West Covina Unified School District

Teachers walked off the job this morning at 14 schools in the West Covina Unified School District in a dispute over pay and benefit issues. It was the first teacher strike ever staged in the 8,000-student district, which has 2 high schools, 2 intermediate schools and 10 elementary schools, district officials said. Substitute teachers, who had been on standby, were called in to staff the classrooms after word of the strike came at 7:30 a.m., a district spokesman said.

A West Covina Unified School District board member agreed to resign Monday and pleaded guilty to falsifying his residency, which prosecutors say was in Downey, a dozen miles outside the district. Peter Sabatino Jr., 49, is expected to be sentenced Feb. 19 to three years of probation and 250 hours of community service as part of a plea arrangement struck with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

A West Covina Unified School District trustee has resigned from the five-member school board because he is leaving the state. Elias Martinez, 45, resigned Friday after seven years as a school district trustee. Martinez, a longtime West Covina resident, is moving to Texas to help with his family's import-export business, district officials said. Martinez was elected to the board amid a financial crisis in the late 1980s.

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday there is sufficient evidence for a West Covina school board member to stand trial for allegedly lying on a candidate's declaration about where he lived. Judge H. Chester Horn Jr., however, dismissed three other charges against Peter Sabatino Jr., 48. Horn found there was insufficient evidence on two counts of perjury prosecutors filed against Sabatino and a count of filing a false candidate declaration in 1997.

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday there is sufficient evidence for a West Covina school board member to stand trial for allegedly lying on a candidate's declaration about where he lived. Judge H. Chester Horn Jr., however, dismissed three other charges against Peter Sabatino Jr., 48. Horn found there was insufficient evidence on two counts of perjury prosecutors filed against Sabatino and a count of filing a false candidate declaration in 1997.

In a victory for the West Covina teachers union, a judge has ruled that the school board violated teachers' 1st Amendment rights by ordering a workshop on dealing with gay and lesbian students to be moved off campus and now must host such an event. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph R.

The West Covina Unified School District has rejected a proposal to send its middle school teachers to a Nov. 6 symposium because it will include a workshop on homosexuality. The board voted 3 to 2 Tuesday not to allow district teachers to attend a regional conference at the Riverside Convention Center, which will feature 36 seminars--including one on gay issues--saying they believe teachers should not dispense information about sexual orientation.

As a teen-ager growing up in a San Pedro housing project, Xavier Hermosillo thought being a gang member was cool--until two of his friends were fatally shot as they climbed the stairs to crash a house party. His life was spared because he hadn't gotten out of the car as fast as they had. The violent death of his friends, combined with a beating by his mother for stealing a 1959 Chevy Impala, made him realize that gang life wasn't for him.

The coin landed heads, which means Ed Casanova wins a seat on the West Covina school board. Both George Fuller and Casanova received 1,105 votes in the Nov. 4 school board election, forcing Wednesday's tiebreaker. Both men stared intently at the coin as it floated upward and fell to the ground. "I stared pretty hard," Casanova said. "I think I may have burned a whole through it." There was a light atmosphere as the candidates and supporters gathered at school board headquarters.

The financially troubled West Covina Unified School District this week received state approval to use proceeds from the sale of two schools to make critical repairs and help retire a $3.3-million debt to the state. District officials said the approval will allow the district to use $11.5 million in expected proceeds from the sale of Tonopah and El Dorado elementary schools to shore up the district's budget for years to come.

A West Covina school board member was charged Monday with perjury for allegedly lying that he lived in the district when prosecutors say evidence will show he resides a dozen miles away in Downey. Peter Sabatino Jr., 48, surrendered to authorities at the downtown Criminal Courts Building, where he made a brief appearance and a Los Angeles Superior Court judge released him on his own recognizance.

The West Covina school board has settled a teacher's lawsuit accusing a board member of leaning on school administrators to change two grades for his son. The settlement reinstates the C and the citizenship grade of U (unsatisfactory) given by the Edgewood Middle School teacher to board member George Fuller's son. Those grades, for a computer course, had been upgraded to B and N (needs improvement).

A West Covina School Board member has become embroiled in a controversy over whether he overreached as a parent and leaned on middle school officials to change two grades for his son. George Fuller, himself a high school teacher in another district, says he did nothing more than any other father when he discussed with his son's counselor nearly two years ago how a change in the boy's schedule would affect his grades. But in a lawsuit, the California Teachers Assn.

The coin landed heads, which means Ed Casanova wins a seat on the West Covina school board. Both George Fuller and Casanova received 1,105 votes in the Nov. 4 school board election, forcing Wednesday's tiebreaker. Both men stared intently at the coin as it floated upward and fell to the ground. "I stared pretty hard," Casanova said. "I think I may have burned a whole through it." There was a light atmosphere as the candidates and supporters gathered at school board headquarters.

The science labs were in order, but the bill wasn't. After administrative turnover and a lot of haggling, the West Covina Unified School District voted to pick up the tab for construction costs that went $43,824 over estimates, officials said. The district originally voted not to accept the additional charges submitted by the Whittier construction company that was hired to convert six classrooms at Edgewood Middle School and two in West Covina High School into modern science laboratories.

In a victory for the West Covina teachers union, a judge has ruled that the school board violated teachers' 1st Amendment rights by ordering a workshop on dealing with gay and lesbian students to be moved off campus and now must host such an event. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph R.

The West Covina teachers union filed suit against the school district Tuesday challenging a decision to cancel a teachers' workshop on homosexuals in schools. The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against the West Covina Unified School District, says the cancellation violated teachers' 1st Amendment right to free speech. "We had a right, as adults, to attend this workshop," said Kim Breen, president of the West Covina Unified Teachers Union. "They (the school board) simply censored it."

Capping a weeks-long uproar over reports that some schoolchildren were coming to class too hungry to learn, the West Covina school board Tuesday voted for the first time in district history to take advantage of a longstanding government breakfast program.