OCDE Newsroom

Huntington Beach Union High School District educators, administrators and board trustees celebrate the start of a new partnership between Edison High School and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. (Huntington Beach Union High School District)

Weekly roundup: Edison High students help endangered trout with new campus lab, and more

Madeline Gray December 19, 2025

31st Annual Report on the Conditions of Children in Orange County cover

New Conditions of Children report offers a snapshot of OC education trends for 2025

Ian Hanigan December 18, 2025

Gigi Manning, 2025 OCMAA Award recipient for secondary media arts, stands with award sponsor and presenter Steven Brittan, president and CEO of the Laguna College of Art + Design.

Arts educators, leaders to be celebrated at 2026 OC Music and Arts Administrators Awards

Vicky Nguyen December 18, 2025

Participants and supporters, some dressed in team costumes, cheer from the stands during the Super Quiz Relay at the 2025 Orange County Academic Decathlon.

Academic event season is coming up. Here are some key dates for 2026.

Vicky Nguyen December 16, 2025

Sunburst cadets suit up for life after graduation

Nathaniel Martinez December 15, 2025

Global School Play Day seeks to spotlight the importance of unstructured playtime

Ian Hanigan January 29, 2018

Scott Bedley has a simple suggestion for kids, and it’s one to which they probably won’t object: Play more. Bedley,...

Guitarist performs in front of a small crowd

OCDE promotes music, arts education at NAMM convention

Fermin Leal January 26, 2018

This weekend’s NAMM convention, an annual gathering for music industry professionals, featured exhibits on the latest music gear, a few...

Weekly roundup: Segerstrom students visit Virgin Galactic site, schools take on Kindness Challenge, and more

Fermin Leal January 26, 2018

A group of students from Segerstrom High School in Santa Ana recently toured Virgin Galactic’s facilities and hangar where the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo vehicles are being built. The 45 students travelled last month to the Mojave Desert site that’s now at...

Student Jazmine Alvarado points to her tiger design for an SUV

6th-grader’s ‘Tiger Truck’ design wins law enforcement competition

Fermin Leal January 24, 2018

Sixth-grader Jazmine Alvarado believes a tiger symbolizes strength, strong character and fearlessness — the perfect characteristics for a truck driven...

Students at the 2017 Orange County Academic Decathlon

Fifty years later, OC superintendent’s vision of ‘a decathlon of studies’ is bigger than ever

Ian Hanigan January 23, 2018

Believe it or not, this year marks the 50th anniversary of that 10-event scholarly showdown known as the Academic Decathlon....

Allen Witten, teacher at Sunburst Academy, surrounded by students

Two OCDE teachers named among the 25 best by Parenting OC magazine

Fermin Leal January 22, 2018

Two Orange County Department of Education educators were named finalists for Parenting OC’s 2018 Top Teachers of Orange County Awards. Allen Witten, a teacher at Sunburst Academy in Los Alamitos, and Janet Dicker, a teacher at OCDE’s Deaf and Hard...

Weekly roundup: An earlier start date for Los Al students, The Deeper Learning Podcast, and more

Ian Hanigan January 19, 2018

Joining a number of other local districts that have moved up their start dates, Los Alamitos Unified will welcome back...

The Deeper Learning Podcast | ‘Exploring Kindness’ with Orange County Superintendent Al Mijares

Ian Hanigan January 19, 2018

Why have societies historically valued kindness? How can positive interactions with others impact our physiology? Why do we keep needing...

Robert Salazar, Garden Grove Unified's building operations supervisor

GGUSD celebrates its ‘homegrown’ employees with new social media campaign

Ian Hanigan January 18, 2018

Garden Grove Unified has launched a new social media campaign celebrating staff members who were once students in the district. And it turns out there are quite a few. Dubbed “GGUSD Homegrown,” the campaign has prompted nearly 500 district employees...

86 O.C. students nominated for Disneyland Resort’s ‘Dreamers & Doers’ award for community service work

Fermin Leal January 16, 2018

Eighty-six Orange County students were selected by their high schools for their efforts to strengthen their communities, think creatively, conserve...