Education information for parents of L.A. kids in junior high and high school.
Junior High and High School
Birch Aquarium Offering Scholarships to Schools
Thanks to the generosity of donors, Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is offering 600 free virtual programs to local schools in need this year. In response to the K-12 loss of learning created by recent school closures, Birch Aquarium’s Education Team adapted their Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned Discovery […]
Open Mind Film Fest Seeks Teen Filmmakers
Calling all teens attending L.A. County high schools. If you’ve got a creative eye and a cell phone, The Open Mind Film Festival for Mental Health wants your stories. Presented by The Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, this film festival contest seeks short films highlighting students’ unique experiences […]
California Approves Shorter Standardized Tests Due to COVID-19
In the midst of the pandemic, students, teachers and parents breathed a collective sigh of relief about the temporary halting of standardized testing. As we prepare to enter the second semester of the 2020-21 school year, however, the State Board of Education is bringing the test back but with a twist. The department has approved […]
Reopened School Offers Tips for Keeping Students Safe From COVID-19
One of the most delightful things about pre-COVID life was driving or walking past our local schools. We could see kids rushing to make it through the front doors on time or hear the younger ones squealing with joy on playgrounds. Many of our school buildings still sit idly and quietly by. But last month, […]
Remote Learning Resources: 5 Educational Apps for Kids
With the global pandemic in 2020, children are video conferencing into classrooms and parents are expected to be more hands-on in their child’s education. I don’t know about you guys, but my dad was a car mechanic and my mother a customer support agent, so asking them for help with my algebra homework was a […]
Rob Evans: Leading the Charge Toward Diversity and Inclusion
Navigating the Southern California independent schools admissions process is a tall order under any circumstances. For families of color, historic underrepresentation, concerns about diversity and inclusion and, in some cases, financial constraints can make an independent-school education seem out of reach. Fortunately for Los Angeles families, The Independent School Alliance (the Alliance) provides support and […]
Best Music for Enhancing Kids’ Virtual Learning
With so many kids learning from home during this unprecedented start to the new school year, many students are in desperate need of help concentrating, staying focused and remaining in good spirits. Music might be just what the doctor ordered. Soothing, relaxing music can help students minimize stress or anxiety while learning virtually. During long study sessions, […]
Video: How are Your Teen’s Executive Function Skills?
Executive function is a set of mental skills that include working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control. According to the experts at Understood.org, we use these skills every day to learn, work, and manage daily life. Trouble with executive function can make it hard to focus, follow directions, and handle emotions, among other things. School psychologists […]
Back-to-School Mental Wellness Help From Moms Who Care
If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Secure your own oxygen mask first so that you can help your child. Your kids don’t want a perfect mom, they want a happy one. There are plenty of quotes urging mothers to take care of themselves. But do we listen? Sharon Feldstein, Patsy Noah, Meredith Wolff and […]
More Tips for Remote Learning Success
For many students, back-to-school this year means heading back to the living room or bedroom where they will be learning remotely. That creates a host of challenges for parents, teachers and students, who have to grapple with how to make remote learning as engaging as classroom learning. And that is a tall order, says Rebecca Hedrick, […]
Building Critical Thinking Skills During Distance Learning
As distance learning commences this fall and parents again take on the role of teacher and facilitator, myriad issues will emerge. Managing daily logistics and keeping children motivated and engaged are among the enormous tasks that parents must take on. The distance-learning model is imperfect and fraught with complexities and shortcomings. Nonetheless, it must be […]
Teens Use Quarantine to Teach Others
We’ve all spent countless hours worrying about our kids during the pandemic. We talk about how adaptable kids are, but none of us imagined our kids would have to face the kind of intense global and national experiences we’ve had over the last few months. But while we do have to be vigilant about our […]
Where Will Your Family Find the Fun in the New School Year?
There’s nothing like the anticipation of a new school year. Kids are filled with excitement to see their friends, meet new teachers and learn. But this year the global pandemic has robbed our kids of the joy of returning to school safely. So, what will it be? Distance learning, hybrid (online and in-person) home school […]
How are L.A. Parents Coping with this Pandemic Back-to-School Year?
The other day, I was looking for a long-lost bowl in the kitchen when my eyes fell on my son’s lunchbox. It stopped me in my tracks with a deep welling-up of yearning and sadness. I fled the kitchen and closed myself in the bathroom so that my son would not be able to hear […]
What Families Can do About the COVID Slide
Responsible parents don’t let summer go to waste. That, for a long time, has been the thinking among parenting experts. And so, instead of the carefree summers of our own childhoods, we parents squeeze little more than a “free” day or two in between sports practices, well-curated family vacations, “meaningful” camps designed to advance our […]
Graduation Dreaming: The Heartbreak and Hope of the Class of 2020
The senior year of high school is the toughest academic year in a student’s life, but the rewards – prom, senior trips, class rings, the signing of yearbooks, college acceptances, scholarship wins and the act of walking across that stage to receive that rolled-up scroll – add up to a rite of passage that forms […]
Our Children’s Keepers
This past January, when L.A. County public school teachers, students, parents and other allies donned red shirts and took to the streets for a six-day LAUSD strike, the state of k-12 education was on most everyone’s mind. As debates over traditional public vs. charter school choices and issues of access to private and highly selective […]
What Resilience Means for Your Child
The college admissions scandal that rocked several high-profile U.S. universities, nicknamed “Operation Varsity Blues,” ignited heated discussion in the academic community: Did parents believe their kids couldn’t handle the college admissions process on their own? Did the scandal reflect the parents’ driving desire to see their kids at a top-notch university? More importantly, was it […]
Thinking Outside the College Box
In light of last spring’s college admissions scandal, where parents allegedly paid “fixers” to open “side doors” onto prestigious campuses for their kids, a lot of questions have emerged about what matters most when it comes to choosing a school. Is a top-shelf school really worth cheating for? There are, in fact, a kaleidoscope of […]
Home-Schooling Away From Home
Picture a child working on lessons at the kitchen table and you’ve pictured just a tiny sliver of the modern home-schooling landscape in SoCal. There seems to be an assumption that home-schooling is synonymous with staying at home, but parents, advocates and many local attractions are tackling this misconception with dynamic extracurricular programs for home-schooled […]
Local Schools Embracing Sustainability
Something amazing caught the eye of Madeleine Gygli, principal of the Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Studies, while she was walking on the schoolyard one day. It’s something many other principals would love to see. Several third graders were sauntering through a grassy play area picking up trash and sorting it to be discarded or recycled. […]
Personal Finance Education for Kids
Money management and attending college debt-free are among the useful lessons L.A.-area kids are learning in schools offering the Ramsey Education’s Foundations in Personal Finance curriculum. The versatile finance program covers important yet often over-looked topics such as balancing a checkbook, saving money, following a budget, managing credit and debit cards, buying a car, college […]
California Content Standards in New App
Eager to understand the California State Standards your kids are supposed to learn this year? There’s an app for that. The California Department of Education has launched a mobile app where you can find the standards with a touch of your fingertips. The app offers quick, targeted access to standards related to the arts, computer […]
5 Ways to Discover Your Child’s Academic Passion and Career Potential
What parent isn’t curious about what their child’s future holds in an academic and professional sense? If you are like many parents, you want to support your child’s childhood passion and talents to help ensure they not only have a fun and fulfilling childhood, but a rewarding career as well. Here are five tips to […]
10 Facts for Families New to Speech and Language Services
As children across the country embark on a new school year, some will have their first experiences with being evaluated or treated for speech and language disorders through the school system. This is something that occurs only with a parent’s consent. Many parents are worried about their child’s communication. Recent national polling commissioned by the American Speech-Language-Hearing […]
Connecting the Dots to Get Your Child’s Best IEP
Not long ago, I met with a family who’d just finished their son’s second IEP. They were confused and upset because they felt like they hadn’t been heard by the team. And even if they had been heard, the parents didn’t believe they had enough knowledge to know what to share. Instead, they left the meeting […]
Teaching and Poetry Are Still Alive In Los Angeles
Memory and perspective are a funny thing. I’m in my 20s now, and I feel ashamed to say I didn’t think the beloved L.A. poet Mike Sonksen was a good teacher when I was a student in his class at View Park Preparatory High School. In hindsight, a more accurate description would be that his […]
Don’t Get Caught up in College ‘What If’s’
“What school is your child going to?” No other question (other than perhaps “Do you have a reliable babysitter?”) is uttered more frequently at playgroups and birthday parties. And none evokes more anxiety. Most Angelenos are well aware of the pressures of school choices. This parental one-upsmanship starts in preschool and grows with the child. […]
Book Illuminates Undocumented Family’s Quest for the ‘American Dream’
When people read headlines about undocumented students or the Dream Act, they generally have a vague concept of what the ideas mean and how they affect the people involved. It’s easy to generalize with a 24-hour news cycle. It is even easier to think you understand some of the complex and challenging reasons people come […]
Starting Internships Early in Los Angeles
Convinced internships are only for college kids? Think again. Ambitious teens who get some real-world work experience under their belts during high school can get a leg up on college admissions and future job opportunities – all while giving their confidence a healthy boost. Internships give teens a unique opportunity to explore career paths that […]
Learning to Embrace Failure
I met Andrés in the fall of 2015. He was a third grader who struggled academically; I was an enthusiastic language arts tutor who hoped to help. I came to learn that the pathway to his growth and success required helping Andrés look failure in the face without fear. Andrés was bright and talkative with […]
Time for a Tutor?
It’s tough to watch your child struggle in school. As parents, we instinctively step in and try to offer some extra help. Sometimes, that’s enough. But as curriculum and methodologies continually change, you may feel challenged, too. And, let’s face it, not every parent is great at homework help. Perhaps it’s time t o consider […]
The Many Faces of STEM
STEM programs provide interdisciplinary, inquiry-based and real-world problem-based challenges. They use an integrated approach to teach students about science, technology, engineering and math. Here are some of the many fun hands-on learning opportunities in the L.A. area that can get your kids excited about STEM. One was even founded by a local teenager. Transformation Through […]
Students Sharpen Creative and Leadership Skills in youTHINK
From the stage to the state Capitol, students in the youTHink program learn how to use art, personal development and politics to influence the changes they want to see in the world. youTHink was created in 1999 by ShareWell, the L.A.-based nonprofit that operates the Zimmer Children’s Museum, in an effort to help students ages […]
The Arts Matter – But What’s Best for Your Child?
We may not always practice what we preach, but in general our culture agrees that the arts are important, and that kids should be exposed to them at an early age. In fact, the California Education Code requires arts education in public schools, but with tight school budgets and other education priorities, it can be […]
Blue-Ribbon Panel Outlines Ways to Keep Students Safe
After the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the cell phones and emails of LAUSD parents were buzzing with messages from the second largest school district in the country – messages that attempted to assure us that our children were safe and that the district was doing everything it could […]
On the Road to College
In the 2008 film “College Road Trip,” a sentimental dad and his determined daughter crash a hotel wedding, hitch a ride on a crowded tour bus and parachute from 25,000 feet onto the lawn of a major university campus, all in the name of visiting a few colleges. Your family doesn’t have to go to […]
Stopping School Shootings
Let’s begin our look at this scary topic with two solid – possibly calming – facts: School shootings are a rare occurrence in the U.S., and there has not been a mass shooting at an L.A.-area school in recorded memory. Mass school shootings – beginning with Columbine in 1999 through Sandy Hook in 2012, up […]
A School for Every Learner
Living in the L.A. area is not without its challenges. However, when it comes to our children’s education, we’re fortunate to have a diverse array of options. Parents here choose a nontraditional approach to education for myriad reasons, from dissatisfaction with traditional schools (public and private), to a desire for a more tailored approach for […]
Compton/Woodley Los Angeles Enrichment Program Teaches Kids to Fly
On a recent chilly and rainy day at Compton/Woodley Airport, clusters of middle and high school students buzzed around the facility. Some hung out inside the airport’s Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum (TAM), staffing the front desk, lounging on couches or working on computers inside the experiential classroom. Others braved the weather and ventured outside. A few […]
Tackling Four Common Misconceptions About Dyslexia
While research over the years has continued to yield much information about dyslexia, the learning disorder is still easily misunderstood. These misconceptions can lead to ineffective approaches to learning, doing a disservice to those with the disorder. Debunking some of the myths surrounding dyslexia can lead to better outcomes for everyone involved. Here are the […]
Navigating Los Angeles Public Schools and Beyond
Deciding where to send your child to school can be a daunting task. Parents need to think carefully about what is most important to them when it comes to their child’s education. Now, parents have a convenient way to access detailed information on public schools across the state. In March 2017, the California Department of […]
Kids’ Social Life at School: Helping Your Child Manage Without Meddling
We all know how important social life at school can be. We were kids once, too. From making new friends in kindergarten to navigating fickle social circles in middle school, forging and sustaining relationships is a huge part of growing up. Peers also play a significant role in kids’ development. “The power of the relationship […]
What If? Taking A Second Look at Nontraditional Education
As kids settle into the new school year, education options continue to evolve. Students in and around L.A. have many choices, from online schools and classes to homeschooling programs and traditional schools that offer online components. Which of these might be right for your family? Which students benefit most from nontraditional education, and what challenges […]
College Scholarship Hacks: The Scoop on How and Where to Find Them
Funding college is an increasing struggle for families – especially those with too much income to qualify for financial aid, but too little to cover tuition. Scholarships and grants can help fill funding gaps, and your search for them should go hand in hand with your search for the right college. Scholarships and grants do […]
Our Breakfast-to-Bedtime Back to School Guide
Remember last year’s back to school photo? The kids wore big, happy grins and fresh haircuts. Inside their shiny new backpacks awaited orderly pencil cases and a homemade-with-love lunch filled with summer veggies and nothing processed. Cut to the second week: Running to the car five minutes late, the day’s completed homework forgotten on the […]
Bridging the Summer Gap to Prevent Learning Loss
Now that the academic school year has ended, students are ready to enjoy summer and all of the fun that it promises. Beach days, family vacations, swimming pools and waterparks; activities that bring fun memories, social time with friends and a highly anticipated break from the classroom. Unfortunately, with all of the fun that summer […]
Four Reasons Educating Students With Learning Differences Matters
Have you heard the buzz about the on-the-job construction worker from Toronto secretly recorded while dancing to a hit song by Ariana Grande? The video went viral, boasting tens of millions of viewers, after his wife posted it on social media. Although this was a humorous and entertaining break from the onslaught of political banter […]
Anti-bullying App Saves Kids a Seat
Navigating the school cafeteria can be stressful. But for 16-year-old Natalie Hampton, who lives in Sherman Oaks and was verbally, physically and cyber bullied during middle school, lunch was one of the worst parts of the day. Being seen eating by herself didn’t help. “I felt vulnerable and worthless. I also think being excluded branded […]
Helping Quiet Students Soar
Support at home and in the classroom can help these thoughtful kids find their voice. In a loud world dominated by those who speak up, quiet kids can get overlooked, especially in school. These children are often highly observant and great listeners, which helps them collect information so they can succeed when it comes to […]
The Push for Passion & Purpose in College Admissions
Parenting your child to build an honest college resume starts earlier than you think to help your student stand out in competitive times “We regret to inform you…” Those five words were enough to bring me to tears. I dashed to McDonald’s in the rain and drowned my sorrows with a Big Mac and Hi-C […]
A Peek Through the Portal
How online monitoring tools are impacting education and families Remember how your kids sometimes forgot to give you the Friday folder from school or pulled it out on Monday morning for a quick signature before you’d even looked at it? Or was that just my kid? Well, there’s a new Friday folder in town, the […]
LAUSD Magnets: Getting to the Points
If you live in the district, the right strategy could get your child into an excellent school. When my oldest child was 3, the director of our Montessori preschool invited us, with all the other preschool parents, to a symposium she was offering on how to navigate the Los Angeles Unified School District system known […]
Perks for Private-School Parents
Local campuses offer a host of classes and activities for moms and dads of students. Cara Lisco doesn’t expect to become a top-notch knitter or dancer by taking weekly classes at Highland Hall Waldorf School, where her three children are students. The knitting and eurythmy classes are among enrichment activities offered to parents of students […]
Choosing a School: It’s In the Details
Most schools offer a good education. Look beyond that to find a fit for your child. The days of sending kids to an assigned neighborhood school, no questions asked, are gone. Today, Southern California families are fortunate to have many great schools to choose from, giving us the opportunity to find just the right school […]
Chat Room: Molly Newman: Shepherding Students Toward The Arts – and Beyond
Molly Newman was the kid who loved books, stories and writing. She followed her love for literature and started her career as a high school English teacher. As the Director of College Counseling for Idyllwild Arts Academy, she now helps students follow their passion for the arts to college and beyond. Idyllwild Arts, located in […]
Finding the Successes in Your Child’s School Year
You open the report card and there among the As and Bs is a big fat C in math. If only, you think, we’d spent more time this year with flash cards or graphing calculators. But hold off before you cancel adventure camp and sign up for Kumon. Because when it comes to assessing your […]
Filmmaker Greg Whiteley: Focusing on the Future of Education
When filmmaker Greg Whiteley became a parent 14 years ago, he developed a “full-time preoccupation” with finding the best schools for his children. In his new documentary, Most Likely to Succeed, Whiteley examines our current education system through the eyes of students, parents, teachers and administrators. Documenting the experiences of students at the innovative High […]
Handling School Admissions Interviews Like a Boss
While private schools vary in curriculum, education philosophy and how many students they accept each term, they all share the same goal when interviewing prospective students. They use the interview to make sure the student is going to fit in well at the school, enjoy themselves and be able to thrive in the academic environment. […]
Tackling Homework Procrastination
Do you often feel that you need to push your child to get started with homework? Are you finding that your child forgets to record certain tasks, books or schoolwork? Some schools start homework as early as prekindergarten, so our children are being challenged at an early age to learn responsibility, organization and multitasking. As […]
Christopher Fulton, Ph.D.: Helping Anxious Teens (and Parents) on the Road to College
In the last two decades, there has been a noticeable shift in the level of academic and extracurricular expectations placed on college-bound teens. A 4.0 or above GPA and top SAT scores must be accompanied by demonstrations of leadership at school, volunteering in the community and “passion and commitment” to an activity. Pressure to be […]
What You’ll Learn At School Open House
While searching for private schools for their son Kevin (now in college), Tony and Kristy Adler of Bel Air eagerly attended several open houses at L.A. schools with him. They quickly learned the do’s and don’ts of open-house protocol. “We were doomed at one school from the beginning when I grabbed our son’s name badge. […]
STEM Learning In L.A.
People can’t seem to talk about education any more without using four letters: S-T-E-M. STEM sounds much more exciting than when we used to call it simply “science,” “math” or “computer class.” And STEM topics are now being touted not just as school subjects for aspiring techies, but as life skills vital for all kids. […]
A Book Club Podcast Just For Tweens
For almost 10 years, Kitty Felde hosted “Talk of the City” on local public radio station KPCC. Part of the fun was attending the L.A. Times Festival of Books and meeting listeners at the KPCC table. Parents would bring their kids with them, and the kids would say they also listened to the station. Felde’s […]
Stress Busters for Students
There’s no question that academic expectations for students have become more rigorous in recent years. You may have heard that traditional kindergarten at most public schools is now academically equivalent to what first grade was a generation ago. And it doesn’t get any easier from there. While many students enjoy and rise to the challenge […]
Helping Your ‘Average’ Student Thrive
Somewhere between the worlds of the trilingual 5-year-old concert pianist and the student struggling through remedial classes lies another student. This is the average student, the one who neither breaks scholastic records nor lives on the edge of failure. He can easily be overlooked by teachers because he’s not putting cherry bombs in toilets, nor […]
Why Kids Need Job Skills Now
Except for occasionally being asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” most of us didn’t give much thought to our career options until our college years. Maybe. Our focus up to that point was on getting the grades to get into college. These days, programs are popping up that capitalize on […]
How Common Core Looks In the Classroom
In a fifth-grade classroom in Pasadena, students receive language arts and math instruction as part of a well-researched, artifact-driven social-studies lesson on Jamestown, VA. In the San Fernando Valley, third graders apply their math skills to figure out how many medium pizzas it would take to feed 72 people. And over in Santa Monica, fourth-grade […]
How Nontraditional Schools Inspire Students
If you walk into any classroom, you’re likely to find quiet students who turn in their work on time, but don’t necessarily challenge themselves beyond their comfort zone. You’ll also find bright students who become easily bored and distracted by repetitive worksheets and tests. Then there are those whose sketches in the margins of their […]
Three Must-Have Tools For High School Students
High school students and parents are barraged with college and career-planning information via the Internet and social media starting on their first day of high school (if not earlier). It can be a challenge for families in Los Angeles schools to sort through these resources, and not all information is equal. I recommend three must-have […]
ACT or SAT? Four Questions To Help Students Choose
As a private tutor in Los Angeles for more than 15 years, I have noticed a significant increase in the number of families we work with who choose the ACT over the more-traditional SAT exam on their path toward college admission. Scores from at least one of these tests are required for admission to most […]
The Parents’ Voice: Key To School Success
When my husband and I bought our house in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood in the west San Fernando Valley, we assumed our kids would eventually attend the local elementary school just down the street. But our tour a year before our oldest daughter was about to enter kindergarten left us feeling disappointed and panicked. Test […]
5 Tips To Get You More Involved In Your Child’s School
When the school year began and you buttoned up your precious ones against the fall chill, kissed their cheeks and sent them off with the latest back-to-school goodies, did you make a silent vow that, this year, you would get more involved in your child’s school? More than likely, you’re next thought was, “What time […]
Three Ways to Help Kids With Test Anxiety
The second half of the school year will soon begin, and for many parents that means a return to tests and the fear they instill in our children. Often times test anxiety stems from one of two areas: fear of embarrassment and fear of failure. The main idea is to look to the root of […]
The Back-To-School Boogie: Tips For Teachers And Parents For A Smooth Transition
Regardless of whether you are a parent, a teacher, or a student, August marks the turn of the tides when school supplies, planners, and new-school-year jitters take center stage. It is an exciting time for some, and a dreadful time for others. Each parent, child and teacher is unique and has his or her own […]
Extracurricular Activities: What Colleges Really Care About
By Steve Dorfman Everybody knows colleges want well-rounded students. Kids are asked to volunteer, join sports teams, participate in clubs and be a part of student government. However, there are actually only three things that colleges care about when looking at extracurricular activities, and being “well-rounded” is not one of them. Consistency. The biggest misconception […]
Step Up Summer Learning! Seven Simple Ways to Help Prevent Summer Slide
By Patti Rommel, Director of Research and Development at Lakeshore Learning Materials As the clock slowly ticks down to the final ring of the school bell, kids everywhere dream of those long days of summer filled with endless playtime and carefree fun. However, while this break from the classroom gives kids the chance to relax […]
Managing Middle School
Help Your Child Through the Big Transition With These Tips By Elena Epstein I’ll never forget my oldest daughter’s first day of middle school. There was the scariness of a new place – not unlike the first day of kindergarten – only this time we didn’t have a sweet teacher taking her hand to reassure […]