Elementary School Student

Prosecutors will not file any charges in the Long Beach case of 10-year-old Joanna Ramos, who died hours after a fight with another elementary school student, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office announced Wednesday. The decision concludes what authorities and school officials called a highly delicate and unusual case, given the ages of the children involved. "This case was a fight between two children that ended with unintended and tragic results," Long Beach police said in a statement.

First there was the Boy Scouts' "Respect Copyrights" activity patch, backed by the Motion Picture Assn. of America. Then there was "Crime-Fighting Canines," a weekly anti-piracy comic strip series for children in which two black Labrador retrievers named Lucky and Flo sniffed out bootleg DVDs. The series was part of a school education campaign led by the MPAA. Now that group, along with the Recording Industry Assn. of America and the nation's main Internet service providers, is quietly backing another controversial push to educate schoolchildren about the evils of piracy.

The allegations of sexual molestation involving two teachers at Miramonte Elementary School have rightly rocked the Los Angeles Unified School District. Now that the alarm has been raised and the need to watch for and report suspicious behavior is better understood, more reports have arisen at other schools of possible abuses. And though it was an extreme move, we also supported the shifting and temporary replacement of the entire staff of Miramonte until the investigation has been completed, to ensure that students are protected.

Prosecutors will not file any charges in the Long Beach case of 10-year-old Joanna Ramos, who died hours after a fight with another elementary school student, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office announced Wednesday. The decision concludes what authorities and school officials called a highly delicate and unusual case, given the ages of the children involved. "This case was a fight between two children that ended with unintended and tragic results," Long Beach police said in a statement.

The boxy Fullerton classroom resembles any other--rules posted on the wall and kids' sketches displayed prominently--until you read the students' goals for the year. Written in wobbly print and hung for all to see, the aspirations sound nothing like regular elementary school fodder--no dreams here of becoming a fireman or owning a puppy.

Although Orange County hasn't experienced the campus bloodshed visited on other communities, local educators reported that guns were involved in 128 campus crimes over the last three years. A Times analysis of state reports covering mid-1995 through the summer of 1998 shows the incidents ran the gamut from a Capistrano Unified District elementary school student threatening another with a loaded revolver to an Irvine high school student who had stashed a .

The drought-ending rains of winter had stirred new growth among the grasslands, chaparral and oaks of the Rancho Mission Viejo Land Conservancy, giving visitors on Earth Day a glimpse more lush than anything seen in a decade.

First there was the Boy Scouts' "Respect Copyrights" activity patch, backed by the Motion Picture Assn. of America. Then there was "Crime-Fighting Canines," a weekly anti-piracy comic strip series for children in which two black Labrador retrievers named Lucky and Flo sniffed out bootleg DVDs. The series was part of a school education campaign led by the MPAA. Now that group, along with the Recording Industry Assn. of America and the nation's main Internet service providers, is quietly backing another controversial push to educate schoolchildren about the evils of piracy.

Actor Walter Koenig will probably be known the rest of his life for his portrayal of Ensign Chekov on the original "Star Trek" series. On Thursday, he swapped his trademark Russian accent for an Italian one and replaced Capt. Kirk with Capt. Christopher Columbus in a humorous vignette that retraced the explorer's voyage but had him land in the strange new world of modern-day Miami Beach.

Twelve teams of elementary students from Lakewood, Long Beach and Norwalk today will unleash their creativity by developing 3-D maps of their neighborhoods. Using materials such as milk cartons, juice boxes, paper towel cylinders and shoe boxes, more than 100 students will make miniature buildings and landmarks for the police station, library, post office and school. The Neighborhood Knowledge Map-Making Olympics will be held in the Lakewood High School Gymnasium.

The allegations of sexual molestation involving two teachers at Miramonte Elementary School have rightly rocked the Los Angeles Unified School District. Now that the alarm has been raised and the need to watch for and report suspicious behavior is better understood, more reports have arisen at other schools of possible abuses. And though it was an extreme move, we also supported the shifting and temporary replacement of the entire staff of Miramonte until the investigation has been completed, to ensure that students are protected.

Five families from across the San Fernando Valley set up camp for three nights by the front door of Wilbur Avenue Elementary School in 2009, intent on getting a spot for their children in one of the best-regarded schools in Los Angeles. Others hired someone to hold their place in line. This spring, the school in affluent Tarzana began using a lottery for applicants from outside the neighborhood. Within hours, more than a dozen children were on the list. What these determined families could not have known is that Wilbur's record was among the worst in Los Angeles for boosting student performance in math and English.

This little Northern California farm town is blissfully unaccustomed to turmoil. But recent weeks dished up a hopper of dissent. It started with a girl who went home from junior high saying she felt like an orange. Lauren Tatro, 13, told her parents the plain facts. Every student at Brittan Elementary School had to wear a badge the size of an index card with their name, grade, photo -- and a tiny radio identification tag. The purpose was to test a new high-tech attendance system.

Like the other Marine reservists in his platoon, Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Bera was exhausted last May as he moved north through the Iraqi desert. Temperatures pushed above 110 degrees each day, desert sand blew relentlessly, he was in the middle of a war and he missed his life back home. Then the letters arrived. Bera received an envelope addressed to him from Andrew Andrade, a Garden Grove fifth-grader.

It struck 8-year-old Shelby Cottey as she practiced writing cursive and capital Gs for an assignment Wednesday at La Ballona Elementary School in Culver City. "The words started to get all mixed up and I felt dizzy," she said. "My head started to hurt." Shelby was the last in her family to catch a late-season flu bug. Her 1-year-old sister was the first, and within days both parents and all five children in the family were coughing and struggling with upset stomachs.

The boxy Fullerton classroom resembles any other--rules posted on the wall and kids' sketches displayed prominently--until you read the students' goals for the year. Written in wobbly print and hung for all to see, the aspirations sound nothing like regular elementary school fodder--no dreams here of becoming a fireman or owning a puppy.

Elementary school students in Los Angeles County, like their counterparts throughout the state, generally improved on the basic skills test administered by the state last spring. As a group, third-, sixth- and eighth-graders gained in reading, writing and mathematics, according to recently released results of the California Assessment Program (CAP) test. The only significant drop from last year's scores was in eighth-grade social science, which fell an average of 7 points statewide.

One of the most enjoyable experiences for an adult gardener is to introduce a child to the fun and satisfaction of growing houseplants. In 22 years, I've had the joy of introducing thousands of children, some as young as 2 years old, to indoor gardening in classrooms, on television shows and in their homes, and their intense interest and wonder about growing things never ceases to amaze me.

Time was precious to the fifth-graders at Killybrooke Elementary School in Costa Mesa. They worked noisily but deliberately, huddled in groups over 16-by-16-inch plastic nursery flats. Students like Natasha Perkins, Enrique Lara and Travis Kelek had only four days to finish their project. They had much to do. Natasha needed slices of sod so the grass could be used as pasture around the 100-year-old Newland House in Huntington Beach that her group was re-creating.

Eleven Swain Elementary School students sat down in teacher Sean Kennedy's fourth-grade classroom Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. to do math problems. But school had been out since 2:30 p.m. Two days a week for an hour, these 11 students and 60 others participate in an after-school tutorial program for students considered at risk or candidates for retention. The after-school tutorial is the Cypress School District's answer to legislation signed last fall by former Gov.