Long Beach Unified School District

Enrollment: 74,173 Areas served: Long Beach, Santa Catalina Island, Signal Hill and most of Lakewood. Election day: April 14 DISTRICT 2: Central and west Long Beach; two candidates for one seat. Bobbie Smith INCUMBENT Age: 59 Profession: Head librarian, Long Beach City College. Remarks: "I feel proud that we have more ethnic minority teachers and administrators (to) be more reflective of the student body. In the past four years we have hired 119 new minority teachers."

California's top education official sought Tuesday to counter federal criticism of the state's reluctance to use student test scores to evaluate teachers, paying a visit to Long Beach to highlight one of the few California school districts to make extensive use of such data. The Long Beach Unified School District's use of student scores to assess the effectiveness of programs, instructional strategies and teachers is a rarity in California, and state Supt.

If some parents want the Long Beach school district to know how they feel about their children's schools, all they have to do is answer the telephone. This month, school officials are surveying the parents of about 10% of the students at each school, hoping to determine if they are satisfied with the education their children are receiving.

The Long Beach Unified School District was again named a finalist Wednesday for the prestigious Broad Prize, which honors academic excellence and strong performance by minority and poor students in urban districts across the nation. "It's a huge honor," said Christopher J. Steinhauser, superintendent of the nearly 91,000-student district.

Avalon city officials, casting about for ways to help the Long Beach Unified School District find money for a new gymnasium on Santa Catalina Island, are considering lending the district money to pay for architectural plans. The old gym was torn down earlier this year because of asbestos contamination, city officials said.

A Long Beach Poly High football player who has been accused of raping a female student on campus will not return to the school, according to Poly co-principal Shawn Ashley. Brian Banks, a senior arrested July 8 on suspicion of having raped a sophomore earlier in the day during summer school classes, "will not be returning to Poly regardless of the outcome of any judicial procedures," Ashley said Thursday.

The Long Beach Unified School District is conducting a telephone survey to measure parent satisfaction with its schools. The survey began Monday and will continue through Aug. 14. School officials are calling selected homes between 5:30 and 9:30 p.m. and conducting brief interviews in the parent's primary language. The questions have been designed to help teachers and administrators pinpoint problems and improve communication with parents, school officials said.

Operation Revitalization, an anti-crime program that includes the Long Beach Police Department and the Los Angeles County Probation Department, has received $518,500 from the state. The program was set up to help begin community policing, revitalize neighborhoods and prevent crime. Also participating in the project are the county district attorney's office, Long Beach Unified School District, the city Community Development Department, the North Long Beach Neighborhood Assn.

After almost two years of battling bureaucracy, officials from Long Beach Unified School District and the city of Avalon won state approval this week to rebuild Avalon's only gymnasium. A state board Wednesday approved emergency funding for the gym. Construction, expected to cost $2.5 million, is to begin in late summer and be finished a year later. The city's old school gym was shut down in 1988 and razed because of asbestos contamination.

The California Teachers' Assn. has asked for a Superior Court order to force the Long Beach Unified School District to comply with a contract provision that it says should give teachers a 9% pay raise this year. Vera Bradford, a spokeswoman for the association, said the three-year contract from 1982 to 1985 stipulated pay increases for the union's approximately 1,500 teachers. Those raises were tied to how much money the district was granted by the state during the last two years of the pact.

Once again, Long Beach Unified School District has been recognized as one of America's best. Although New York City won the Broad Prize for Urban Education on Tuesday -- a distinction awarded to the district for demonstrating progress in closing the achievement gap between black and Latino students and whites -- Long Beach, which won the prize in 2003, made history by returning this year as a top-five finalist.

Five urban school districts, including the Long Beach Unified School District, were named Wednesday as finalists for the annual $1-million Broad Prize for Urban Education, which honors urban school systems judged as making the greatest progress in raising student achievement. Long Beach is the first former winner since the competition began in 2002 to return as a finalist, according to the Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation. A winning district is not eligible to reapply for three years.

Familiarity doesn't breed only contempt, but also wackiness. That's the opinion of Ventura Coach Ann Larson, whose girls' basketball team beat rival Ventura Buena, 48-35, Thursday and earned a share of first place in the Channel League. It was the teams' fourth meeting this season. The Cougars won for the third time and avenged a 48-27 loss in the first round of league play.

Years before he would kill student Mayra Mora-Lopez, he described beating another young woman when he applied to be a teacher's aide for the Long Beach Unified School District. "I had an argument with my ex-girlfriend.... I hit her, causing her injuries. I was arrested and convicted to a city jail for 90 days," Pedro Tepoz-Leon wrote on a 1992 form the district requires of applicants with criminal records.

The principal of Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach and a school district official discovered that a teacher was living with a student and suspected him of hitting her, but he was still teaching three months later when he stabbed her to death, according to a lawsuit.

The Long Beach Unified School District on Monday received the $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education, an award created last year by Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist Eli Broad to recognize urban school systems that have closed achievement gaps. "We hope that Long Beach will be an inspiration to all of the Southern California urban districts," Broad said, adding that the district had been chosen from more than 100 reviewed.

Two Republicans were appointed to the Board of Trustees of the California State University system by Gov. George Deukmejian. They are Theodore Bruinsma, 65, of Rancho Palos Verdes, and Dr. John Kashiwabara, 64, of Long Beach. Bruinsma, former president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1982. He is currently president of University Technology Transfer Inc.

In a display of educational musical chairs, the Long Beach Unified School District will have new principals at 23 of it 84 schools when classes begin in September--the largest administrative changeover in recent years, officials said. Five principals were demoted to the positions of assistant principal or administrative assistant in the district office, Deputy Supt. Steve Fish said.

The Garden Grove Unified School District received $125,000 Monday as a finalist for the Broad Prize for Urban Education, a national award created last year by Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist Eli Broad to recognize urban school systems that have closed achievement gaps. The prize was created to honor districts that are improving test scores and providing quality education to students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and income levels, Broad said.

The Long Beach and Garden Grove school districts have been named as being among the five national finalists for the annual $500,000 Broad Prize for Urban Education. The award was created last year by businessman and education activist Eli Broad to recognize school systems that are improving test scores and providing quality education to students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and income levels. Broad said that finalists "have all set clear achievement goals.