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A group of students at Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead have created a stir for displaying Confederate flags, staked into the beds of their pickup trucks, in the school parking lot. On Friday, two Ford pickups, parked side-by-side, sat parked in the school parking lot, one Confederate flag and one American flag displayed in the bed of each truck. The black pickup also sported stickers from Patriot Alliance, an online retailer of clothing, National Rifle Association, and Donald Trump campaign signs. Also on Friday, Ruing Springs resident Jeifer Celise-Reyes, whose daughter began her freshman year at the high school last month, said she sent emails to school board president Cind...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — For one day, a mother says, she didn’t have to worry about her autistic son eating lunch by himself. A small gesture of kindness by Florida State University wide receiver Travis Rudolph — captured in a photo and shared on Facebook — had tears streaming down the face of the sixth-grader’s mother, Leah Paske. “I’m not sure what exactly made this incredibly kind man share a lunch table with my son, but I’m happy to say it will not soon be forgotten,” she wrote. “This is one day I didn’t have to worry if my sweet boy ate lunch alone, because he sat across from someone who is a hero in many eyes.” Rudolph was among several FSU players visiting Montford Middle School in Tallah...

LOS ANGELES — A taxpayer lawsuit will be filed today against the city of Los Angeles alleging an unlawful “gift of public funds” to the Los Angeles Rams in the form of security at home games. The lawsuit will be filed by former Los Angeles City Councilmember Deis Zine and Los Angeles resident James Bibeau “to prevent the city from expending any additional taxpayer funds to provide over 200 LAPD officers free of charge to secure Rams home games,” according to a statement from the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “Rams owner Stan Kroenke has refused to pay in full for the police services necessary to ensure public safety at his team’s home games,” the statement said. “This free use of LA...

An estimated 75,000 students will retu to classes in Long Beach Unified today, and police are urging motorists and pedestrians to be safe out on the road. Drivers, police say: Yield the right of way to pedestrians in crosswalks, do not pass cars that are stopped for pedestrians, obey speed limits, stop for school buses with red lights flashing and don’t drive distracted. Pedestrians: Yield to vehicles if you are outside the crosswalk, and do not cross between intersections controlled by traffic signals. And finally, parents: Do not double park in front of school, follow school drop-off procedures, and teach your child to always cross the street at a crosswalk. It is equally important for pe...

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a funeral home company have settled dueling litigation conceing the lease of land at six Catholic cemeteries for the operation of mortuaries, including one in Long Beach. Lawyers for S.E. Funeral Homes of Califoia Inc. filed paperwork Aug. 18 in Los Angeles Superior Court stating that the resolution includes the sale and transfer of the mortuaries to a subsidiary of the archdiocese in a deal scheduled to close Nov. 30. No additional specifics were given. S.E. Funeral Homes filed suit in September 2014, alleging breach of contract and seeking a court order to prevent the archdiocese from taking possession of the premises. The archdiocese countersued in June...

May 2014: The Teachers Association of Long Beach distributed surveys to its members to determine how many classrooms in Long Beach Unified experience stifling heat. TALB received 200 responses from teachers with mixed results. September 2014: The district asked schools to curtail physical activity and canceled all nonleague and league competition for two days. Additionally, Long Beach Unified communicated with parents about “hot weather precautions, including the need to stay hydrated.” Parents, meanwhile, attend a school board meeting, pleading with the district to do something about the lack of air conditioning in older buildings across the district, which they say creates an unhealthy lea...

In Long Beach, school isn’t cool. That’s generally speaking. It’s cool at about 40 percent of the 87 school buildings in the Long Beach Unified School District that are lucky, or mode, enough to have air-conditioned classrooms. It’s no sweat for students at, say, Chavez Elementary School, built in 2002, or Powell K-8 School, built in 2000, or Signal Hill’s Nelson Middle School built four years ago, or McBride High School, built in 2013. But when students retu to class Wednesday at schools built during the two biggest boom eras in Long Beach history — 27 schools were constructed in the two years following the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake, and 25 opened between 1950 and 1959 to serve the then-ne...

Between 1999 and 2013, Califoia’s Academic Performance Index boiled everything about the state’s K-12 public schools down to a single number between 200 and 1000. That’s going away in a new, more nuanced system that’s now under construction. In the old model, the desirability of neighborhoods or even whole communities in large part hinged on their API score. Careers were made or lost based on how far a school or district was from the magic 800 target number. And under the federal No Child Left Behind law, failure to steadily increase an API score — even an already high one — could mean dire trouble for a school or district. But the API was only based on the results of standardized tests tak...

PARAMOUNT >>The Paramount Unified School District will ask voters in November to approve a $106 million bond measure to help fund upgrades and repairs across its 19-campus system, officials said Wednesday. Superintendent Ruth Perez said many of the 15,500 students enrolled in the district attend campuses equipped with aging facilities, some built over 50 years ago. While many campuses are in need of repairs and upgrades, she said, top priorities include replacing outdated portable buildings at Paramount High School and other large campuses, upgrading school security systems and facilitating access for disabled students and faculty. “Our local schools need basic safety improvements,” P...

Before Steve Jobs invented the PC, computers were room-sized, difficult to operate and expensive. Now they fit in the palm of your hand and perform complex functions at the sound of your voice. Likewise, air pollution sensors are going mainstream, changing from complex devices operated by scientists in white lab coats to hand-held detectors sold on Amazon.com or e-bay for a few hundred bucks to citizen scientists sitting in their backyards. There are so many devices sold online that measure particulate matter (PM) near your home during a wildfire or ground-level ozone on a hot-and-smoggy day that the folks at the South Coast Air Quality Management District began studying which ones work the ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> One of the South Korean archers had a perfect response for a nearly flawless show. “We shoot always like this,” Lee Seungyun said through a translator. “It’s Korea.” Even for the archery powerhouse, though, this was some kind of shooting display. The South Koreans captured gold by placing 15 of its 18 arrows in the top scoring ring to knock off the Americans, 6-0, in the men’s team final Saturday at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The U.S. took home silver for a second straight Olympics, while Australia beat China in the bronze-medal match. Still, the buzz was all about the clinic put on by Kim Woojin, Ku Bonchan and Lee. It was so impressive that American archer Jake K...

Differences in proposed federal and state criteria for intervening in the lowest-performing schools could lead to what Califoia education officials have insisted they want to avoid: two conflicting school-improvement systems. The Legislature required and the Califoia State Board of Education is designing a multidimensional school accountability system that will incorporate measures of school climate and students’ readiness for college and careers. But, according to a new analysis, proposed federal regulations would, in effect, prohibit states from using these and other indicators to determine which schools receiving federal aid require intensive state assistance. It would be an echo of the ...

Long Beach health officials are asking people to take precautions against West Nile Virus in light of state reports confirming the first death this year involving a senior citizen in Sacramento County. Although Long Beach has not documented any West Nile virus activity this year, it has been detected in Orange and Los Angeles counties, prompting Interim Health Officer Dr. Maura Too to remind residents to protect themselves during the summer months. “The first death of a Califoia resident due to West Nile virus is a sad and sobering reminder of the risk posed by mosquito bites,” Too said in a statement. “I would like to take this time to remind Long Beach residents to take precautions to avoi...

The Califoia Legislature passed legislation this week to rename the Alamitos Bay Bridge after Joan Van Blom, who was the first woman to win an Olympic Medal for the United States in rowing. Van Blom died close to a year ago from an aggressive form of brain cancer at 62. “From the Olympic stage to the classroom, Joan Lind Van Blom was a woman who displayed great courage and a commitment to uplift her country and community,” Sen. Janet Nguyen, who proposed the legislation, said in a statement Friday. Nguyen, who represents a small part of Long Beach, introduced the legislation at the request of the Long Beach Century Club, a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of amateur athletes in the city...

A judge stripped several claims from a lawsuit filed by the parents of a college student shot and killed by a Long Beach police officer in 2015, court papers show. In a 13-page ruling issued Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly Kendig dismissed claims by Amr Morad and Amal Alkabra for intentional infliction of emotional distress as well as negligent supervision, training, hiring and retention. The judge also dismissed the couple’s claims for civil rights violations, but said the estate of their son, Feras Morad, can move forward with the claim. Kendig additionally found that the plaintiffs’ attoeys will have to shore up their claims for punitive damages against Officer Matthew Hea...

A judge stripped several claims from a lawsuit filed by the parents of a college student shot and killed by a Long Beach police officer in 2015, court papers show. In a 13-page ruling issued Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly Kendig dismissed claims by Amr Morad and Amal Alkabra for intentional infliction of emotional distress as well as negligent supervision, training, hiring and retention. The judge also dismissed the couple’s claims for civil rights violations, but said the estate of their son, Feras Morad, can move forward with the claim. Kendig additionally found that the plaintiffs’ attoeys will have to shore up their claims for punitive damages against Officer Matthew Hea...

A lot of dirt has been moving around this week at a pair of Long Beach middle schools. Grading for new all-weather athletic fields was under way at Perry Lindsey Middle School, 5075 Daisy Ave., and Jessie Nelson Academy Middle School, 1951 Cherry Ave., in Signal Hill. Dump trucks were at both sites this week hauling dirt away in preparation for storm-drain installation, according to Les Leahy, Business Services Administrator at the Long Beach Unified School District. The fields, funded by Measure K, are expected to be finished by Oct. 1. Advertisement Let's block ads! بخوانید...

Violence and substance abuse are down among Califoia students, but more have experienced harassment and bullying, according to a new health survey. Compared with its 2011-13 report, the Califoia Healthy Kids Survey found that among more than 36,000 students in middle and high school, the percentage of students involved in a fight dropped by four to five points, with fighting among 11th-grade students dropping from 17 percent to 11 percent. The Califoia Department of Education and the Califoia Department of Health Care Services coordinated the report, which takes a random sample of seventh, ninth and 11th grade students, and addresses school safety, substance use, mental health and other issu...

The city has tapped a new director to lead operations at the Long Beach Airport, a move that comes several months after its former director left for the top job at Oakland Inteational. City Manager Patrick West aounced on Friday the hiring of Jesus “Jess” L. Romo, an airport executive with nearly two decades in the aviation industry, for the position. “I am grateful for this opportunity and look forward to working with the community, all airport stakeholders and partners,” Romo said in a written statement. “I am committed to being an approachable and responsive steward of this great airport.” Romo’s responsibilities will include complete oversight of the airport, which is a major economic d...

NEWTOWN, Co. — When the public gets its first glimpse Friday of the school built to replace the one where 20 first-graders and six educators were massacred, they’ll see a building designed to be attractive, environmentally friendly, conducive to leaing and, above all, safe. The old Sandy Hook Elementary School was to down after the gunman’s rampage in December 2012. The new $50 million, 86,000-square-foot school was built on the same property but not in the old footprint, and is scheduled to open next month. A media tour will precede a public open house on Friday. Local officials hope that allowing everyone a look at the school this week will give students a “quiet, respectful, and appropri...