Former Los Angeles City Councilman and mayoral candidate Michael Woo has been named dean of Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Environmental Design, school officials announced today.
“It is an honor to join this elite academic program in Cal Poly Pomona,” Woo said in a statement. “The College of Environmental Design has long enjoyed an exceptional reputation in the design community, and I look forward to building on that legacy.”
Woo, a member of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission since 2005, is an expert on land use and transportation issues. He initiated a moratorium on new billboards and opened a review of the health effects of breathing polluted air in residential developments near freeways.
He also helped draft the city’s “Do Real Planning “ principles adopted in 2006, which advocate affordable housing and jobs near mass transit, improving the city’s aesthetics and upgrading its walkability.
California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed said that what passes for algebra in high schools is really “algebra light,” and characterized as “outrageous” that school districts don’t require more of their students.
The backdrop for Reed’s comments, in an interview and in formal remarks before a lunchtime audience this week, was the official opening of the new California State University Center to Close the Achievement Gap.
“We can’t get many school districts to adopt A-G,” Reed said, referring to the courses required to apply to the University of California and Cal State systems. “That is outrageous.”
And even students who take these classes aren’t learning what they’re supposed to, according to Cal State data. More than 60% of first-time freshmen require remedial education in English, mathematics or both. All these students passed the required college preparatory curriculum and earned at least a B grade point average in high school. The picture is more stark for minority students. More than half of African American students, for example, enter Cal State as proficient in neither math nor English.
Focusing on math teachers in particular, Reed said that “less than half” of algebra teachers “had algebra classes or were taught how to teach algebra.”
Developing remedies will be a focus of the new center, which is mostly privately funded, with a projected $1.6-million annual budget. The top four donors are State Farm Insurance, Edison International, Macy's and the United Way of the Bay Area. Cal State’s contribution includes office space and technical support.
The center will be run by veteran educator Jim Lanich, 52, as the next step in an earlier collaboration with Cal State. In recent years, Lanich has headed California Business for Education Excellence, which also is mostly privately funded. In that role, Lanich helped develop an honor roll of high-achieving schools, including many that serve low-income and minority families.
Lanich also has used this platform to fault the California school accountability system as overly lax and wasteful of taxpayer dollars.
In his remarks, during a gathering on the Cal State L.A. campus east of downtown, Lanich said the lever to change would be improving teacher quality, developing real accountability and focusing on practices that have produced results. Working teachers need an opportunity to learn from successful schools, he said.
Reed added that these top-flight programs also need to inform teacher training at the 22 Cal State schools with teacher credentialing programs, which produce 17,000 teachers a year.
Los Angeles teachers would surrender some compensation in exchange for preserving jobs under terms being negotiated between the teachers union and the Los Angeles Unified School District, The Times has learned.
The deal, if completed, would reverse many, if not most, of just over 2,000 teacher layoffs that took effect on July 1.
A key to the bargain is about $65 million in class-size reduction money that is expected to be available from the state, said sources close to the talks. Faced with a budget deficit, L.A. Unified surrendered these dollars rather than pay its share of what it costs to lower class sizes to a ratio of 20 to 1 for students in kindergarten through third grade. But if the union agrees to compensation concessions, the district would then have funds to qualify for the extra money. The lower class sizes would mean more classroom jobs.
Elementary teachers would be in line to reap the benefit, although the discussions have included possible ways to rehire secondary teachers as well.
The union membership would have to approve the deal, but union leaders could sell the pact as getting added value in exchange for the sacrifice.
A Los Angeles Unified School District special education teacher who has been paid to stay away from classrooms for more than seven years while the district tried to fire him for alleged sexual harassment should be dismissed, a county Superior Court judge has ruled.
Matthew Kim, who formerly taught at Grant High School in Van Nuys, is accused of groping and making inappropriate comments to several students and co-workers. Kim, who was born with cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, was assigned to a district office in 2002 after the allegations and was paid his full salary and benefits.
Many critics said his case was emblematic of the difficulty facing state school districts, and particularly the Los Angeles Unified School District, in firing problematic teachers. A Times series, published in May, found that it can take years of paperwork and hearings to dismiss educators accused of wrongdoing. And it is mostly the egregious cases in which districts pursue termination.
In the Kim case, a three-member state commission that oversees teacher dismissals recommended that he be returned to the classroom. The case has wound its way through the court system, and in a decision made public Monday, Judge David P. Yaffe was sharply critical of the commission.
Yaffe ruled that the state commission ignored evidence that Kim was sexually harassing co-workers and students and said the commission was changing “the facts of the case to support its prior decision instead of changing its prior decision to one that is supported by the facts of the case.”
“Such actions … demonstrate the commission’s profound contempt for, and disrespect of, the judgments and orders of the courts of this state,” Yaffe wrote.
L.A. Unified officials must respond to the court, but L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said he would move to suspend Kim’s pay immediately.
-- Jason Song
Photo: Matthew Kim has severe cerebral palsy and has been repeatedly accused of sexual harassment. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times
Officials announced today that the state budget crisis has caused a delay in payments to school districts, but were hopeful that no school system would experience cash-flow problems as a result.
This delay marks the second time this year that the delivery of school funding has been postponed. A February legislative deal put off paying $2 billion that was due at that time so the state could keep its books balanced. But California’s worsening financial condition has resulted in an additional postponement applying to these dollars as well as another $2 billion that would have gone out to school districts today.
Instead, those funds, totaling about $4 billion, will be released July 30 to ensure that the state has sufficient cash on hand.
“I have no option but to delay payments and issue IOUs that push the state's problems onto schools, taxpayers, businesses and local governments," state Controller John Chiang said in a joint release with state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.
Word of the latest delay was “a bit of a surprise,” said Ken Shelton, an assistant superintendent for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which oversees the financial condition of school districts in the county. “My big concern is the ability of school districts to meet payroll. This may not be overly significant. Most districts are OK for the moment.”
School systems can obtain short-term loans or borrow from other funds, including federal stimulus money, to cover the cash shortfall, which is presumably temporary. Over the last year, districts statewide have slashed programs and laid off thousands to offset state funding reductions.
Two cash-strapped county school systems, Wilsona and South Whittier, already had applied for a waiver that would allow them to receive their state funding sooner, Shelton said.
A San Bernardino County school district has canceled the remainder of a special summer session that it scheduled to make up for regular school days that were too short.
Chino Valley Unified hoped the extra 34-day session would satisfy state officials, who could impose a penalty of $5 million based on the number of both the missed days and the affected students. The mistake occurred at two elementary schools in the district of 34,000 students.
On Thursday, the state's Board of Education voted unanimously to reject the extra session as inadequate.
Chino Valley Interim Supt. Wayne Joseph said that the poorly attended supplemental classes would end Friday: “Why continue at more of a cost to the district?”
The full extra session had been projected to cost about $200,000.
State officials denied today a school district’s novel plan to make up for lost instructional time—and avoid a $5-million penalty—by providing a last-minute summer session.
By a 9-0 vote, the state Board of Education rejected an effort by Chino Valley Unified to offer a 34-day special session to students in grades 4, 5 and 6 at two schools. These campuses had scheduled 34 school days that were shorter than the state’s minimum allowed length. As a result, those days don’t count, even though the actual lost minutes add up to 1 or 2 full school days.
Chino Valley’s make-up strategy fell short because parents received last-minute notice, attendance was expected to be minimal and coursework (and attendance) was optional and not academically rigorous, said Theresa Garcia, the state board’s executive director.
At Rolling Ridge School, for example, only 52 of 278 affected students were expected to attend at all, and only for an average of 17 days. The summer session is costing the district about $200,000.
In addition to the fine, state law requires the district to lengthen the school year for affected students by 34 days for each of the next two years.
Local Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills) is sponsoring legislation that would reduce the penalty. The bill could be voted on next week. And the district also can apply for relief to the state’s Education Audit Appeals Panel.
A district spokeswoman had no immediate response other than to say that district staff and board members were reviewing the state’s decision.
A former Lynwood high school principal has been arrested on suspicion of molesting three students at the school and another in the Whittier area.
Jonas Silverio, 40, was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon by sheriff’s detectives at LAX after flying in from the Philippines. He allegedly fled to that country in May and returned Wednesday, unaware that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
Silverio is accused of molesting at least two members of the girls’ volleyball team at Lynwood’s Firebaugh High School, said L.A. County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Scott. He’s been charged with 17 counts of committing lewd acts upon a child and is being held on $1 million bail.
He resigned his position at Firebaugh High in early May after sheriff detectives began investigating the molestation allegations. The incidents allegedly occurred in 2001 and 2005. In addition to being principal, Silverio was the school’s volleyball coach.
Scott said their investigation is ongoing and that detectives are checking allegations that go back as far as 1996. Detectives from the Special Victims Bureau learned of the victim in Whittier/ Santa Fe Springs area during the investigation, Scott said.
Investigators are asking that anyone with information about Silverio conduct contact them at (866) 247-5877.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said this morning that meddling with voter-approved funding guarantees for schools would cause “severe and long-lasting harm to both our students and our schools.”
The comments come in response to a proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to suspend the budgeting formula as part of a plan to wipe out California’s $26.3-billion deficit.
Calling the proposal “short-sighted” and “irresponsible,” O’Connell said at a morning press conference that schools were being “made the scapegoat for the budget crisis.”
“Enough is enough,” he said, citing reductions to school funding made in recent months as the state’s revenues have plummeted.
The Democratic leaders of the Legislature have said they oppose suspending the Proposition 98 funding guarantees for K-12 education, the largest spending item in California’s budget.
The powerful education lobby is gearing up to oppose the suspension as well.
On Monday, members of the California Teachers Assn. delivered 10,000 protest postcards to Schwarzenegger’s San Diego office.
Rick Pratt, assistant executive director of California School Boards Assn., joined O’Connell at this morning’s press conference. He blamed Sacramento officials for passing the state’s budget problems to schoolchildren.
“In trying to solve the state’s fiscal deficit,” Pratt said, “we’re creating learning deficits in our kids.”
-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento
Photo: State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell speaks to a crowd in May. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
Two new Los Angeles Board of Education members were sworn in this afternoon.
Steve Zimmer replaced Marlene Canter and represents District 4, which covers most of the Westside and parts of Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. He defeated Fairfax High teacher Mike Stryer.
San Fernando City Councilwoman Nury Martinez replaces Julie Korenstein and represents District 6, which includes the eastern San Fernando Valley. She narrowly defeated Cal State Northridge instructor Louis Pugliese.
Monica Garcia, the current school board president, who ran unopposed, was also sworn in.
All three were elected to four-year terms. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made some opening remarks in which he wished the new board members well and urged them to continue to push hard on behalf of the children of the nation's second-largest school district.
Later, Garcia was reelected by her colleagues for another one-year term as board president, a largely ceremonial position.
Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said today that he was taking "appropriate personnel action" against the principal and athletic director of Birmingham High School for allowing comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to use the school's football team in a photo shoot.
Cortines declined to say what the action was, citing confidentiality rules. Depending on the nature of the discipline, it could become somewhat moot tomorrow when the Board of Education is scheduled to vote on Birmingham's petition to become an independent charter school. If that passes, Principal Marcia Coates and Athletic Director Rick Prizant would no longer be employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Cortines has been incensed by a photo shoot of Cohen, in his role as gay Austrian fashionista "Bruno," that appeared in the latest issue of GQ magazine and on its website. It showed the scantily clad comedian in poses with the Birmingham football team, including one on top of a player on the ground.
"I don't believe that there is a place on any high school in America, including Los Angeles, for photos such as these," Cortines said in a news release issued by his office.
Cortines said he recognized that some people believe he has overreacted to the shoot, which might be seen as tame in today's entertainment landscape.
“I think those that think it’s no big deal generally don’t have children on campus," he said. "I’ve gotten e-mails from grandparents, all sorts of adults … who are embarrassed by this and believe this shouldn’t have happened.”
Told that some who have commented to The Times had suggested he might have reacted as he did because the character played by Cohen is gay, the superintendent strongly disagreed. "It has nothing to do with whether one is heterosexual or homosexual," he said. "There is just no place for this kind of scene on a school campus using students.”
Birmingham was paid $500 for the shoot, according to the superintendent, and the players turned in parental consent forms. However, the district said an investigation determined that the forms did not specify the nature of the shoot. The district also said the photos violated California Interscholastic Federation rules, which prohibit students from wearing football uniforms out of season.
Prizant, who is the school's filming coordinator as well as its athletic director, was present when the photos were taken, according to the district.
Voters approved a parcel tax that would raise $3.25 million annually for Palos Verdes Peninsula schools, according to county elections officials.
Nearly 69% of the 18,012 voters who cast ballots by mail voted for the $165-per-parcel levy, which needed to be approved by two-thirds of voters to pass. The parcel tax will expire after four years.
As schools deal with billions of dollars' in state funding cuts, districts are increasingly turning to local parcel taxes to shore up their finances. South Pasadena voters approved one earlier this month, and Tuesday is the final day for voters in the Rowland Heights and La Canada Flintridge districts to cast ballots on parcel taxes.
This is one of those only-in-L.A.-and-even-then-it's-a-little-too-weird-to-be-true stories.
The latest issue of GQ features a cover story about comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his new guise as gay Austrian fashionista "Bruno." What brought it to our attention was that GQ includes photos shot at L.A.'s Birmingham High School, featuring the barely clad Cohen cavorting with the Birmingham football team. An online slide show shows Cohen wearing shoulder pads, tight red shorts, an athletic cup and little else while engaging in "drills" with the team, in one case lying on top of a player he has evidently just "tackled."
At most, we're talking about a PG rating (for the photo shoot, not the new movie). But inasmuch as it did involve minors at a public high school, there are those who are not amused. In particular, the stunt has incensed Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, adding fuel to a debate over whether Birmingham, in Lake Balboa, should be allowed to convert to a charter school. The charter conversion is up for a vote before the school board Wednesday. "This recent GQ thing has not helped matters," Cortines said today. "We’ve allowed our students to be used, and not in the most glamorous circumstances, either."
The Daily News on Saturday quoted the superintendent as blaming Birmingham Principal Marcia Coates and Athletic Director Rick Prizant, both of whom have been among those spearheading the drive to remove the school from day-to-day district oversight and become a charter. But Cortines said today that Coates is responsible, not Prizant, and he has asked local district Supt. Jean Brown "to take the appropriate action." He did not say what that would be. (A mandatory viewing of "Borat," perhaps?)
Coates said she had been told not to comment on the matter, and Prizant said he similarly would not respond. Brown did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
— Mitchell Landsberg
[Updated at 5 p.m. with comment from Jean Brown and a clarification from Cortines:
Brown called to say that "Local District 1, on behalf of Birmingham, is very embarrassed by what has happened, and very disappointed in the judgment that allowed the students to participate in this activity.” She said she was attempting to determine who was responsible, after which "we'll decide what our next steps are going to be." She added that she was unfamiliar with Cohen and his movies but found the "nature of the poses" to be inappropriate.
Through a spokesman, Cortines called to say he hadn't intended to say that Prizant wasn't responsible, only that Coates was ultimately responsible.]
Students at 186th Street Elementary School in Gardena like to call themselves peacemakers because part of their curriculum focuses on creating safe classrooms, and each year they embark on a peace march spreading their message of love and respect throughout the community.
Now that message will be shared with children around the world through copies of a book called "Colors of Love and Peace," a collection of student artwork and messages of inspiration that will be distributed to children’s hospitals nationally and internationally.
The book project received a send-off today at a news conference and signing aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach attended by student artists, teachers and community leaders, including Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who promised to hand-deliver a box of the books to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
The project was the brainchild of artist and poet Fereidun Shokatfard, whose wife is a special education teacher at the school. About 5,000 books have been printed, said 186th Street Principal Marcia Sidney-Reed. Included with the book is a CD with songs from the International Children’s Choir of Long Beach. One unique feature is the forward written by the Dalai Lama, who called the book "a delightful and inspiring project."
The children said their artwork and messages came from the heart. Third-grader Shirley Gomez’s tempera paint and construction-paper work titled "Lions" shows a proud red beast wearing a green crown against a pastoral background, with the message "The lion protects the jungle and the doctor will protect you."
The Moorpark High School Academic Decathlon team, which won the national competition for the fourth time earlier this year, was greeted by President Obama in the Oval Office earlier this week.
The meeting was one stop in a whirlwind visit to Washington, D.C., by the team and coach Larry Jones. They dined with members of Congress, visited museums and toured the White House.
The trip was one of the perks after a year spent studyingfor the Academic Decathlon competition, a grueling battery of quizzes, essays, tests, interviews and speeches. The nine-member Moorpark team took academic gold at the national competition in April in Memphis, beating every other team in the country and winning 30 individual medals.
It was Moorpark's fourth national championship, further cementing California's dominance in Academic Decathlon. It was the state's seventh consecutive national title and its 16th since the competition began in 1982.
Children from low-income families will be able to get free meals at sites throughout the state this summer, including public school campuses, even though summer sessions at most L.A. Unified schools have been canceled due to funding concerns, state officials announced Wednesday.
Sites offering the meals are listed here and offer up to two meals daily, three if children are enrolled in a camp. Children do not have to be enrolled in any program to be eligible for the meals, according to California Department of Education officials.
A technical error — which arose because some ZIP Codes cross into two counties — resulted in underestimating the total number of active dentists and the ratio of dentists to population in some areas. The overall findings remain largely the same: some counties are experiencing a severe shortage, others may soon see shortages when a wave of aging dentists retires.
“In most cases, it didn’t matter,” said the report’s primary author, Nadereh Pourat, director of research planning at the UCLA School of Public Health. “The problem was in the border areas where a ZIP Code crosses two counties.”
Pourat said the problem first came to her attention because Hollister-area dentists who had been contacted by The Times questioned the accuracy of the data. UCLA withdrew the report from its website a few days after the May 28 release and issued a correction last week. In the Hollister case, a medical building just over the county line housed a number of dentists, throwing the numbers off.
Among the corrections:
* The number of dentists practicing in California is 26,500, not the 26,400 previously estimated.
*San Benito County has a ratio of 1.5 dentists per 5,000. Previous estimates were less than 1.
*Inyo County has a ratio of 2.2 dentists per 5,000, previously estimated as less than 1.
*Yuba County, which had not previously been reported as a shortage area, has less than 1 dentist per 5,000 residents.
“The fact doesn’t change,” said Pourat, who released the corrections last week. “There are some areas where there are not a sufficient number of dentists.... You have to travel a long ways.... There’s still problems.”
In a case that triggered national debate about academic freedom, a UC Santa Barbara investigation has cleared a sociology professor of improper conduct for e-mailing students images that compared Palestinian casualties of Israel’s Gaza offensive this year to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
However, professor William Robinson said Thursday he was not satisfied with faculty and administrative findings that he should not be disciplined. Robinson wants a campus apology and an investigation of what he said were improper efforts to silence him.
In January, Robinson sent his class the images, along with a statement in which he described Israel’s policies in Gaza as a slow-motion genocide. Two Jewish students dropped the class, saying that they felt intimidated by the e-mail. They also said that Robinson had violated campus policies.
Some Jewish activists alleged that Robinson’s e-mail was anti-Semitic. Many academics and civil libertarians defended the professor, who is Jewish, and called the accusations and investigation an attack on academic freedom.
Cyndi Silverman, the Anti-Defamation League’s Santa Barbara regional director, said the campus decision "creates a disturbing message that only the rights of faculty are to be respected, not the rights of individual students."
Investigators fanned out to multiple campuses of Ivy Academia, a high-performing charter school in the San Fernando Valley, to execute search warrants as part of an investigation by the district attorney's Public Integrity Division, authorities said Wednesday.
It was not clear what the search was for, or what crimes are being investigated.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, said she couldn't comment on the matter, except to say that a series of warrants were executed Tuesday morning "as part of an ongoing investigation." She said the affidavit describing the reason for the warrants had been sealed.
Jerry Thornton, inspector general for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said his office assisted in the investigation. He also declined to describe the nature of the probe.
Summer school, which was eliminated in Hawaiian Gardens because of state budget cuts facing the ABC Unified School District, is back on schedule for elementary students after the City Council agreed to pick up the tab.
The council voted 4 to 0 on Tuesday to spend nearly $120,000 in general funds to provide four weeks of instruction and breakfast for 640 students at the city’s four elementary schools.
“The city of Hawaiian Gardens believes in the importance of education,” Mayor Michael Gomez said in a written statement. “It was important that we find the [money] to ensure that elementary school children in our city have access to a comprehensive summer learning program.”
Parents will be notified by automated phone calls on how to enroll their children, or can call the district at (562) 926-5566.
ABC Unified, along with districts across the state, including Los Angeles Unified, eliminated summer school after learning that more state funding cuts were imminent. ABC had cut $20 million in spending in the coming school year, and learned that it would need to trim an additional $3.2 million. Parents across the state are scrambling to find summer placements for their children.
Citing safety concerns for students, the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District unanimously decided to oppose the design of the Expo Light Rail Line, which would pass at street level near Overland Avenue and Charnock Road elementary schools.
Board members said they would not support the Expo Line unless the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority could eliminate all the safety hazards of operating light-rail trains near schools. They also directed the district's superintendent to exhaust all legal options while trying to resolve the Expo Line's safety issues.
The board resolution relates to the second phase of the project, which would run from Culver City to Santa Monica. Phase 1 from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City has already generated considerable controversy about street-level crossings near schools. That segment is under construction.
Ten school districts across the state, including in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Pasadena, will share more than $11 million in grants from the James Irvine Foundation and ConnectEd to create themed career- and college-prep tracks in high schools.
Known as pathways, the tracks can focus on industries such as biomedical and health sciences, agriculture and renewable resources, or arts, media and entertainment. Research has shown that students involved in pathway programs are more engaged in their classes and have higher graduation rates. The grants are part of a statewide initiative that encourages high schools to offer at least six pathways that combine rigorous academics with career-specific technical instruction and hands-on learning.
The Antioch, Long Beach, Pasadena, Porterville, Sacramento City and West Contra Costa unified school districts will each receive more than $1 million over two years. The Montebello, San Diego, Stockton and Los Angeles unified school districts will each receive $125,000.
The L.A. Unified School Board approved a budget this afternoon that includes nearly $1.6 billion in potential cuts over the next three years.
The budget includes nearly $132 million in cuts for the district’s current fiscal year and about $143 million for the next year, and will result in less transportation, larger class sizes and layoffs.
The measure passed by a 5-2 vote, with board members Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte and Julie Korenstein voting against it.
Protesters had gathering at L.A. Unified headquarters to voice their displeasure over the school district’s budget.
Unified officials have already slashed almost $570 million from this year’s books, stopped offering most summer school classes and issued preliminary layoff notices to nearly 2,200 teachers in an attempt to balance the budget.
Protesters, including parents and district staff as well as union officials, have urged the district to preserve class size and not lay off teachers by focusing cuts away from school sites and using more federal stimulus money.
After school districts across California, including Los Angeles Unified, slashed summer school offerings to deal with state budget cuts, parents have been scrambling to find summer placements for their children. A story about their struggles in The Times last week prompted several responses from programs with open seats:
Bright Star Schools is offering a free, five-week summer enrichment program for students in grades 5 to 11. In addition to academic tutoring, the program includes sports, arts and crafts, and field trips from June 29 through July 31. Interested parents can learn more by calling (323) 954-9957 or by visiting the office at Stella Middle Charter Academy at 2636 Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles.
The South Pasadena Educational Foundation has open seats in paid K-12 enrichment and remedial classes in math, reading, writing, arts, science, music and sports. The high school classes run from June 23 to July 24, and the elementary and middle school classes run from June 29 to July 24. Fees vary. Parents can learn more by visiting the foundation's office at 1020 El Centro St., Room 3, South Pasadena, or by visiting its website.
El Centro de Accion Social has openings in its "Summer School in the Park" program, which runs from June 25 to July 31. The program, held at Pasadena's Central Park, includes academic classes and field trips, and runs from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., including breakfast and lunch. Tuition is on a sliding scale depending on family income, but is $100 maximum for each public school student, and $300 maximum for each private school student. For more information, call (626) 792-3148.
State regulators performed a shoddy investigation and let UCLA off too lightly for violations stemming from a chemistry lab fire that killed a staff research assistant, the victim's family contends in papers filed with Cal-OSHA and the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board.
Sheri Sangji, 23, suffered severe burns over 43% of her body when an experiment with air-sensitive chemicals burst into flame Dec. 29 and ignited her clothing. Sangji, who was not wearing a protective lab coat, died 18 days later.
Last month, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health concluded that Sangji was improperly trained and not wearing protective clothing. Cal-OSHA cited UCLA for one regulatory and three "serious" violations, levying fines totaling $31,875.
UCLA paid the fines but appealed the violations and is seeking a stipulation from Cal-OSHA that it admits no fault in connection with the findings -- a legal move aimed at limiting the university's liability.
Photo: Sheri Sangji, 23, was working in a UCLA laboratory in December 2008
when she was fatally burned in a fire. She is shown at her Pomona
College graduation in May 2008. Credit: Naveen Sangli
The KTLA Traffic Blog provides regular updates of the Southern California traffic situation during the morning drive. This feed is live from 4 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Subscribe
