Celebrations were underway this week at schools across Orange County to welcome the Year of the Tiger, or more commonly known as the Chinese Lunar New Year.
If you aren’t familiar, the Lunar New Year is celebrated in China, Vietnam, Mongolia, North and South Korea, and other parts of Asia. The lunar calendar assigns an animal from the rotating zodiac sign of 12 animals, and 2022 welcomes the Year of the Tiger.
To commemorate the beginning of the lunar year, several OC campuses held celebrations, special assemblies and performances. One of the largest celebrations was held at La Quinta High School in the Garden Grove Unified School District. The school’s Tet — short for Tet Nguyen Dan — festival, which took place on Feb. 2, is considered one of the biggest and most popular festivals of the year in the Vietnamese community.
According to the Orange County Register, the festival included multiple student performances including traditional dragon and lion dancers and a special appearance from Andy Le, a La Quinta alum who recently played Death Dealer in the Marvel franchise movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”
And here are some of the other stories we are tracking this week.
- After more than 50 years, Edison High School in the Huntington Beach Union High School District debuted a brand new 40-meter pool, allowing the school to host varsity water polo games for the first time.
- Amid signs that the Omicron variant may be waning locally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week granted full approval to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 18 and up.
- New proposed legislation could provide state funding for daily school bus transportation for all of California’s six million K-12 students starting next year, alleviating the financial burden for districts.
- The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 3-2 on a resolution to give the Orange County Board of Education “exclusive authority” to adjust its own voter redistricting, however it is unclear if the county vote will sway ongoing litigation between the Board of Education and County Committee on School District Organization.
- In other Board of Education news, a charter school that focuses on “classical education” was given the go-ahead this week from the Orange County Board of Education to open more campuses countywide.
- Ocean View School District Superintendent Dr. Carol Hansen has announced she’ll retire from the district in July 2022, capping a 37-year career in public education.
- In related news, the La Habra City School District has named Dr. Mario A. Carlos as its next superintendent, pending Board of Education approval at the upcoming Feb. 10 meeting.
- Local school districts across Orange County have reported a decline in recent absence rates among students and staff.
- After three weeks of online courses to start the winter quarter, UC Irvine students returned to classrooms in person on Monday — with masking and vaccination requirements — as the county appears to be seeing a decline in COVID-19 cases.
- And finally, a California lawmaker plans to introduce a new bill that would require school administrators to collect information from parents about guns stored at home and would mandate backpack, locker and car searches at schools if there is a credible threat.
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