Schools

The start of the school year will undoubtedly bring a rise in H1N1 infections, health and education officials said Friday as they urged parents to practice such precautionary measures with their children as hand-washing and the "Dracula sneeze." Officials also said parents should not panic and keep healthy children home once flu breaks out on campuses. "I want to make sure parents are not afraid to send their children to school if they are well," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County's health officer.

Second-grader Emma Ax brightened Thursday when her teacher said it was time for recess. "Yes!" the 8-year-old whispered. "We can't go out because it smells really bad out there," said her teacher at La Crescenta Elementary, just a few miles from the Station fire. Emma's face fell. "But we're not just going to sit here and look at each other -- we'll have fun." From the look on her face, it seemed Emma didn't believe her. The largest brush fire in Los Angeles County history broke out just as many area schools were about to open for the new school year, forcing administrators to cancel or modify athletic practice and keep children indoors because of poor air quality.

Neither cable, Internet, radio nor a roomful of sheepish and harried adults could deliver the president's address to the 27 fifth-graders in Alice Cho's class at Commonwealth Avenue Elementary in Koreatown. But the message of hard work and resilience got through. The apparent culprit Tuesday morning was interference from a line of television vans in front of the school. Everything had worked perfectly Friday in a test, officials with the Los Angeles Unified School District said.

Though it inspired controversy over the last week, President Obama's back-to-school address to America's students Tuesday ended up being decidedly motivational rather than political -- and even won praise from some Republicans. Speaking to students in a nationwide broadcast from a suburban Virginia high school, the Democratic president urged children to rise above their mistakes and challenges to succeed in school, offering himself as an example of "a goof-off" who went on to make good.

Hundreds of children who were jammed into a narrow school staircase panicked and set off a stampede that left five girls dead and 31 students injured in India's capital. Five of the injured were in critical condition, said O.P. Kalra, medical superintendent of Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital in East Delhi, where the children were taken. The stampede occurred early Thursday as students arrived for an exam, Kalra told reporters. Amod Kanth, a well-known child rights activist, said the students were told to move to a higher floor because heavy rain was causing flooding on the ground floor.

If there had been rafters, somebody would have been hanging from them. As it was, every seat was taken. One young woman plopped on the floor, next to a microwave oven. A young man stood in the corner, shifting from one foot to the other. Three teens scrunched on top of a desk. Everyone's attention was riveted on the slight, soft-spoken man pacing the small patch of bare linoleum in front of them. It was a scene to warm the heart of any musician or stand-up comic. Alas, John Collier isn't an entertainer.

The mystery began in July when an attorney called Blair International Baccalaureate School and told it to be on the lookout for a large check. Two weeks ago, officials at the Pasadena magnet school opened a letter that contained a bequest of $440,011 from a woman named Joyce Stallfort Davis, who died last year at age 81. Officials were thrilled, but there was one problem: No one knew who Davis was. "I've worked at Blair for 34 years and...

Suspected swine flu outbreaks have occurred at several schools in Los Angeles County since classes began, according to health and education officials. "We had expected when schools would open up [that] we would start seeing an increase in flu-like illnesses," said Sarah Kissell, a spokeswoman for the county Department of Public Health. Health officials declined to name the schools because of privacy concerns, but Kissell said outbreaks, defined as at least five suspected H1N1 virus infections, have occurred in recent weeks at two elementary schools, a high school and a university.

The Obama administration has made a promising move regarding school reform with its "Race to the Top" program. The $4.3 billion in federal grants is intended to reward states and schools that introduce new models of innovation and accountability. What needs reform just as badly as the schools, however, is the No Child Left Behind Act, a well-meant but ham-handed law that actually encourages schools to lower their academic standards and that often leaves behind the students who most need help.

For the first time in Los Angeles, parents will be able to initiate major reforms at low-performing individual schools, rather than waiting for the school district to make changes, under a plan unveiled Tuesday. This new parental power has emerged as part of a school-control resolution that allows for groups inside and outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to take over campuses. Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has included 12 underachieving schools and 18 new campuses in the process, but the parent option could add others to the list, especially in future years.