News and happenings at private and public preschools, elementary and high schools in and around Los Angeles.
School News
Solano Ave. Elementary Receives National Recognition
Nestled in Solano Canyon is a small, high-performing public school that shines as one of the gems of the Los Angeles Unified School District. With a history dating back to 1903, Solano Avenue Elementary School has won numerous awards, and this week it received national recognition as a 2020 National Elementary and Secondary Education Act […]
Scholarships to Help Recover from COVID-19
We won’t know the full impact of the pandemic on people’s livelihoods for some time, but as unemployment numbers rise and food giveaway lines lengthen, turning a blind eye is not an option. With basic needs top of mind, many people’s quests for career advancement and education attainment came to a screeching halt this year. […]
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, […]
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 […]
Real-world Training at Finn’s Bistro Empowers Students with Disabilities
At Finn’s Bistro, a coffee house on the campus of Willenberg Career and Transition Center in San Pedro, students with disabilities push their books aside to gain real-life employment experience as employed individuals. “Our students go through the application process and an interview and, based on their interest, start working on skills they would need […]
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 […]
Stratford School Expands Classes, Programs for Fall
Stratford School, a California-based private school with an emphasis on the areas of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) is expanding its Altadena campus to offer new classrooms and programs for students. The campus, which currently works with students from preschool through 3rd grade, has expanded with eight brand new classrooms, a large outdoor […]
Catalyst: A Learning Hub Middle School Set to Open in September in Agoura Hills
From the founders of The Sycamore School in Malibu, an independent elementary school featuring a challenging curriculum rooted in collaboration, innovation, and learning through play and creativity, comes CATALYST: A Learning Hub, a revolutionary middle school based on the same foundational belief that education must be humanized for the 21st Century. Assumptions of the industrial-age-model […]
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 […]
Hometown Basketball Hero Steps up to Save Local Christian School
During the last week of June, Angela Evans, founder of Frederick K.C. Price III Christian School in South Los Angeles, was going to announce that the acclaimed inner-city school was closing its doors after 33 years of service to the community. The school is located on the campus of Crenshaw Christian Center and has substantially […]
Redondo Beach Schools Make Strides Against Student Obesity
While students in other districts will head back to school in cars, buses and SUVs this fall, many in the Redondo Beach Unified School District will take the “walking school bus” with parents and volunteers. When they arrive on campus, they’ll begin their day with eight minutes of exercise led by teachers and faculty. At […]