Schoolpower’s Endowment Board delivered checks totaling $170,174 to Laguna Beach’s school board last week, including $70,174 for teacher grants next fall, and $50,000 each for a 10-year foreign language grant and the first installment of a three-year pledge for a strings program. Endowment President Bill Moore called this year’s payout “spectacular.” A whopping “We are [...]
Gay Rights Advocate Dies June Esther Campbell, 89, passed peacefully on Friday, March 29, 2013. She had been in failing health for several months and entered hospice care last summer. Campbell was an active real estate agent in Laguna Beach, selling homes even into her 80s. Legend has it that Campbell sold many local houses [...]
Teens Aim for Sticker Shock With prom just around the corner, several teens from the Boys & Girls Club’s Keystone leadership club teamed up with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-Orange County (NCADD-OC) to participate in Sticker Shock. The teens visited Broadway Liquor and Stop’n’Go in Laguna Beach, where store owners allowed them [...]
Fred Sheldon wasn’t a bad student, just bored, so getting by was the best he did. He didn’t fit the rote routine of school. Sheldon was fading into nowhere, his creativity untapped. Until he learned how to blast off a bottle rocket, and get credit for it. Pegged as an “average” student, Sheldon was fortunate [...]
Editor, The community response to the school board rescinding the calendar change should cause the community to stand up and take notice! Many see this as a calendar issue, it isn’t. It’s more than that; it is about the lack of integrity in the process. While, I am satisfied with the recent decision reversal, facts [...]
After a month of protest over the Laguna Beach school board’s approval of an unprecedented start of school before Labor Day, elected officials conceded to parents’ persistent demands and retracted its decision in a 4-0 vote Tuesday. Schools will now start as they did, on the Tuesday, Sept. 3, after the long holiday weekend. In [...]
By Justin Swanson | LB Indy Rosalind Russell has been on this trip before. She hugs her legs close to the motorcycle, wrapping her arms around her driver as they venture between Nepali villages. She brings gifts. Chiefly, they are goats. For nine years now, Russell has brought the inhabitants of Nepali villages goats [...]
Editor, If the school board is apologizing to parents then it is only fair that they correct their mistake. Put the calendar back and leave it alone until you’ve allowed a proper public debate. When a student does something wrong in class he is required to correct it and/or fix it until he gets it [...]
Laguna Beach’s school board stuck to their unanimous decision to start school before Labor Day, prompting grumblings by disgruntled parents to boycott the earlier start in August and even recall school board members. “What is it they can’t hear?” Rick Putnam, who has two daughters at the high school, said in frustration. Putnam had just [...]
I reside just over the Laguna border in Dana Point, aka SoLa: South of Laguna, not to be confused with South Laguna. However, my work, my friends, my bookstore and hairstylist, and better places to eat, are in Laguna, so several times a week, I drive north on Pacific Coast Highway where the iconic sign [...]
With an unprecedented 64 parent volunteers manning the phones, SchoolPower’s annual Community Campaign phone-a-thon made history by raising more money, $502,492, and reaching more donors, 606, than in its 30-plus years as Orange County’s flagship education foundation. Every fall SchoolPower hosts its largest fundraiser, the Community Campaign, by harnessing the goodwill of parent volunteers who [...]
Editor, This letter is in support of Bill Landsiedel, the incumbent school board member. As a professor at a local college, Bill has volunteered to be a guest lecturer for my graduate education courses. Bill is very knowledgeable and has a great understanding of state and federal education guidelines. Bill makes his lectures very personal and [...]
Editor, My family and I recently chose to move from a small town to Laguna Beach because of its progressive ideology and idealistic weather. The schools here are also an important factor to us and I have been following the school board election with interest. The current school board members running for re-election in Laguna [...]
By Kate Rogers, Special to the Independent Educational consultant Cindy Muchnick described practical can-do philosophies for parents to put into practice as they support their kids through high school during last week’s PTA-sponsored parent seminar, Coffee Break. She was preceded by high school Principal Joanne Culverhouse, who introduced Naviance, an online college search service provided [...]
This year, the Thurston Middle School staff has developed a new program, Six for Sixth, to help ensure a better transition by incoming sixth-grade students. The goal is for all sixth-grade students to feel and be more successful. “As a sixth grade team we agreed to six consistent support structures in order to help sixth-graders [...]
Ill Prepared Hiker Rescued from Hillside
A sheriff’s helicopter was used to extract a hiker who suffered an anxiety attack and was unable to move from a steep trail in Laguna Beach’s open space about 6 p.m. Sunday, June 9, police said. Lifeguards in an all-terrain vehicle coordinated the extraction from thick brush and a steep slope between Alta Laguna Park [...]
