School Administration

The Riverside City College student body president convicted of kidnapping and committing lewd acts with a child confirmed his status as a sex offender Thursday. But Doug Figueroa, 40, emphasized that he pleaded guilty, in part so that he “could immediately engage in … proactive change in my life.” In an email to The Times, Figueroa said he enrolled in school and became involved on campus to help foster that change. “My heart does go out to any victim of any kind of abuse,” he wrote in the email.

The Riverside City College student body president convicted of kidnapping and committing lewd acts with a child confirmed his status as a sex offender Thursday. But Doug Figueroa, 40, emphasized that he pleaded guilty, in part so that he “could immediately engage in … proactive change in my life.” In an email to The Times, Figueroa said he enrolled in school and became involved on campus to help foster that change. “My heart does go out to any victim of any kind of abuse,” he wrote in the email.

"Seniores" and "Señoritas" events held at an Anaheim high school - in which students dressed as gang members and a pregnant woman pushing a baby stroller - have been canceled after officials concluded the activities were demeaning toward Latinos and their culture. The events, which have been held for at least three years at Canyon High School, took place during senior activity week in June and were approved by campus administrators, according to school district officials. The event was canceled after the Orange Unified School District launched an internal investigation in June in response to two complaints filed by former students.

SACRAMENTO - A group of Republican state lawmakers Wednesday proposed allowing school districts to spend education funds to train teachers, administrators and janitors in gun use. Responding to last month's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the lawmakers said arming school personnel would help protect campuses against violent intruders. "The idea is to create essentially an invisible line of defense around our kids," said Assemblyman and tea party adherent Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino.

Ninety minutes after his principal told him that he needed to improve his attitude, 13-year-old John Sirola returned to his grade school, leveled a shotgun and without warning shot the principal in the face. Whether the eighth-grader then committed suicide or accidentally killed himself as he fled from the parochial school was one of several mysteries that police were wrestling with Tuesday.

When California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said "Ugh!" on Tuesday, the months-long rollout of a brand-spanking new University of California logo officially became a fiasco. Today the school announced it would suspend its use. Some students had been up in arms about the redesign for a while, but then students are supposed to complain about school administration and its inevitable idiocy. But when a progressive state politician -- and UC regent -- joins more than 54,000 petitioners and a torrent of brickbats in social media thrown at the design, attention will be paid.

TELLURIDE, Colo. - Wearing high-top tennis shoes and headphones, 11-year-old Wadjda doesn't look like much of a revolutionary. But in filmmaker Haifaa Mansour's new Saudi Arabian movie, the young girl is just that - as is Mansour herself. Having its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, "Wadjda" has become one of the event's most talked-about movies, as much as for what's on screen as for how the story was brought to the screen. The first Saudi feature directed by a woman, "Wadjda" was made entirely inside the repressive country.

About 200 striking Oakland teachers were blocked by police from entering the school administration building where they intended to demonstrate support for their three-week strike. District officials said a noisy demonstration by 500 strikers inside the building on Friday resulted in acts of vandalism and prevented work by staff members.

For most girls, prom is a rite of passage: the perfect dress, the prettiest corsage and the handsome date; it's an experience they remember their entire lives. Twenty-five years ago, as a junior at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, my choice to go to the prom without a traditional date made the whole experience memorable for an entirely different set of reasons. It made me suddenly an outcast and a radical, a bomb thrower in a green taffeta dress. Three different boys asked me to the prom, but at the time, I didn't have a steady boyfriend.

The principals who allowed three students to make up a failed class in less than a week so they could graduate with classmates in June have been transferred to other schools. Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy ordered the involuntary transfers in August after an investigation of complaints from one or more teachers at STEM Academy in Hollywood, where three seniors had failed a social studies class. The seniors withdrew from STEM and into Alonzo Community Day School, an adjacent alternative campus.

When California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said "Ugh!" on Tuesday, the months-long rollout of a brand-spanking new University of California logo officially became a fiasco. Today the school announced it would suspend its use. Some students had been up in arms about the redesign for a while, but then students are supposed to complain about school administration and its inevitable idiocy. But when a progressive state politician -- and UC regent -- joins more than 54,000 petitioners and a torrent of brickbats in social media thrown at the design, attention will be paid.

Kent Taylor, the administrator in charge of the financially troubled Inglewood school district, resigned Friday after the state Department of Education learned of tentative agreements he made with the teachers union without the authority to do so. Taylor's resignation comes two months after he was appointed by state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to lead the school system - which was taken over by the state in September when Gov. Jerry Brown approved legislation granting $55 million in emergency loans to help the 14,000-student district.

The principals who allowed three students to make up a failed class in less than a week so they could graduate with classmates in June have been transferred to other schools. Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy ordered the involuntary transfers in August after an investigation of complaints from one or more teachers at STEM Academy in Hollywood, where three seniors had failed a social studies class. The seniors withdrew from STEM and into Alonzo Community Day School, an adjacent alternative campus.

TELLURIDE, Colo. - Wearing high-top tennis shoes and headphones, 11-year-old Wadjda doesn't look like much of a revolutionary. But in filmmaker Haifaa Mansour's new Saudi Arabian movie, the young girl is just that - as is Mansour herself. Having its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, "Wadjda" has become one of the event's most talked-about movies, as much as for what's on screen as for how the story was brought to the screen. The first Saudi feature directed by a woman, "Wadjda" was made entirely inside the repressive country.

"Seniores" and "Señoritas" events held at an Anaheim high school - in which students dressed as gang members and a pregnant woman pushing a baby stroller - have been canceled after officials concluded the activities were demeaning toward Latinos and their culture. The events, which have been held for at least three years at Canyon High School, took place during senior activity week in June and were approved by campus administrators, according to school district officials. The event was canceled after the Orange Unified School District launched an internal investigation in June in response to two complaints filed by former students.

For most girls, prom is a rite of passage: the perfect dress, the prettiest corsage and the handsome date; it's an experience they remember their entire lives. Twenty-five years ago, as a junior at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, my choice to go to the prom without a traditional date made the whole experience memorable for an entirely different set of reasons. It made me suddenly an outcast and a radical, a bomb thrower in a green taffeta dress. Three different boys asked me to the prom, but at the time, I didn't have a steady boyfriend.

The damage from last week's storm continues to pile up. Add to the list Laguna Beach's schools, some of which sit on hills that eroded during the heavy rain. Top of the World Elementary, where hillside erosion is a continuing concern, suffered the most damage, said Barbara Callard, interim superintendent. Erosion also occurred at Thurston Middle School and Laguna Beach High School, but no damage was found at El Morro School, she said.

Mike McQueary, the Penn State assistant football coach whose eyewitness testimony proved central in the university's child sex-abuse scandal, now plans to sue the university. McQueary has filed the preliminary paperwork necessary for a "whistleblower" lawsuit against the university, according to a story posted online Tuesday by reporter Mike Dawson of the Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania. The four-page document does not discuss details of the pending lawsuit but puts all parties on alert that McQueary will attempt to seek damages "outside normal arbitration limits," according to the story.

Mike McQueary, the Penn State assistant football coach whose eyewitness testimony proved central in the university's child sex-abuse scandal, now plans to sue the university. McQueary has filed the preliminary paperwork necessary for a "whistleblower" lawsuit against the university, according to a story posted online Tuesday by reporter Mike Dawson of the Centre Daily Times in Pennsylvania. The four-page document does not discuss details of the pending lawsuit but puts all parties on alert that McQueary will attempt to seek damages "outside normal arbitration limits," according to the story.

Mark Berndt, the teacher accused of committing lewd acts against nearly two dozen elementary school children, was the target of a police investigation 18 years ago when a female student reported that he had tried to fondle her, authorities said. The alleged incident occurred in September 1993, though officials said the girl did not tell her mother about it until four months later, after seeing an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that explained the difference between "good touches" and "bad touches.