To top off a stellar senior year playing baseball for the Anaheim High School Colonists and scoring a scholarship to play softball for the California State University San Marcos Division II-ranked softball team, Jillian Albayati received an honorary Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award, better known as an ESPY, for Women in Sports.
Albayati received her trophy this week in person during a live taping of 710 ESPN Radio on day one of the all-star break celebrations. Her coaches, Mike Barrera and Dave Reese, were there to present her with the honorary award on the special day.
This recognition comes after Albayati was named Orange County Girls Athlete of the Year by the Orange County Register after becaming the first girl to ever pitch during a California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section baseball championship game. As pitcher for the AHS varsity baseball team, Albayati held a 12-0 record for the season. She was also selected as Orange League MVP, an Orange County all-star and a member of the ALL-CIF SS team.
Albayati will begin her college softball career as a freshman starting this fall at Cal State San Marcos.
Here are the other stories we’ve been following this week:
- Rhea Jethvani, a 2022 graduate of Oxford Academy in the Anaheim Union High School District, was selected by State Superintendent Tony Thurmond to serve as one of four state delegates to attend this year’s National Youth Science Camp.
- For the seventh year in a row, the Anaheim Union High School District teamed up with California State University, Fullerton to host its Summer Language Academy. The four weeklong program focuses on supporting the linguistic needs of English learning students who have been in the United States for less than a year.
- Elementary school campuses throughout the Westminster School District unearthed decades-old time capsules in May and June that offered students a look back in time as they collected their own items to bury for rediscovery.
- Mask mandates are being reinstated at University of California, Irvine along with a few other university and K-12 campuses across the state following the news of rising COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.
- Thanks to new funding for graduation pathways in the 2022 state budget, students with developmental disabilities can now earn high school diplomas, benefiting roughly 80,000 students enrolled in special education programs throughout the state.
- The Capistrano Unified School District board passed a resolution at its July 13 meeting to request that the state set an end date for the policy requiring weekly COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated workers.
- The number of students that submitted their Federal Application for Free Student Aid, known as FAFSA, has increased 4.6 percent since last year, with California’s rate rising by 6.6 percent.
- Ahead of a July 18 school board meeting attended by anti-abortion activists, the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District postponed a vote on a proposal for a health clinic operated by Planned Parenthood.
- Due to a split vote among six candidates in the June primary election, incumbent Tony Thurmond and challenger Lance Christensen will go head-to-head in a November runoff election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
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.