Girls get empowered

From financial planning to self-defense lessons and back again, local teenage girls are learning about empowerment in several of its forms — financial, physical and emotional — at a summer camp organized by the city’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Young actors get in feline character

Local children are honing their acting, singing and script-writing skills this week and next as they develop a musical show about cats that includes familiar feline characters such as Garfield, the AristoCats and the record-setting musical “Cats.”

Career college relocation advances

CITY HALL — The City Council on Tuesday, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, directed staff members to look into exempting Glendale Career College from providing 135 on-site parking spaces for its proposed location on Brand Boulevard.

IN THE CLASSROOM:
Some animal magnetism

Kindergartners scampered around inside a temporary pen Wednesday on the front lawn of Mark Keppel Elementary School.

KIDS TALK BACK:
Kindergartners coo over zoo

The Glendale News-Press visited Mark Keppel Elementary School and asked kindergarten students: “Which petting zoo animal is your favorite, and why?”

Program lets students go wild

Some Glendale elementary school students will take their studies into the wild this spring through a state grant that will help fund visits to Deukmejian Wilderness Park.

PTA NEWS:
Change of guard for Hoover column

Rita Pardue Fallman is stepping down, and Fran Tunno is taking over writing the Hoover cluster PTA column.

Schedules go old-school

Three elementary schools promoted fifth- and sixth-graders to middle school for the first time in 15 years on Friday, as the schools prepare to return to a traditional school schedule in September because of the declining number of students in Glendale.

Sometimes you can choose kin

Anna Ziouzina and her mother Luda Ziouzina aren’t related to Jim Meyer, but they are family.

Schools cut dean positions

DOWNTOWN — The Glendale Unified School District cut its positions for deans of attendance for the upcoming year, just two years after creating them, because the attendance program wasn’t hitting its goals and thus wasn’t paying for itself, at a time when the district is looking to cut outside-the-classroom expenses.

GLENDALE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT MEETING WRAP-UP

BUDGET ADOPTION

School board revisits appliance ban

DOWNTOWN — Teachers’ opposition to a proposed ban on small appliances in the classroom led the school board Tuesday to take another look at that portion of proposed energy conservation guidelines.

GCC board OKs plans to renovate two gyms

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — Community college trustees on Monday night approved plans for renovating and upgrading the Verdugo and Sierra Nevada gyms.

School district awaits website

GLENDALE — Glendale Unified School District school board members took a quick look on Tuesday night at the school district’s new website, which is still in development but may be ready for public viewing by the start of the 2008-09 school year.

GLENDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD MEETING WRAP-UP

The board adopted a tentative budget for the college for the 2008-09 fiscal year.

IN THE CLASSROOM:
Classmates wax poetic

Even though they’re not graduating from middle school this year, the seventh-graders in Shannon Estrada’s English class at Rosemont Middle School were asked to reflect Wednesday on the advice they would give to their graduating classmates if they were to compose a graduation speech.

KIDS TALK BACK:
Some wise words to graduate by

The Glendale News-Press visited Rosemont Middle School and asked a class of seventh-grade students: “What advice would you give to the graduating eighth-graders at your school?”

PTA NEWS:
Verdugo Woodlands secretary retires

Summer break is a time of transition, and Sharla Bohman, PTA historian at Verdugo Woodlands, reports that administrative secretary Susan Gorman is retiring after 11 years at the school and 18 years with the district.

GLENDALE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD MEETING PREVIEW

The following items will be considered at today’s Glendale Unified School District Board of Education meeting:

LUNCH MENU

Glendale Unified School District lunch menu for June 24-27 (Year-round schools only):

GCC board selects way to broadcast meetings

GLENDALE — The Glendale Community College Board of Trustees decided Monday night on the method it will use to videotape and broadcast its monthly public meetings on Charter Cable Educational channel 15, ending months of study on the topic.

Pianist set to let her fingers do the talking

In many elite youth piano competitions, contestants must be ready to endure multiple elimination rounds.

Countries collide at show

As she stood by herself onstage, Ani Vardayan said she realized how much she had grown.

GLENDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD MEETING PREVIEW

The board will weigh in on approving the college’s tentative budget for the 2008-09 year. The tentative budget was described to the board in detail during a budget study session on Monday. The college’s budget predicts about $83 million in revenues for its unrestricted general fund for the year. College officials had already cut $1.3 million from the college’s budget for the year, and need to cut another $780,000 to balance the budget.

Board to air broadcasting options

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — The Glendale Community College Board of Trustees on Monday will likely conclude several months of study on televising its public meetings when the trustees are expected to vote on a method for broadcasting their meetings.

School official offers mindful tips

BURBANK — With more families staying close to home this summer due to climbing gas and food prices, it is as important as ever to keep kids academically engaged, said Jack O’Connell, state superintendent of public instruction.

GLENDALE HIGH SCHOOL:
‘You don’t expect to feel like this’

It was 5 p.m. Thursday inside the Glendale High School Auditorium, and the nervous chatter was growing among a sea of 824 red and black gowns.

CRESCENTA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL:
‘Dream on a large scale’

Nicole Muñoz will be the first person in her family to go to college.

CLARK MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL:
‘It’s a place to grow and flourish’

Some seniors wore clues to their future plans on their caps during Clark Magnet High School’s graduation ceremony on Thursday evening.

CLASS OF 2008

Skye Aaron

Previous Education Headlines