School Construction

The massive federal economic stimulus package hammered out by Congress this week contains about $106 billion earmarked for education, an unprecedented expansion of federal spending into the nation's schools. District officials throughout California, bracing for another round of painful state budget cuts, were grateful for a new infusion of funds. The money would pay for, among other things, special education, school repair and retaining teachers who might otherwise be laid off.

The college sits on a crest in Rancho Palos Verdes with a multimillion-dollar view of the ocean. But it is a view that students living in the dorms don't see. Instead of being on campus, student housing is six miles away in San Pedro. Marymount College has tried to remedy that situation for nine years. But because of opposition from neighbors who say that moving student housing there would bring too much noise and traffic, no students yet live on campus.

With a rich history and a promising future, the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts will celebrate its 80th birthday Sunday with a dedication ceremony of its new $175-million home on campus. The school's most famous alum, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, whose Lucasfilm Foundation provided $75 million for the new digs, plus $100 million for the school's endowment, will be on hand.

Consultants working for the Los Angeles Unified School District's school construction program cost taxpayers 70% more than if district employees had been used to do the same work, according to a draft internal audit obtained Thursday by The Times. The audit also found that some consultants lacked required qualifications for their duties, and that those contractors have been improperly supervising and evaluating district employees as well as other consultants.

A relic of the tortured Belmont Learning Complex project was laid to rest last month when school officials voted to spend $35.9 million to turn an abandoned shopping center shell beneath the school into a training and testing center for teachers. The commercial space was to have been part of an ambitious re-imagination of what a school could be -- as well as a potential money-generator.

Declining enrollment has prompted the Los Angeles Unified School District to scale back its $20-billion school construction and remodeling program sought to relieve overcrowding and end involuntary busing. The building program, which is paid for by four bond issues approved by local voters and state funds, is believed to be the largest public works project in the nation.

Making broad pronouncements about the need to protect the health of children in their care, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday restricted the district's ability to build schools near freeways and other sources of air pollution.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, amid a $20-billion school construction program, is gearing up to put on the November ballot its fifth bond measure since 1997, officials said Friday. The district commissioned a telephone poll in which 604 likely voters were asked whether they would support a $3.2-billion measure "that may appear on the November ballot" to build schools and early education centers, remove hazards and otherwise renovate aging campuses.

A Santa Barbara County grand jury has indicted a former school district official in Santa Maria and three former executives of a defunct Temecula company for allegedly siphoning off $3.6 million in state funds intended for school construction.

At Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, the announcement Friday that construction would soon begin on a $43-million research and nursing school building did more than lift spirits around the campus. It gave the medical school an opportunity to boast about a number of firsts. The building represents the largest investment in South Los Angeles in decades.