The Anaheim Union High School District says it’s partnered with an Irvine-based technology firm to launch a new artificial intelligence internship program.
According to a joint news release, the collaboration with Loko AI will give AUHSD students real-world, hands-on experience with software engineering and machine learning.
Loko AI leverages autonomous systems, computer vision and synthetic data to tackle security, surveillance, public safety and loss-prevention challenges. The company was created as a response to the Route 91 festival shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
Founder and CEO Joseph Zaki emphasized the importance of introducing the next generation to artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“We intend to help catalyze Orange County into an AI superhub of job creation, education, community building,” he said, “and we’re excited to be pushing the frontier of artificial intelligence and machine learning with AUHSD.”
The Anaheim Union High School District currently offers an artificial intelligence pathway at Kennedy High School, emphasizing robotics, computer science and engineering design.
“We are excited to be working with the innovative team at Loko AI and creating real-world, workforce opportunities for our students in the disruptive field of artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Superintendent Michael Matsuda said.
And here are some of the other education news stories from the week ending July 30:
- Orange County’s community colleges are bringing some students back for the fall session — with hopes of fully reopening in the spring.
- Eight electric buses are making their way to the Anaheim Elementary School District, which unveiled half of the clean-energy fleet at the district’s transportation depot.
- The OC Board of Education held the first of its two summer forums on ethnic studies and critical race theory following a pair of local news conferences expressing differing views, the Orange County Register reported. The Voice of OC and Daily Pilot also covered the forum.
- Federal health officials are now recommending that fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors in public if they’re in areas with substantial or high transmission. The CDC also revised its school recommendations, calling for universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to schools, regardless of their vaccination status.
- Dr. Gregory A. Franklin, who has been superintendent of the Tustin Unified School District for the last decade, announced that he’ll retire on Dec. 31, capping a career in education that has spanned more than 35 years.
- State data shows that charter school enrollment in Orange County climbed to 4.6 percent in the 2020-21 school year from 2.4 percent in 2014-15. Meanwhile, some are expressing concerns about a lack of oversight, the Voice of OC reports.
- The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified school board voted 3-2 in favor of a resolution asking the California Department of Public Health to give schools the option of having students wear face coverings while indoors.
- The California State University system says it will require students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to its 23 campuses for the fall semester. The Los Angeles Times reports that medical and religious exemptions will be permitted, but unvaccinated students will have to be tested regularly.
- Meanwhile, Californians are split over whether the COVID-19 vaccine should be mandatory for students and teachers in public schools, KTLA channel 5 reports.
- And finally, parents of high school students have the right to request a grade change — to pass or no-pass — for courses they took in 2020-21 under new legislation signed by the governor on July 1, EdSource reports. The idea is not to punish students for the impacts of the pandemic.
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.