Weekly roundup: Edison High mural pays tribute to civil rights icons, districts prepare to redraw voting boundaries, and more

Edison High recently celebrated the completion of a powerful campus mural depicting figures from the 1960s civil rights movement.

Mural featuring civil rights figuresGraduating senior Logan Dunn, 17, leveraged his talents to transform 63 square feet of wall space at the Huntington Beach campus into a tribute to Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I’m pretty satisfied,” the young artist said. “It came together a lot better than I thought.”

According to the Daily Pilot, it was the 10th campus mural produced under the direction of Edison art teacher Jennie Roy-Atwood, and the entire senior student body picked the theme.

And here are some of the other news stories from the week ending July 2:

  • Not far from where she and her brothers were once denied enrollment at a school because of their Mexican heritage, civil rights icon Sylvia Mendez visited Westminster High School to help dedicate a brand new learning pavilion named in her honor.
  • The Lowell Joint School District, which has long operated under the umbrella of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, transferred over to OCDE’s jurisdiction starting Thursday, July 1. The shift, approved by local voters last year, is believed to be a first for a school district.
  • Buoyed by a robust infusion of federal dollars and California’s progressive tax structure, state legislative leaders agreed on a spending plan for 2021-22 that would provide record funding for public schools while adding a year of school for 4-year-olds and significantly expanding financial aid for college students.
  • Childhood experts say the impacts of the pandemic may linger for years to come for children who have fallen behind socially, academically and emotionally. One report suggests the average U.S. student has lost the equivalent of five to nine months of learning.
  • And finally, the Capistrano Unified School District announced a pair of new principals for Capistrano Union High and Las Flores Middle schools. The appointments will take effect on July 1.

This is the part where we encourage you to keep up with local education news stories by bookmarking the OCDE Newsroomsubscribing for emailed updates and following us on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.