Academic Year

Santa Ana school officials voted unanimously Tuesday night to strip a popular school of its charter, a move that could leave 1,300 students -- most of them Latino immigrants -- scrambling to find a new school next year. "It breaks my heart to have to vote this way, because I want to see our community educated," said School Boardmember Sal Tinajero. "But it has to be done correctly and it has to be done by the law."

The Los Angeles Unified School District is considering cutting its spending by an additional $78 million this academic year, reducing expenses on such things as computer technology, textbook purchases, teacher performance reviews, central administration and some adult and intersession programs.

Like many high school football players, Eddie Robinson and his Reseda High teammates engaged in trash talking and aggressive behavior on the field. But the profanity, shoving and rudeness tapered off last season after coaches introduced character education, the latest trend among teachers and principals fed up with obnoxious behavior and bad attitudes.

A greater percentage of Ventura County high school students stayed in school during the academic year ended last June than they did the previous year, according to a state Department of Education report released Wednesday. The latest dropout rate also reflects improvement that most Ventura County districts have shown during the past five years. Last year's rate, 1.8%, is down from 1.9% in 1998-99 and 2.1% in 1997-98, the report shows. Statewide, 2.

Sometimes the kids are ashamed. They don't want to say where they've been. But guidance counselor Primitivo Gonzalez is hard to fool. He picks them out in the hallways by their sun-scorched ears, pinched faces, arms corded with muscle. "You can see a special tiredness in their faces," says Gonzalez, who counsels the almost 200 migrant students at Memorial High School. "You know that look? These kids have been through hell and back."

Thousands of San Fernando Valley students start the 2000-01 school year today as administrators and teachers scurry to adapt to a new superintendent and a reorganization of the Los Angeles Unified School District that took effect only four days ago. In the Valley, 50 schools in the 711,000-student LAUSD operate on multitrack, year-round calendars. Districtwide, 220 schools do.

Just before 1 a.m. on a Sunday in February, UC Santa Barbara freshman Adrian Breckel was close to passing out from a drinking binge. But the 18-year-old believed she had just been raped by an older student who escorted her from a fraternity party to her room in a palm-shaded apartment complex. Later that day, distraught and angry, Breckel filed a complaint with the sheriff's office.

The local chapter of the American Assn. of University Women will have its first meeting of the academic year Sept. 18 at 9:30 a.m. All women with a four-year college degree are invited to join the group to learn about upcoming programs and this year's priorities, said President Roz Mattson. The local chapter was chartered in 1969, and members work to raise money for musical instruments for children and participates in national AAUW projects.

Personnel changes, remediation and the last renovations to buildings damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake will top the list of priorities at Cal State Northridge as the campus opens for classes today. By the end of this academic year, the university will have new leadership, a virtually restored campus and the best opportunity in seven years to focus on issues unrelated to earthquake recovery.

That almost 400 Cal State Northridge freshmen failed remedial classes this year can hardly be called good news. But compared to what students feared would happen under a new mandate limiting remedial classes to the first academic year, the figure looks better. Much better. Like all the schools in the Cal State system, CSUN has been struggling with how to teach record enrollments of students unprepared to do college-level work.