Teachers Los Angeles County

Earth to Cmdrs. Celisa Edwards and Jayne Lawson: Your mission is to motivate. The two teachers at Madison Middle School in North Hollywood show up to work every day dressed in red and black "Star Trek" costumes in an experiment to entice low-achieving students--called "cadets" in the classroom--to get hooked on science. Each day, commanders and cadets embark on their lessons aboard the imaginary star ship Innerpride--not to be confused with the Enterprise of classic TV show fame.

It's the teaching profession's highest distinction, so tough that only 16,000 of America's 3 million teachers--less than 1%--have qualified. Half of those who apply for the honor fail. That's why it's stunning that seven of the newest nationally certified teachers come from three Los Angeles-area families. On the Eastside, it's a mother, daughter and son-in-law. In the Valley, it's a mother-son pair and a husband-wife team.

A Bonita High School social studies teacher and track coach has been charged with 30 felony counts for alleged having sex with a 16-year-old female athlete. David Dangleis, 32, of Diamond Bar faces up to nine years in prison if he is convicted of the charges, the district attorney's office said. He was arrested by La Verne police last week at his home after the girl's father complained to the high school principal and police, authorities said.

A former Covina high school substitute teacher and coach facing allegations of unlawful sex with a minor turned himself in to Long Beach police Thursday night, authorities said. Brian Galan, 25, of San Dimas was booked at the Long Beach Jail on a felony charge of having sex with a minor, said Long Beach Police Officer David Marander. He was being held in lieu of $200,000 bail. Police did not have additional information Friday on the circumstances of the case.

After dropping out of college, Dick Chapleau drifted from job to job, waiting tables, punching a clock in a department store, desperately fearing that he had wasted his prospects. It was almost by accident that the 39-year-old Lancaster man fell into teaching. From the start, the guitar-playing, doggerel-spouting teacher knew that he had found a career, calling the classroom job "my one and only experience with love at first sight." Now, others are saying it shows.

Until he had a heart attack last fall, San Pedro High School teacher John Santschi had never missed a class. That's something, considering that Santschi started teaching at the high school in 1945. For 48 years, he wore a neatly pressed shirt and a tie to school each day. And for 48 years, he addressed his students as "Miss" or "Mister," demanded that they give their best, and won their respect. "He was my absolute favorite," said Rejeana Martinez-Adair, class of 1993.

The disgruntled former cheerleading coach from Canyon High School who filed a claim against the school district a week ago also has sued six parents of cheerleaders, her attorney said Friday. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in April, blames the parents for damage to coach Cynthia Wheat's reputation, for emotional distress and for several "unfounded charges," including that she tried to seduce a male student.

They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. Tim Howard of Torrance has managed to turn a former hobby into a lucrative business selling high-priced toys to grown-up boys. The "toys" are model PT (Patrol Torpedo) boats, beautifully intricate, four-feet long, accurate to the last detail replicas of the famous small boats that played an important role in World War II. His company, T.

In teacher Shirley Neal's classroom there are surreal twists on such timeworn school rituals as show-and-tell. The other day, for example, a car stereo arrived hidden under the shirt of its new owner, who rides a bicycle. Then there was the knife Neal spied going from hand to hand. "I'll give it back," she assured the owner, but only when class was over. In Neal's classroom, even attendance records have bizarre postscripts.

A Huntington Park middle school teacher who allegedly tried to suffocate a rabbit in front of his special education students was removed from the classroom on Wednesday, school district officials said. Godwin Collins Onunwah, a seventh-grade teacher at Gage Middle School, was reassigned to district administrative offices a day after he was charged with a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty, district spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez said.

A jury has acquitted a former Huntington Park middle school teacher of animal cruelty charges stemming from a dissection experiment last year in which he suffocated a rabbit in front of his special education students. The jury decided that Godwin Collins Onunwah, a former seventh-grade teacher at Gage Middle School, did not act maliciously when he placed a rabbit in a plastic bag, tied the end shut and then waited for the animal to die.

Earth to Cmdrs. Celisa Edwards and Jayne Lawson: Your mission is to motivate. The two teachers at Madison Middle School in North Hollywood show up to work every day dressed in red and black "Star Trek" costumes in an experiment to entice low-achieving students--called "cadets" in the classroom--to get hooked on science. Each day, commanders and cadets embark on their lessons aboard the imaginary star ship Innerpride--not to be confused with the Enterprise of classic TV show fame.

A Huntington Park middle school teacher who allegedly tried to suffocate a rabbit in front of his special education students was removed from the classroom on Wednesday, school district officials said. Godwin Collins Onunwah, a seventh-grade teacher at Gage Middle School, was reassigned to district administrative offices a day after he was charged with a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty, district spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez said.

The assignment that English teacher Andrew Phillips scribbled on his chalkboard at Covina High School stunned his students. Last week, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," Phillips asked his students to write a journal entry mapping out an assassination and explaining how they would get away with it. He gave students who were offended by the idea an alternative assignment: They could describe eight to 10 motives for killing a person.

Three area educators were among a dozen people honored in Burbank by the Los Angeles County superintendent of schools Wednesday as top teachers. Ira Simonds, a history teacher at Quartz Hill High School; David P. Thomson, a social sciences teacher at Burbank High School, and Kevin McGroary, who teaches at Rosedell Elementary School in Saugus, were selected as 2000 Los Angeles County Teachers of the Year from a group of 57.

A Burbank junior high school teacher who is the son of a local school board member was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of trafficking in cocaine, authorities said. William D. Hubbell, 32, was taken into custody a week after detectives from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Burbank Police Department observed him shipping a box of cocaine to Hawaii, according to Burbank police Lt. Ed Skvarna.

The student body of Cantwell High School in Montebello walked out of class Monday to protest a decision by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to drop the contract of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, a religious order that has run the boys' school since it opened 43 years ago. About 230 students left their classes and held a two-hour rally in the gymnasium. They asked that Archbishop Roger Mahony visit the school to witness the quality of education they receive from the Christian Brothers.

Talk to any dance teacher, choreographer or company director today and they will tell you they are worried about the future of dance. Many of them say a whole generation of choreographers have died from AIDS and with them new visions for dance. Others add that keeping the art alive includes not only the usual fund-raisers and promotions but also a battle to keep dancers alive. Indeed, the dance world has suffered stupendous losses to AIDS in the last decade.

As state officials grapple with a chronic teacher shortage and Latino parents demand more Spanish-speaking educators, a privately funded effort is quietly carving into both issues. The $3.2-million Alianza project, launched this month at Cal State Long Beach, will train immigrants who were teachers in Latin America and want to teach in the United States.