Vaughn Street Elementary School

Citing concerns brought by local and state teachers union representatives, faculty members at Vaughn Street School in Pacoima have again postponed a vote on whether to apply to become a largely self-regulating "charter" school. Teachers in favor of the charter school concept, which would allow Vaughn Street to stand exempt from state and local educational regulations, had hoped to vote today to submit their charter petition to the Los Angeles Board of Education.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials Friday completed the first leg of their investigation into cheating allegations at a nationally acclaimed charter school, exonerating a fourth-grade class of any wrongdoing on the Stanford Nine standardized test. But the district officials were continuing their probe into test irregularities in two other classes at the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center.

A Pacoima elementary school, struggling to make its campus a community nexus, received a $321,120 grant toward that goal Tuesday from the RJR Nabisco Foundation. Vaughn Street Elementary was the only school in the Los Angeles area and one of 14 from throughout the nation to receive a grant, which Nabisco offered to help elementary and secondary public schools raise student achievement.

The Los Angeles Board of Education declined Monday to fund its independent charter schools at a higher level than other campuses, but awarded a one-time grant to the Vaughn Street charter school in Pacoima to help it through this fiscal year.

Even by Yvonne Chan's standards, this was a media event. So, in the moments before Hillary Rodham Clinton's motorcade screeched down Vaughn Street, Chan stood silently in her office, with only a Secret Service agent by her side, reading "Chi Chi" a Chinese fortune-telling book. "Listen to the old wise guys," she read aloud in English. "Don't ask for money, but you can move people." Without missing a beat, she smiled broadly: "Tomorrow is great. Just wait until tomorrow."

I'm starting a campaign to encourage the wearing of uniforms in public schools. No, I'm not an authoritarian crank. I re-read Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" essay from time to time just for fun, and I regularly encourage my students to step to the beat of their own drummer. But there are stronger and more important ways to assert identity and uniqueness than through clothing.

Four Southern California educators are among 12 recipients of the 1991 California Educator Awards, the state Department of Education announced Tuesday. Local winners of the annual awards, which provide $25,000 apiece, went to two principals with the Los Angeles Unified School District. They are Yvonne Chan of Vaughn Street Elementary School in San Fernando and Daniel Lawson of Ambler Avenue Elementary School in Carson.

A man who had been stabbed to death early this morning was found on a sidewalk in front of a Pacoima school, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The body of the 30-year-old man, whose identity was not released, was spotted by a passer-by shortly after 6 a.m. in the 13300 block of Vaughn Street, Lt. Bernard D. Conine said.

Teaching experts from China and the United States will discuss educational reform in both countries at a forum at Cal State Northridge on Monday. "Educational Reforms in China and the U.S." is the second annual forum offered by the Cal State Northridge China Institute to improve cultural and educational exchanges between the United States and China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In an effort to solve a 1980 slaying that stirred emotions in the northeast San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the killing of 7-year-old Lisa Ann Rosales of Pacoima. The reward was requested by then-Councilman Bob Ronka shortly after Rosales' body was found Dec. 9, 1980, in a ditch near Hansen Dam. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.