Vista Unified School District

It is a book that has been heralded in literary circles and crowned a memoir for our time. It is a story about childhood suffering that poignantly tells of courage, dignity and preserverance--a cherished text for any teacher who hopes to impart values to pupils.

Four years ago, Stephanie Robeck was a gravely ill 12-year-old, living a life filled with doctors, hospitals and blood transfusions. Today she is a perfectly normal teen-ager, "always on the phone," her mother reports. Or else she is borrowing the car to dash off somewhere.

Two years of bitter negotiations have yielded an agreement under which Daon Corp., developer of the sprawling Shadowridge Country Club residential community, will transfer to the Vista Unified School District a 35-acre site for a high school, it was announced Wednesday. John Wiggins, the district's assistant superintendent, said the $18-million high school, which will be built with money already allocated by the state, probably will open in the fall of 1987.

The beautifully written autobiography tells of a young black girl who learned to savor Shakespeare secretly, because he was white; who helped her crippled uncle hide in a barrel of potatoes to avoid being hanged by the Ku Klux Klan; who was molested and raped by her mother's boyfriend; who was denied care by a white dentist when she was in pain, because he would rather put his hand in a dog's mouth; and who, at 15, became the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco and later a

Four years ago, Stephanie Robeck was a gravely ill 12-year-old, living a life filled with doctors, hospitals and blood transfusions. Today she is a perfectly normal teen-ager, "always on the phone," her mother reports. Or else she is borrowing the car to dash off somewhere.

Students in the Vista Unified School District will begin year-round schooling in the fall of 1990, and district residents in November will be asked again to approve a bond issue to help the district cope with crowding, the school board has decided. District voters last November rejected a $63-million bond issue, but school board members decided unanimously Wednesday night to go back to the voters a second time, this time for permission to issue $38.

A state report on improvement or decline at San Diego County high schools during the past two years Category 1A = Schools that have improved their scores in both reading and math at least twice as fast as expected and are in the top quartile of comparable schools. Category 1B = Schools that have met their goals by either improving test scores by at least one-half percent or by ranking in the top quartile of comparable schools. Category 2 = Schools that have met one goal but not the other.

Calling online textbooks a boon to student achievement and school district coffers, state Education Secretary Glen Thomas announced Tuesday that 10 free digital high school math and science texts are available for use in California classrooms. But the likelihood of students tapping into them is virtually nonexistent, primarily because of school districts' textbook approval policies and teacher-training needs, educators said. Still, Thomas said the move marks the first step toward revolutionizing education in the state.

The question of how well four North County cities have implemented existing growth management policies--and what direction two others should take in addressing the issue--provides a regional focal point when North County's electorate votes in two weeks. The fact that the area's growth once again rises above--or has fed--other municipal issues in North County suggests that no one city has yet figured how best to manage growth in the burgeoning area.

The red light atop the camera went on and the blonde at the news desk flashed her anchorwoman's smile, braces glinting in the studio lights. Her co-anchor, displeased with the way his black-and-white striped T-shirt looked on camera, muttered, "I look like zebras galore." Welcome to KVHS, Vista High School's television news station.