San Juan Capistrano celebrates, but will swallows arrive?

It’s a century-old tradition that has waned in recent years, the annual migration of cliff swallows — those diminutive birds that live in mud nests along vertical walls — from Argentina to Orange County’s Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Though fewer and fewer seem to return each year, the celebration for their arrival hasn’t diminished.

On Tuesday, residents and schoolchildren alike will celebrate St. Joseph’s Day and the fabled return of the swallows to the mission, an Orange County tradition that goes back generations. People used to say you could set your clock to the birds’ arrival.

PHOTOS: Swallows' Day 2012 at the mission

Mission officials are honoring St. Joseph — spouse of the Virgin Mary — and the swallows’ arrival by ringing the mission’s historic bells and offering live performances by a mariachi band and flamenco dancers.

Tuesday is stoked in tradition for the mission, but much has changed in recent years. As fewer of the birds have returned since they were first welcomed onto the grounds nearly 100 years ago, mission officials have tried different ways to lure them back.

This year the mission is playing swallow mating calls from speakers behind a statue of Father Junipero Serra, the mission’s founder. The recorded mating sounds had some success in 2012, mission officials said. They hope the momentum will carry forward.

Experts blame the swallows’ disappearance on urbanization. Mission restoration projects in recent years have also scared off the avians.

“I think if we keep trying long enough, eventually, some individuals will come by, they’ll see the mission and they will realize it’s a good place to nest, as they did in the past,” said Charles Brown, a swallows expert from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.

But as a recent study shows, the swallows are adjusting to a changing world. A study published Monday in the journal Current Biology shows the birds have developed shorter wingspans, making them take off faster and turn quicker to avoid modern-day hazards like moving vehicles.

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Photo: A bird sits atop a cross at Mission San Juan Capistrano during St. Joseph's Day in 2012. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

California school districts send out far fewer pink slips

Thanks to a boost in money for public education, California school districts have issued just 3,000 pink slips to teachers this year, a dramatic drop from the 20,000 sent out last year, the California Teachers Assn. reported Monday.

The passage last fall of Proposition 30, which will temporarily increase taxes to raise about $6 billion mostly for education, will help schools avoid the massive layoffs that have crippled art, music, science and other programs statewide since 2008.

Los Angeles and San Diego Unified, two of the region’s largest school districts, issued no pink slips this year for the first time in several years. Last year, L.A. Unified sent out 9,500 layoff notices, the state teachers union said. School districts are required to send teachers preliminary layoff notices by the state’s March 15 deadline.

Dean E. Vogel, the teachers union president, called the reduction in pink slips “great news” but added that California schools are still reeling from the enormous cuts of the last five years. In the last four years, more than $20 billion in education funding has been cut or deferred and more than 30,000 teaching jobs have been axed, he said. 

The state now ranks 49th in per-student spending, according to a January analysis by Education Week, a news publication.

“We still have a long way to go to heal our schools from billions in cuts they have suffered in recent years,” Vogel said in a statement.

San Bernardino City School District issued 166 layoff notices this year, a drop from 251 last year. But fewer than 50 teachers actually lost their jobs, a spokeswoman said.  

The teachers union is still collecting data, but 135 school districts had reported at least 3,043 educator pink slips as of Monday. The top 10 districts reporting the most layoff notices were: Los Angeles County Office of Education, 213; San Bernardino City School District, 166; Sacramento City Unified, 118; San Francisco Unified, 118; Pomona Unified School District, 108; Twin Rivers Unified, 100; Mt. Diablo Unified, 95; Stockton Unified, 95; Pasadena Unified, 81; Alum Rock Elementary School District, 80.

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Lockyer seeks legal opinion on school construction bond campaigns

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer sought a legal opinion Monday to determine if some local education officials and the municipal finance firms they employ are violating state law by campaigning to get school construction bonds passed.

In a letter to California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, Lockyer said the opinion was necessary because some arrangements between school districts and bonding firms “raise substantive questions” about whether the officials are using public money to conduct such political campaigns — an action banned by law.

In recent months, Lockyer has been examining the way schools handle bonds, in part because of alleged abuses that arose from the issuance of risky and expensive instruments know as capital appreciation bonds.

Based on figures developed by his office, The Times reported last November that 200 school and community college systems — a fifth of all districts statewide — had issued billions of dollars in such debt, often when pressed for construction money during the recession. Unlike conventional bonds that require repayments to start immediately, these allowed districts to put them off for decades. The delays, however, often result in staggeringly high compounded interest charges that make the total debt even larger.

Graffiti at Simi Valley elementary school force early dismissal

Students at a Simi Valley elementary school were released from school early Monday because of “threatening” graffiti painted across campus buildings, Simi Valley police said.

“It was inappropriate and threatening in nature,” said Simi Valley police Sgt. Craig Dungan.

Staff at Justin Elementary School sent out mass emails and automated phone calls to parents Monday telling them to pick up their children at noon after faculty members who arrived in the morning found graffiti painted across several school buildings and windows. The school is a K-6 school.

Students who could not be picked up were being bused to a nearby elementary school at 12:45 p.m.

Police would not discuss the nature of the graffiti, but said it was not a bomb threat.

“Sometimes when graffiti is extensive and they can’t cover it all and it's inappropriate for young eyes to see they’ll send the students home early,” Dungan said.

Whatever the graffiti were, they made school administrators put the campus on what they call a “lock in,” where students are required to stay inside classrooms at all times, said Lt. Stephanie Shannon. If students had to go to the bathroom, they were escorted there and back, she said.

After-school activities on the campus were also canceled. Classes are expected to resume their normal schedule Tuesday, Shannon said.

Simi Valley Unified School District officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Hesperia school accused of discrimination against gay, lesbian students

A San Bernardino County school district faces legal action for alleged discrimination against gay and lesbian students, including its alleged refusal to allow girls to wear tuxedos to the upcoming prom.

The Hesperia Unified School District was notified of pending litigation in a letter Monday from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The ACLU typically warns government agencies of looming legal action to give them time to make changes.

The letter makes specific allegations against the faculty and administration of Sultana High School. It recounts “persistent censorship” of activities and announcements by the Gay-Straight Alliance club.

“Indeed, the club’s very name has typically been truncated from ‘Gay-Straight Alliance’ to ‘GSA’ when morning announcements are read over the intercom, with the words ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ ‘transgender,’ and ‘queer’ omitted entirely,” the attorneys’ letter reads.

One announcement was submitted as: “Do you identify as straight, lesbian, bisexual, gay, or are you questioning everything? Come join Sultana’s Gay-Straight Alliance on Wednesdays at lunch in room W-11. Join a group of students here on campus that support each other and want to make a difference for others.” The announcement was allegedly broadcast instead as: “GSA meeting in W-11.”

Two California teams advance to national academic decathlon

For the first time, two Academic Decathlon teams from California will proceed to the national competition, setting the stage for a showdown between former national title winners from Los Angeles Unified.

Granada Hills Charter High School -- the winner at nationals the last two years -- took first place Sunday in the state competition held this weekend in Sacramento, the team's third consecutive win here. The team scored 56,165 points.

El Camino Real High School took second place, scoring 55,669 points. The team also has been invited to the national competition in the first year that more than one team from a state has been allowed to proceed.

The national contest will be held in Minneapolis on April 25-27.

The top five spots in the state competition were claimed by Los Angeles County schools. Franklin, Marshall and Beverly Hills high schools took third, fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Los Angeles County, including schools from L.A. Unified and from other districts in the county, sent 18 teams to Sacramento to be among the 61 teams from across the state participating.

The competition began Friday and included rigorous testing in such subjects as math, science, art, music and economics, as well giving speeches and being interviewed by judges.

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UC faculty leaders blast legislation on online education expansion

In a crossing of swords between academics and politicians, the University of California’s top two faculty leaders on Friday strongly criticized legislation that would allow students bumped from overcrowded core courses at state schools to instead take online courses from other colleges or private companies.

The bill, authored by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), “raises grave concerns,” Robert L. Powell and Bill Jacob, the chairman and vice chairman of the UC system’s faculty Senate, wrote in a letter to colleagues. Among other things, “the clear self-interest of for profit corporations in promoting the privatization of public higher education through this legislation is dismaying,” they said.

The Steinberg legislation, introduced Wednesday amid strong national interest, proposes a special review panel, comprised of faculty from UC, Cal State and community colleges, to determine which online courses are worthy of academic credit.

The goal is a list of up to 50 basic undergraduate courses that students could take online for UC, Cal State or community college credit if they cannot gain enrollment into those courses on campus.

Powell, a chemical engineering professor at UC Davis, and Jacob, a mathematics professor at UC Santa Barbara, rejected that plan as an assault on the power of UC’s Academic Senate to determine whether transfer courses cover the right material with the same rigor as UC courses do.

“There is no possibility that UC faculty will shirk its responsibility to our students by ceding authority over courses to any outside agency,” they wrote.

The two, who are the faculty representatives on the UC Regents board, said they were not consulted in advance of Steinberg’s announcement but said they plan to meet with his staff soon.

The faculty union at the Cal State system previously expressed similar concerns.

Rhys Williams, Steinberg’s spokesman, said Friday that the bill specifically gives California faculty control, albeit in a new way, over which online courses should be approved and that “nobody is trying to take away power from the faculty.”

He said the senator's office “embraces the opportunity to discuss” the bill with faculty leaders and that its details might change as a result.

However, he said the senator remains committed to the legislation’s goal of helping students.

“Students and middle-class families are in desperate need of action to break the bottlenecks that are preventing timely graduation and ultimately increasing the burden of student debt,” Williams said.

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City College of S.F. strives to retain accreditation

City College of San Francisco -- the largest community college in the state and possibly the nation -- faces a deadline Friday to prove that it should retain its accreditation.

A scathing report in June by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges found that the school, which serves about 80,000 students and has been heralded by supporters for its commitment to access and affordability, was riddled with problems. Among them: paltry financial reserves, a dearth of leadership, a slow-moving style of democratic governance and a lack of defined learning outcomes that can be tracked to determine meaningful success.

Leaders of the 78-year-old college and a special trustee charged with guiding reforms have been pressing hard for change ever since. While they concede they have not solved all the problems the commission had asked them to by Friday's deadline, they are hopeful that enough progress has been made to avoid closure.

The reforms have caused a rift on campus, with many students and faculty protesting proposed reductions of teacher ranks and salary cuts as contrary to the school's values. In a spirited protest to City Hall on Thursday, they derided the commission and other outsiders pressing reforms as "carpetbaggers." But college leaders counter that the school's values won't be worth much if it is forced to close. The accreditation commission is expected to determine its fate in June.

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12-year-old who gave pot brownie to kids at school arrested

A 12-year-old Orange County boy has been arrested for allegedly taking a pot brownie to his elementary school and making seven students sick.

Costa Mesa Lt. Greg Scott said officers arrested the Pomona Elementary School sixth-grader who shared a marijuana-laced brownie with his peers Tuesday, according to the Daily Pilot.

When the student returned to school Thursday, administrators questioned him and found a small bag of marijuana in his backpack. Administrators confiscated the drug and notified Costa Mesa detectives, Scott said.

The boy was arrested at home Thursday for misdemeanor possession of marijuana on campus. He has since been released to his parents.

The students who ate the brownie were briefly hospitalized Tuesday before being released to their parents.

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UC San Diego council seeks divestment from firms with West Bank ties

UC San Diego’s student government joined a widening movement urging the university system to divest from companies that some student activists contend are violating the human rights of Palestinians and aiding Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

After a sometimes angry debate that went past 1 a.m. Thursday, the Associated Students’ council voted 20 to 12 with one abstention to endorse a resolution that seeks to end UC investment in such companies as Northrop Grumman, Alliant Techsystems and General Electric. The students contend that these companies provide technology, weapons or other products the Israeli military uses in the Palestinian territories.

Last week, a similar measure was passed by the student government at UC Riverside and one was approved at UC Irvine in November. However, those advisory measures have no power over the UC regents, who control the university’s massive portfolio and have said they will not take any divestment action involving Israel.

Supporters of Israel complained that the UC San Diego measure was unfair and divisive. Leaders of the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine, which lobbied for the resolution, issued a statement that applauded the vote, saying it was “in solidarity with Palestinians seeking freedom and justice.”

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