Tuesday, May 20, 2008

NIGHTINGALE STUDENTS 3, BOARD OF ED 1; NEW AUDITORUM FOR GARFIELD; A REAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE NEXT SCHOOL BOND

Florence Nightingale 3, LAUSD board 1 0

A group of Florence Nightingale Middle School students participating in a national academic competition recently put the L.A. Unified school board through a mock quiz, asking them questions such as what compound gives water in Newfoundland a brown color and what the square root of 12 is.

For the record, the board only got one of four question right, correctly saying that Mercury has the hottest temperature of any planet.

-Jason Song

BZZZZZZzzzzz - that's Beulah the Buzzer with a correction for the Board of Ed, the students and The Times: According to WikiAnswers.com"Because of its dense atmosphere creating a severe greenhouse effect, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, with an average surface temperature of 894 degrees F (480 degrees C). Temperatures are remarkably uniform across Venus's surface."

JPL reports that the hottest temp on Mercury is 467 degrees C.

Corrected score: Nightingale 3, Bd of Ed 0!  1

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thehomeroom/2008/05/florence-nighti.html

...which raises the questions:

  • How well would the Board of Ed do on the CAHSEE?
  • Could they meet AYP or API in the STAR Test?
  • What happens to a PI year5 School Board?                   -smf                                 

Garfield High School in East Los Angeles plans its new auditorium

Designers outline their ideas at as community meeting. The historic building was gutted in an arson fire last year.

By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2008

Before it was gutted in an arson blaze almost exactly a year ago, Garfield High School's historic auditorium embodied the soul of both its students and its working-class East Los Angeles community.
It played host to school assemblies and colorful folklorico dance performances. It was a neighborhood meeting place and the spawning ground of the band Los Lobos. Math teacher Jaime Escalante, whose award-winning calculus students were portrayed in the film "Stand and Deliver," used the space as a rallying ground for political causes.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-garfield18-2008may18,0,6574480.story?track=rss

Dorsey High musical looks at race

May 16 - I went to a musical at Susan Miller Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles last night and left humming. And I generally hate musicals.

The song? "Expectations," an original piece composed for ""Phi'La," a new musical about a black student from Philadelphia who moves to L.A. and falls in love with a Latina classmate. Imagine "West Side Story" with a backbeat, Spanish-language raps and step-team choreography against a graffiti-scrawled backdrop.

Writer/director Jamal Speakes, a Philadelphia native and Dorsey drama teacher, said the show can be seen as a response to recent interracial violence in the city, such as the brawl at Alain Leroy Locke High School last week or the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Jr. on March 2.

"The message we’re looking to send is that the students who are part of that community are willing to do whatever they can to make a change," Speakes said this morning. "We stereotyped our roles to show how silly this is. We really want people to see that if we don’t do anything about it, this madness will really hurt people."

As student Walter Catalan raps in Spanish during the show, playing Eastside gangbanger Eddie Perez, "Why hide the truth, it has to be confronted, it exists in a city that's out of control." -- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Phi'LA - in performance at Dorsey HS - closed Sunday May 18.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thehomeroom/2008/05/dorsey-high-mus.html

 

DAILY NEWS

The fifth bite

Is L.A. ready for another school bond?

Article Last Updated: 05/17/2008

"We're going to get this done for (the Valley) and everyone. We just can't do it with three bites. We have to get it done with four bites. Give us another bite at the apple."

THOSE are the words of Roy Romer, then superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, making the case for a school-construction bond in late 2004.

http://www.dailynews.com/editorial/ci_9297984

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