Middle School

Middle School The Worst Years of My Life James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts, illustrations by Laura Park Little, Brown: 284 pp., $15.99, ages 12 and up Middle school is an awkward other-world — a purgatorial pit stop between childhood and teendom that's difficult to negotiate even for the most self-confident of kids, let alone an undersized boy without friends who's bullied by a shaved-headed thug nicknamed Miller the Killer....

The class clown from Mr. Gadberry's high school art class has made good - and how. Rebecca Mieliwocki teaches seventh-grade English at Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank - but not next year. Instead, she'll be on the road as the National Teacher of the Year. It took her a long time to get to the classroom - she once worked as a floral designer, doing the flowers for Elizabeth Taylor's private jet - and eventually to the White House, where a fellow teacher, President Obama, crowned her as a national teaching treasure.

A boy dressed in camouflage shot and critically wounded a 13-year-old female classmate in the lobby of their middle school Friday, police said. The boy, also 13, then pointed a pistol at the principal and assistant principal, who told him to "stay cool," Supt. Carlos Viramontes said. The youth was taken into custody by police shortly after the 12:45 p.m. shooting at Deming Middle School.

States that require vaccination for pertussis, meningitis and tetanus for admission to middle school have a higher vaccination rate than states that do not, but the rate is not nearly as high as one might expect from such a requirement, researchers reported Monday. States that required only that educational materials be sent home for those vaccines and the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine showed no improvement in vaccination rates. Vaccines for tetanus and pertussis are typically given during childhood, but the effects can diminish over time and a booster shot is recommended in early adolescence.

Sergio Rodriguez had a simpler view of art before he helped paint a 125-foot-long mural at Christopher Columbus Middle School. "I thought drawing was just pencil and paper, but it's more than that," said the 13-year-old, who attends Columbus. "It's really putting your mind and hard work into it. You have to be precise." Sergio drew a flying car for a portion of the mural that depicts a future city.

Making room for smaller elementary classes, Conejo Valley district trustees Thursday expanded a popular program that offers sixth-graders the choice of attending either elementary or middle schools. Starting next year, the program will be offered at all four Conejo Valley middle and intermediate schools. "I'm a strong supporter of the Middle School Program," said board President Richard Newman before voting.

The brief story in the Westside section (Feb. 2) concerning a single middle school in the Beverly Hills Unified School District clearly implied that the middle school is an approved concept, a done deal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since neither the district nor the members of the Board of Education have any information about construction costs at Beverly Vista or the three other elementary schools, nor about transitional costs other than capital expenditures, nor about ongoing annual costs for the program as presented, it would be the height of irresponsibility to blindly commit in favor of the concept.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District is looking at the future of middle schools, and whether the sixth grade should be offered in an elementary or middle school setting.

It's the grown-up version of a lunchtime food fight, but in place of milk cartons and squished bananas, Los Angeles Unified School District bureaucrats and L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency officials hurl threats of lawsuits and tangled streamers of red tape. The battle's been brewing at least since 2000, when the district proposed building a new middle school for 1,620 students to relieve three overcrowded campuses.

When I think back to my school years long ago, my stomach still knots up when I remember seventh grade. After moving to the neighborhood in sixth grade, I became friends with the most popular girl in school, instantly inheriting her friends as well. I was part of the clique, always called, busy, more than happy. Sixth grade was still part of elementary school then, and we were top of the food chain.

Though she was raised by two teachers, Rebecca Mieliwocki never figured she'd end up in front of a classroom. She first aspired to be a lawyer, then worked in publishing. Unfulfilled, she decided to take up the family profession. And on Monday, after 14 years in the classroom, she was named the National Teacher of the Year. "I was not doing work that I felt was making a difference on the planet," she said. "It was shocking to me as anybody that being a teacher was absolutely the right fit. " Mieliwocki, a seventh-grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank, will be recognized by President Obama on Tuesday during a ceremony at the White House.

'Girls Middle School Orchestra' By Michael Ryan * * They're all dressed up in carmine floor-length velvet gowns, their upswirled hair festooned with matching ribbons: their fresh hopes and our fond hopes for them Infuse this sort-of-music as if happiness could actually be each-plays-her-part-and-all-will-take-care-of-itself. Their hearts unscarred under quartz lights beam through the darkness in which we sit to show us why we endured at home the squeaking and squawking and botched notes that now in concert are almost beautiful, almost rendering this heartrending music composed for an archduke who loved it so much he spent his fortune for the musicians who could bring it brilliantly to life.

Chomp: A Novel Carl Hiaasen Alfred A. Knopf: 304 pp., $16.99, ages 10 and up South Florida is known for many things: Alligators, orange groves and the writer who spins the area's most sensational attributes into even more sensational story lines, Carl Hiaasen. In his many bestsellers for adults and kids, Hiaasen has demonstrated a unique gift for wrapping real environmental issues into apocryphal, bust-a-gut books that parody pop culture - a talent he furthers in his most recent middle-school novel, "Chomp.

On Wednesday, it was pie by the numbers in Sherman Oaks. Teachers, parents and students at Millikan Middle School went all out to honor one of math's most famous numbers: pi, approximately 3.14. Perfect timing, it being March 14. To properly commemorate the infinite number, which represents the relationship between a circle's diameter and circumference, the school's Millikan Math Academy presented the third annual Pi Day. Of course, there was a pie-eating contest.

The FBI arrested a San Bernardino middle school teacher Tuesday on suspicion of child pornography for allegedly exchanging sexually explicit photographs with a 13-year-old girl in New Jersey. Eugene Ballantyne, 29, was taken into custody at his Running Springs home early Tuesday morning. Ballantyne told investigators that he also received sexually explicit pictures from a 15-year-old girl two years earlier and traveled 180 miles to have sex with a 17-year-old girl in July, according to a FBI affidavit filed in federal court.

Monica Gonzalez had to persuade her mother to allow her to attend Charles Maclay Middle School , the local junior high just blocks from her Pacoima home. Older cousins enrolled there told tales of daily fistfights, and she said her mother worried about the 11-year-old sixth-grader walking through the troubled neighborhood. After a lot of pleading, her mother relented. As a way to help make the school safer, Monica recently spent several days training with 25 other students to become peer mediators.

Middle school can be a perilous time for students whose test scores are down from elementary school: The stage can too easily be set for failure. In response, Gov. Gray Davis proposed in January to spend $1.45 billion over three years to extend the middle-school year. But many legislators balked at the cost of the governor's proposed six-week extension, saying they would rather provide more money for failing schools.

The city's first new middle school in 25 years, set to open in the fall of 1999, will be named Pioneer Middle School. Tustin Unified School District board members said the choice was an easy one for a school at Pioneer Road and Pioneer Way in the Tustin Ranch area. Students from Peters Canyon and Tustin Ranch elementary schools will attend the new campus.

After a difficult search process, a veteran Los Angeles principal who later started a local charter school has been chosen the newest leader of the downtown visual and performing arts high school. Norman Isaacs, 67, was not the first or second choice of Los Angeles Unified School District officials, but he has long been viewed as a leader within and outside the school system for his role in developing and managing arts programs. "The challenge was extremely exciting," said Isaacs, who is exiting formal retirement and will set aside his six-hour-a-day workouts for an upcoming triathlon.

Laura Custodio, dean of Porter Middle School in the San Fernando Valley, sprang into action after hearing that an eighth-grader was selling pot to other students. Without consulting police or parents, she asked a 12-year-old boy with a history of discipline problems to act as a decoy buyer and gave him a marked $5 bill. "I was pretty scared," the decoy, a seventh-grader, later testified in court. "She told me it was the right thing to do and I had to do it … and I didn't want to disappoint her. " The sting roiled a suburban campus better known for its academic achievement and led to a more than $1-million jury award to the seventh-grader and his family in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District.