A student from Saddleback High School in the Santa Ana Unified School District has won an art contest sponsored by JFK Transportation, and soon her artwork will be displayed on a school bus.
Jazmin Suarez won the high school division of the competition, titled “#2020VISION Through The Eyes of a Student.” Her entry features a school bus wearing a face mask and the words: “Wear your mask so that I can wear my backpack.”
JFK Transportation will wrap a bus in Suarez’ artwork and will hold a ceremony later this month to recognize all contest winners.
And here are some of the other stories we’re following this week:
- The Irvine Unified School District launched a new public database for reporting confirmed coronavirus cases among its students and staff. The database is available on Irvine Unified’s website and reports confirmed, positive cases at each school within the last 14 days.
- State public health officials this week launched a new Healthy Places Index aimed at spotlighting disparities in neighborhoods that have higher shares of positive COVID-19 tests than the rest of their counties. The new metric serves as a third test going forward that will decide in which of the state’s pandemic tracking system’s four tiers a county falls into.
- Students attending Coast Community College District schools won’t have to worry about parking passes or commuting to class, at least for the foreseeable future, as district officials recently announced distance learning will continue through spring semester.
- OCDE’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports team is working with local districts to create school environments that are positive, predictable, safe and equitable, which in turn has made classroom instruction – even online – more effective for students.
- District leaders in the Capistrano Unified School District are considering changing the name of one of the district’s oldest campuses, Junipero Serra High School, over a community debate about the school’s namesake, Saint Serra.
- Hundreds of elementary students in the Laguna Beach Unified School District returned to school sites this week, marking the first time families have stepped on campuses in almost seven months.
- California public health officials reported this week that the state has not seen a connection between increased COVID-19 transmission and school reopening or in-person learning.
- Orange County Superintendent Dr. Al Mijares was presented this week with the Champions Award by the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association. The association supports students, schools, districts and communities by enhancing the service and leadership capabilities of California’s 58 county superintendents.
- Fullerton Joint Union High School District and LaHabra City School District join the growing list of local districts returning to in-person learning. Fullerton announced this week that students will return to in-person instruction under a hybrid learning model on Nov. 2, with LaHabra bringing TK-K student back on Oct. 19, first and second grade students on Oct. 29, third and fourth grade students on Nov. 9, and grades five through eight on Nov. 16.
- Meanwhile, Newport-Mesa Unified School District leaders voted to delay the start dates for students in grades seven through 12 until the end of the current semester. Secondary students are now scheduled to return at the start of the second semester on Jan. 4. The district’s lower grades started hybrid learning last week.
- And finally, the Los Angeles Unified School District director of athletics this week presented a tentative timeline for the return of school athletics in LAUSD to more than 150 local athletic directors. The timeline begins with a COVID-19 testing protocol window from Oct. 19-30, with an attempt to have all sports teams eligible to begin tryouts and conditioning on Nov. 2.
This is the part where we encourage you to keep up with local education news stories by bookmarking the OCDE Newsroom, subscribing for emailed updates and following us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.