Wilson High School

Vic Cuccia, a coach known for his innovative passing schemes, showmanship and success in building Los Angeles' Wilson High School into a football powerhouse in the 1970s, has died. He was 80. Cuccia, a longtime resident of Alhambra, died Friday at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena after a long illness, his family said.

Sixteen years. Not long enough. Not long enough for Melody Ross to get her driver's license. Nor to maneuver the perils and promise of high school, much less college. Not long enough to figure out where life might take her. Nor actually to live it. She was gunned down on a Long Beach street, in front of her beloved Wilson High School, when the air was still suffused with the frolic of the hauntingly named homecoming game. An alleged gang member fired into a crowd of hundreds.

A group of Los Angeles high school students guided nearly 100,000 younger pupils through a printing exhibit at the Los Angeles County Fair. But when the 17-day fair experience ended Sunday, it was the students who had learned the most. Eighteen students from Manual Arts High School and 12 from Wilson High were back in their regular classes Monday after conducting hands-on demonstrations at the Pomona fair for elementary and junior high students.

Mourning students at Long Beach's Wilson High School gathered Monday by the pavement where classmate Melody Ross was shot after the homecoming football game. Leaving handwritten notes to Melody and her family, the teenagers lit candles and shed tears as they remembered the bubbly 16-year-old. "Why her?" asked sophomore Micah Mathis, 15, who took French with Melody, an honors student. "That's what I want to know." The mood at the coastal campus was somber as students, teachers and administrators struggled to comprehend what occurred Friday, when someone fired into a crowd of students leaving the game, striking three people, including Melody, who was fatally wounded.

Authorities arrested a male high school student Friday in connection with Internet threats that led officials to cancel classes at Glen A. Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights. The student, a minor whose name was not released, was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, which is a felony. Sheriff's and school officials said the student confessed to posting the threats -- which included a hit list of students he said he intended to shoot.

Enrique Rosas sat with his friends in a Wilson High School classroom, a mural adorning the wall behind them. Pointing to a video camera operated by teacher Neal Haworth, he asked, "Hey, are you under pressure to join in? Then why don't you join some of my friends." His friends, mostly seniors in Haworth's government economics class, chimed in with suggestions to avoid gangs, such as running track, becoming a mechanic, working on computers and even reading a book.

Angry, offensive messages started popping up more than a year ago on the Glen A. Wilson High School page on Wikipedia, the popular user-edited online encyclopedia. The writer, who said he was a student, hid behind an anonymous e-mail address to threaten by name Asian students at the San Gabriel Valley school, hurl racial slurs at the school's primarily Asian badminton team and allude to possible attacks.

Students and teachers at Wilson High School will see hands-on demonstrations of the latest in telecommunications technology Dec. 6 when a 45-foot C-SPAN bus visits their campus. Equipped with television production facilities, the bus will be parked at the school from 12:30 to 5 p.m. to show students the nonprofit educational programming available on C-SPAN, which airs locally on cable Channel 53. Local government and business representatives will also tour the bus.

Pitcher Orel Hershiser handed out college scholarships to eight students at Dodger Stadium. The scholarships were awarded from a fund established in memory of James Patrick Jarrin, the late son of Dodger Spanish-language broadcaster Jaime Jarrin. James Patrick Jarrin died of an aneurysm last year at age 29. Hershiser is president of the fund.

Reporting from Long Beach Ben Bolch and Los Angeles -- The "Supergirl" Halloween costume that 16-year-old Melody Ross wore to the Wilson High School football game was befitting of her promising resume: honors student, pole vaulter and athlete, positive attitude, aspirations to attend UCLA. Those were the attributes that Melody's friends and family recalled Saturday as they gathered near the stadium gates at the Long Beach campus. They placed flowers and votive candles at the spot where she was fatally shot Friday night as she and her friends were leaving the Wilson homecoming game against Polytechnic High School.

About 170 students and staff members at Wilson High School will be tested for possible exposure to tuberculosis, according to the Long Beach Unified School District. The screening, which parents will be notified about on Monday, was prompted by the infection of an individual at the school and will be conducted in early April. People who had contact with the infected person will have a substance injected under the skin of their forearm. The area will be checked a few days later, and, if signs of exposure are present, the person's chest will be X-rayed by the city's health department or their personal physician, Robert Tagorda, assistant to the superintendent, said.

Angry, offensive messages started popping up more than a year ago on the Glen A. Wilson High School page on Wikipedia, the popular user-edited online encyclopedia. The writer, who said he was a student, hid behind an anonymous e-mail address to threaten by name Asian students at the San Gabriel Valley school, hurl racial slurs at the school's primarily Asian badminton team and allude to possible attacks.

Authorities arrested a male high school student Friday in connection with Internet threats that led officials to cancel classes at Glen A. Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights. The student, a minor whose name was not released, was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats, which is a felony. Sheriff's and school officials said the student confessed to posting the threats -- which included a hit list of students he said he intended to shoot.

Callie Nikoletich wasn't going to play softball this season. She was burned out on the sport, there was too much drama on the team, her back ached and her grades suffered. For seven months, she didn't play. Then came February. After a month-long full-court press by teammates, coaches and boosters to try to coax her back, Nikoletich relented. She returned to Long Beach Wilson's softball program and has been the center of its revival 14 years after the Bruins last won a Moore League title.

Vic Cuccia, a coach known for his innovative passing schemes, showmanship and success in building Los Angeles' Wilson High School into a football powerhouse in the 1970s, has died. He was 80. Cuccia, a longtime resident of Alhambra, died Friday at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena after a long illness, his family said.

Latin will be offered but not required at Long Beach's Wilson High School, which has begun a four-year transition to a rigorous, all-academic curriculum. The curriculum will require four years of a foreign language; four years of science, math, English, history and humanities-fine arts, and three years of social studies, said co-principal Al Taylor.

Wilson High School, Long Beach City College and UCLA have joined forces to create a program that will guarantee high school students admission to UCLA if they complete college preparatory classes at the high school and honors classes at the city college. Once the students receive their high school diplomas, they will be eligible for the city college's honors program. If a student completes that program with a grade-point average of at least 3.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is shaking up its most troubled schools for the second time in three years by appointing new administrators and tightening control over campus budgets and instruction. Responding to federal pressure to improve the schools, L.A. Unified leaders also are considering wholesale staff changes for next year at more than one-third of the district's 49 high schools.

In the slightly cramped rainbow-hued storefront on busy Whittier Boulevard in Boyle Heights, the student leaders of InnerCity Struggle talked about their victories: How they won key changes in the tardy policy at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. How they successfully lobbied for ethnic studies classes and more college counselors at Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights.