It’s Friday, June 19, and that pretty much closes the books on the 2014-15 school year. While we don’t have much in the way of pomp and circumstance here, we do have a handful of education stories from the past week.
Governor Jerry Brown and legislative leaders announced a $115.4 billion spending plan for 2015-16 that allocates nearly $70 billion for schools and community colleges. The budget also earmarks nearly $300 million for early childhood education, including 7,000 more preschool slots and 6,800 additional childcare vouchers.
- Thanks to OCDE’s OC Pathways initiative and community partners including OpTerra Energy Services, eight high schoolers from Santa Ana are embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime research experience as summer interns at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. (We’ve got a story and a brief video.)
- Of the seven California submissions that earned medals at the Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest in Maryland, no fewer than three were from schools in Orange County — and two were from Irvine.
- A daughter of immigrant parents who was once considered a shy and timid student is headed to Harvard University after graduating from Magnolia High School.
- George and Miko Kaihara, now 90 years old, finally received their diplomas this week from their alma mater, Tustin High School. The couple was supposed to graduate from then-Tustin Union High School in 1943, but the two were instead sent to an internment camp in Arizona after Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor. They have since been married 65 years and had four children.