and 2009-10; and $296 million for mandatory cost and compensation increases and improvements in student services and instruction.

The budget plan would increase Cal State’s general fund support from $2.3 billion to $3.2 billion. [Updated 1:59 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the budget plan would increase Cal State’s support from $2.3 million to $3.2 million.]

State support for the 23-campus system has been slashed $625 million over the last two years, resulting in staff and faculty furloughs, reduced enrollment and student fee increases.

-- Carla Rivera in Long Beach

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Eight arrested at UC Regents meeting at UCLA

Soon after the UC Regents meeting began today, demonstrations broke out inside the hall, UCLA’s Covel Commons, disrupting a presentation by UC President Mark Yudof on the budget situation and his recommendation for student fee increases.

When the protesters refused to be quiet, university police cleared the public from the hall, but eight people refused to leave, standing and singing “We Shall Overcome” for several choruses.

They were escorted out and handcuffed and police said they would be cited for misdemeanor unlawful assembly. It was not clear whether they were students.

Outside the hall, meanwhile, several hundred protesters gathered, holding banners protesting the likely vote to increase fees and shouting, "Cut from the top!"

-- Larry Gordon at UCLA   

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University of California student fees could increase by more than $2,500

A UC Board of Regents committee is expected to recommend a series of highly controversial increases in student fees today that would raise undergraduate education costs by more than $2,500, or 32%, in two steps by next fall.

The first will be a $585 rise in undergraduate fees for the rest of the current academic year. Then for next fall, students will see another $1,344 on top of that. It will bring the basic UC education fees to about $10,300, along with about $1,000 in campus-based fees.

That does not include room, board and books, which can add another $16,000.

The Regents' committee action was expected to be met by large protests inside and outside the UCLA meeting hall, where the finance committee was to vote.

The full board is expected to give final approval Thursday.

-- Larry Gordon at UCLA

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L.A. mayor and teachers union to compete for control of Jefferson High

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the teachers union will compete for control of Jefferson High School under one of the nation’s most closely watched school-improvement initiatives. Today marks the first key deadline — the final day for groups inside or outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to turn in “letters of intent” for reform plans.

Up for grabs are 12 struggling existing schools and 18 campuses that are scheduled to open next fall.

The joust over Jefferson, located in the Central Alameda neighborhood south of downtown Los Angeles, was both revealed and underscored by dueling news conferences this morning. United Teachers Los Angeles struck first, at 7 a.m., in front of the Jefferson entrance. The timing had more to do with allowing students and teachers to participate before the start of school than with upstaging the mayor, but the rhetoric was nonetheless defiant toward outside forces seeking to take over.

“Politicians have to stop using public education as their means to beat their chests,” said UTLA President A.J. Duffy. “As they say in the commodities market, this is all about their futures -- their political futures.”

USC again has most foreign students, followed by NYU [Updated]

For the eighth consecutive year, USC enrolled the highest number of foreign students of any U.S. university last year, a new report shows. USC, which recruits strongly in Asia, hosted 7,482 international students in the 2008-09 school year, according to the study by the Institute of International Education with support from the State Department. [Updated at 2:16 p.m.: In all, USC enrolls about 34,000 undergraduate and graduate students.]

New York University, with 6,761, had the second-largest international contingent and Columbia University, with 6,685, ranked third. UCLA was in eighth place, with 5,590. California had the most foreign students, followed by New York and Texas.

The "Open Doors" survey, released today, showed that the number of international students at about 3,000 U.S. colleges and universities rose 8% last year to a new high of 671,616. Big increases in students from China helped fuel the rise. As in other recent years, India once again sent the most students to the U.S., followed by China, South Korea, Canada and Japan.

But there are indications that the growth might have slowed this fall semester because of economic conditions and concerns about the H1N1 virus. A related but separate survey of 700 schools by the institute and seven other education organizations showed that 45% of those campuses reported an increase in foreign students this fall, compared to 56% last year.

-- Larry Gordon

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30 L.A. schools: Who gets to run them? Key deadline today in reform plan

Today marks the first key deadline for a much-watched school-reform plan that allows groups inside or outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to bid for control of 12 struggling schools as well as 18 newly constructed campuses. Groups must turn in “letters of intent” by the end of the day signaling their plans to submit full-fledged bids by Jan. 11. [Note, an earlier headline for this post mistakenly said 12 schools instead of 30.]

The reform effort will be highlighted at two competing news conferences, the first one called by the school district’s teachers union and the other by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The United Teachers Los Angeles event, at Jefferson High School in Central Alameda, was set to start at 7 a.m., to allow teachers to participate before their classes begin.  UTLA has predicted that groups of teachers will submit bids for every school on the list.

As of Friday, groups apparently spearheaded by teachers had turned in letters of intent for Griffith Joyner Elementary in Watts and Hyde Park Elementary in Hyde Park as well as Jefferson High.

At Jefferson, UTLA’s leadership also is expected to offer its first reaction to Friday’s forecast by L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines that employees should accept a 12% pay cut as well as furlough days for next year.

Personal data of Cal Poly Pomona applicants inadvertently put online

The Social Security numbers, home addresses and phone contacts for at least 300 students who applied for admission to Cal Poly Pomona six years ago were unintentionally disclosed online, the university said today. 

The applicants were notified this week and urged to contact credit-reporting agencies, school official said.

The personal information, which did not include financial data, “was mistakenly put in a publicly accessible folder on a university server in November 2003," and Google and other search-engine companies mined the data, according to a statement released by Tim Lynch, senior media communications coordinator for Cal Poly Pomona.

Lynch said a maximum of 355 applicants could have been affected.

Four Latino Angelenos win scholarships for math, science

In an effort to bring more Latino youth into science and technology, the National Alliance for Hispanic Health today announced 10 students (four of them Angelenos) won a $42,500 scholarship for college tuition and internship support.

Over the next five years, the Alliance/Merck Ciencia Hispanic Scholars Program will award a total of 50 students who plan to major in the fields of science, technology, engineering or mathematics. In addition, 125 students will receive one-time $2,000 scholarship.

“The new century of discovery and innovation is really going to be dependent on whether we make investments today in Hispanic youth,” said Adolph Falcon, alliance senior vice president.

The program, which targets students of Hispanic descent in Los Angeles, Brownsville, TX and Elizabeth, NJ, is funded through a $4-million grant from the Merck Company Foundation, the pharmaceutical giant’s philanthropic initiative.

The scholarship will also connect scholars with two mentors – one on-campus, and another whose interests and field match each student’s.

According to Falcon, mentoring helps ensure that Latino students who express an interest in science or math related fields don't get derailed during their four years at college.

Alejandro Aguirre, a Boyle Heights native who started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall, said he “jumped up and down” when he found out he had won the scholarship. Aguirre, who turns 18 tomorrow, served as president of the Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement program at Roosevelt High, where helped build a solar-powered boat that took second place in the rookie division of the Metropolitan Water District's 2008 Solar Cup.

The Alliance today also opened up the application process for next year’s round of scholars, with an application deadline of February 15, 2010. Interested students can apply at www.alliancescholars.org or call 1-866-783-2645.

--Amina Khan

Job training programs set to receive some of L.A.'s federal stimulus money

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced that the city is making $10.3 million in federal stimulus money available for worker training programs.

The grants will be issued by the Community Development Department. Of the $10.3 million, $4 million will be used for vocational training for 1,000 workers and $6.3 million will be available to train an estimated 2,000 people for high-wage jobs in healthcare, construction, transportation and other sectors.

Villaraigosa said the city has received $43.7 million in job training funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act so far, and between $300 million and $400 million in overall stimulus money.

-- Phil Willon at L.A. City Hall

L.A. school leaders, community groups to debunk inflammatory flier aimed at undocumented parents [Updated]

Two L.A. Unified School District leaders plan to hold a news conference this morning with community groups to debunk a Spanish-language flier claiming illegal-immigrant parents who sign a petition calling for a charter school will be deported.

[Updated at 8:45 a.m.: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that the teachers union was holding the news conference.]

The 10 a.m. news conference outside the teachers union headquarters in the Wilshire District is the latest development in ongoing disagreements over a proposal to improve 30 struggling or new campuses, with the school district and its teachers union stalled in crucial negotiations.

[Updated at 8:59 a.m.: A previous version of this post said the disagreement was over control of the schools, but actually involves proposals to improve the campuses.]

Becoming a charter school is one option for the 30 campuses designated for reform plans. Charters are independently managed and frequently nonunion. They often have been criticized by United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union, but there is no evidence the union's leadership is responsible for the flier.

Participants in today’s news conference are expected to include school board President Monica Garcia, school board member Yolie Flores Aguilar and representatives of several allied community organizations.

Flores Aguilar authored the resolution that allows groups inside or outside the district to bid for control of new or struggling schools. Garcia is a close ally of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has supported the Flores Aguilar resolution.

Chez Panisse's Alice Waters visits a Los Angeles charter school

Alice Waters, the chef-owner of the landmark restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, came to Los Angeles today to talk about school lunch and school gardens at the Larchmont Charter School.

Our colleagues at the Daily Dish report:

When Alice Waters talks about improving school lunch, she doesn't just mean making the chicken nuggets more nutritious. She wants to see a table set, maybe with flowers. She wants children to have enough time to have conversations as they eat.

"There are lots of wonderful gardens that are happening in schools, and some progress is being made in the kitchens," Waters, chef-owner of the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, said in the garden at Larchmont Charter School.

And eventually? She'd like to see high schools in which the students run the cafeterias and work in them alongside teachers and cooks. She'd like lunch to be served, for free, to everyone.

Former L.A. Community College District chancellor takes Middle East post

Marshall Drummond, former chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District and of the statewide community college system, has a new job in higher education. He recently started as chief academic officer and provost for the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates, according to an announcement made Monday.

Drummond twice served as chancellor of the nine-campus Los Angeles college district, most recently from 2007 until last summer. After placing him on a leave of absence in June without public explanation, the district announced that he had left the post with nearly two years remaining on his contract and that it would pay him $428,750 in severance. Drummond has not responded to requests for interviews about his unexpected departure.

He led the California community college system from 2004 to 2007.

In his new position with the Higher Colleges of Technology, founded in 1988, Drummond will guide academic policy for 18,000 students and 2,000 faculty and staff members on 17 campuses in several cities, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

-- Larry Gordon