May 15, 2015

SPEAKERS – A Record 6 Schools Actor Levar Burton, former Make U.S. News List NASA astronaut The newest rankings of America’s best high Jose Hernandez schools by U.S. News and World Report and CNN anchor include six schools here, an all-time high for Fareed Zakaria the Long Beach Unified School District. will speak at a The California Academy of Mathematics national educa- and Science earned a gold medal, while five tion conference other high schools earned silver. here in October. The U.S. News rankings include data on more than 21,000 public high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Schools were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals based on their performance on state assess- Actor, Astronaut, Anchor to Speak Here ments and how well they prepare students for Actor Levar Burton, former NASA astro- college. acclaimed TV miniseries Roots, cast as the In the rankings, only the top 2.4 percent naut Jose M. Hernandez and CNN anchor major character Kunta Kinte. Fareed Zakaria will address the nation’s urban earned gold medals, and only 9.7 percent won A science fiction buff, he later appeared in silver. school leaders at the Council of the Great City and directed episodes of the Star Trek series. Schools’ 59th Annual Fall Conference, Oct. 7 To determine the rankings, schools were For 25 years, Burton hosted and served as first analyzed on how well their students per- to 11 in Long Beach. The Long Beach Unified executive producer of the highly acclaimed School District is hosting this year’s confer- formed on state assessments, taking into PBS children’s TV series Reading Rainbow. account the test scores of disadvantaged stu- ence. Today he continues to work primarily as a film The Council is the nation’s primary coali- dents. High schools that made it through this and TV director. analysis were then eligible to be ranked tion of urban school systems, including Long Former astronaut and engineer Jose Beach, and the conference is expected to draw nationally in terms of college readiness, using Hernandez is believed to be the first person to Advanced Placement or International thousands of education leaders from through- tweet in Spanish while in space. He was part out the U.S. Baccalaureate test data as the benchmarks of the crew of the Space Shuttle STS-128 (Continued on next page) “The conference planning is off to a great Discovery mission. start. These are impressive speakers who know Hernandez has also served as chief of the the value of a good education. We look for- Materials and Processes branch at the Johnson ward to hearing their words of wisdom,” said Space Center in Houston. As an engineer, he Lindbergh Wins 3rd LBUSD Board of Education Vice President developed cancer-detecting equipment for full- Felton Williams, who is also secretary-treasurer field mammography at the Lawrence of the Council of the Great City Schools. Livermore National Laboratory. Straight RoboBowl Actor and director Levar Burton is associat- As host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, North Long Beach’s Lindbergh Science, ed with TV productions such as Roots, Star contributing editor at The Atlantic, and a Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Trek and Reading Rainbow. His first profes- Washington Post columnist, Zakaria provides Academy captured its third consecutive sional acting audition landed him in the (Continued on next page) RoboBowl title on April 25 at McBride High School, where students from 14 local middle schools learned about science, math, engineer- Wilson Earns Theatre, Music Accolades ing and technology while showing off their robotics projects. Student musicians from Wilson Classical the Outstanding Orchestra Award. The winds Lindbergh won first and second place, while High School earned high honors at the recent earned a second place honor, and both the wind Tincher Academy placed third. Other partici- San Francisco Heritage and string groups earned the Adjudicators pating schools included Bancroft, Hamilton, Festival, and the school’s Award. Hill, Henry, Hughes, Jefferson, Lindsey, longtime drama teacher Out of 815 students at the festival, seven Marshall, Powell, Robinson, Stanford and Randy Bowden has been were selected for the Maestro Award. Two of Washington. nominated for the inau- the seven selected were Wilson students: Lindbergh Middle School became the gural Excellence in Fabian Nunez on trumpet and Sarah Birong on Lindbergh STEM Academy after the Long Theatre Education Award violin. Michelle Ellis is the music director at Beach Unified School District Board of to be presented by Wilson. Education approved the new program in Carnegie Mellon Meanwhile, 43-year drama instructor February of 2014. The school serves as a path- University and the Tony Bowden is up for an award that will bring way for students interested in careers in the Awards. $10,000 to the winning teacher’s drama depart- sciences. Wilson’s symphonic ment. The award will be announced at this At the RoboBowl, each school’s robotics wind and symphony string year’s June 7 Tony Awards ceremony in New club participates in the competition, which musicians performed well Bowden York City. gives students a chance to test their robot enough at the San “It’s an honor just to be nominated,” designs before attending official VEX Robotics Francisco festival to qualify for the Honors Bowden said. “But I would be thrilled and events in the fall. Since the RoboBowl’s Festival next year at Carnegie Hall. At the humbled to get the money for the kids – that’s inception the event has been a partnership with San Francisco event, Wilson’s jazz band what excites me!” Leadership Long Beach with the aim of brought home a second place award. The A feature story on Bowden was published advancing STEM education throughout the strings earned top honors with first place and April 20 at gazettes.com. school district. Millikan Advocates For Human Rights Six Finalists Vying By Lee Underwood, seniors partnered with Whittier College’s For Employee of Year Millikan PEACE Senior Project Facilitator Center for Engagement with Communities and its Amy Biehl Foundation Project. A total of 29 nominations submitted for the The Mayor of the City of Whittier, The Biehl project seeks to develop high Classified Employee of the Year Award have Fernando Dutra, listened with focused attention school students’ critical awareness of the com- been narrowed down to six finalists. The top to PEACE Academy Senior Alfonso Garcia as pelling human rights issues of the 21st Century winner is scheduled to be announced at noon he enumerated the myriad human rights viola- and their sense of social responsibility for during the 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Classified tions the LGBT community in Russia faces on addressing human rights challenges (global and Employee Celebration on Friday, May 22 at the a daily basis. After shaking hands and congrat- local) that align with their personal values. Teacher Resource Center, 1299 E. 32nd St., ulating him on his work, the mayor moved on The guiding vision for the project is to culti- Signal Hill. to listen to an impassioned plea by Dorrianna vate students’ understanding of human dignity The 29 nominations ultimately resulted in Roberts, Chris Brio and Lance Hazan on how and the importance of confronting violence in 15 nominees because some nominees received the lack of access to clean drinking water is not any of its forms. Students are challenged to multiple nominations. only a human rights violation but can perpetu- learn these principals while also working col- This year’s finalists are Chett Davidson, ate extreme poverty in developing nations. lectively and collaboratively in forming ideas locksmith; Sylvia Flegal, office supervisor at The message is clear: we need to act now! No and taking actions in response to social issues MacArthur; Alex Hernandez, intermediate one deserves to die of preventable water borne they deem important. office assistant at Willard; Richard Hoover, diseases. This vision is based on values that were choral accompanist at Lakewood; DeWayne “If these are our future leaders,” Mayor dear to Amy Biehl – a 26-year-old Fulbright Hundley, custodian at Lakewood; and Joselito Dutra (a graduate of Jordan High School) said, scholar and anti-apartheid activist who worked Leonor, plant supervisor at Lakewood. beaming with pride, “then the future of human- for social change in South Africa, and who The remainder of this year’s nominees are ity is safe!” died at the hands of young black activists in Cassandra Clydesdale, office supervisor at On April 25, sixteen PEACE Academy 1993. In response to her death, her mother and McBride; Diane Epps, senior office assistant at seniors from Millikan High School took part in father (Linda and Peter Biehl – both Whittier Robinson; Claudia Flores, secretary at Tucker; the Amy Biehl Foundation Conference at College graduates) founded the Amy Biehl Helena Jamadi, Risk Management technician; Whittier College where, along with students Foundation Trust as a living memorial dedicat- Millie Martin, Nutrition Services supervisor at from other area high schools including Whittier ed to educating and creating opportunity for the Renaissance; Kathleen Nebrida, senior payroll High School and Pioneer High School, they young people living in the South African town- accounting technician; Juanita Ramirez, inter- presented their research on self-selected human ship where Amy died. mediate office assistant at Hamilton; Maximo rights topics to parents, teachers and profes- For more information on the Amy Biehl Vasquez, ASB financial technician at Tincher; sors, business executives, and members of the Foundation, visit facebook.com/usaabf. and Robert Vidal, grounds supervisor at Whittier City Council. Lakewood. The event included an elegant brunch and Nomination papers were submitted by col- award ceremony. Whittier College’s Joyce • U.S. News Rankings leagues and reviewed by a committee of classi- Kaufman, professor of political science, and fied employees. The winner and finalists also Linda Biehl, co-founder of the Amy Biehl (Continued from first page) will be honored at the June 2 Board of Foundation, recognized the students for their Education meeting. work and encouraged them to turn their for success. Local schools and their rankings are: The May 22 celebration event will feature a research into tangible activism. taco bar, ice cream, music and prizes. The This year, the senior capstone project, ELE- • CAMS (gold) – state ranking of 19; national ranking of 125 event is made possible by donations from pri- VATE, took on the issue of universal human vate sponsors and school district managers. rights violations. To accomplish this, the • Avalon (silver) – state ranking of 151; national ranking of 799 • Wilson (silver) – state ranking of 228; national ranking of 1,130 Names in the News • Fall Conference • Millikan (silver) – state ranking of 291; (Continued from first page national ranking of 1,417 John Underkoffler, CEO of Oblong analysis on economic and political trends. • Renaissance (silver) – state ranking of Industries (oblong.com) recently visited more Esquire magazine described him as “the most 297; national ranking of 1,431 than 200 Cabrillo High School students at their influential foreign policy adviser of his genera- • Poly (silver) – state ranking of 393; school to share the Gesture Data Interface tion.” national ranking of 1,812 technology that he helped to develop. Winner of a 2012 Peabody Award, the Learn more at usnews.com. Underkoffler is the MIT scientist who invented Emmy-nominated GPS features Zakaria’s such technology used by Steven Spielberg in panel discussions and one-on-one interviews the movie Minority Report. He also acted as with heads of state, intellectuals and business Retirement Event technological consultant for the films Iron Man leaders. His columns and cover stories reach and The Hulk. The event was sponsored by the millions of readers. Honoree Date Contact Ivy League mentorship effort, Reach to the Zakaria’s latest book, In Defense of a Stars, offered afterschool and facilitated by Liberal Education, (as in liberal arts) debuted Rod Petkovic June 4 Synthia Kaitanjian teacher Ethel Laczko and Co-Principal at No. 6 on The New York Times best sellers (714) 334-9706 Alejandro Vega. The program aims to moti- list in April. vate students to study hard and apply to Ivy Born in India and educated at Yale and League schools. Harvard, where he received his Ph. D., Zakaria SCHOOL BULLETIN Stanford Middle School student Megan was editor of Newsweek International from Official publication of the Long Beach Tran was a prizewinner in the Southern Area 2000 to 2010 and Editor-at-Large at TIME Unified School District issued bi-weekly Youth Art Month Show in her division. The from 2010 to 2014. He’s also been one of Jon during the school year from the Office of student’s work, along with that of other top Stewart’s favorite guests on The Daily Show. the Superintendent of Schools, 1515 Hughes winners from throughout the state, will be fea- Way, Long Beach, California 90810. tured at the California State Capitol in the (562) 997-8000. www.lbschools.net gallery on the third floor from May 18 to 29. CHRISTOPHER J. STEINHAUSER Poly High School graduate Molly Emmett, Superintendent of Schools a member of the Class of 2015 at Whitman In Memoriam College in Walla Walla, WA, has earned a BOARD OF EDUCATION Fulbright Award, which will provide for a Becky Gowin DIANA CRAIGHEAD, President teaching assistantship in the Czech Republic. cafeteria supervisor, Dooley FELTON WILLIAMS, Vice President About 1,700 students from throughout the May 3, 2015 MEGAN KERR, Member United States were chosen from more than JOHN MCGINNIS, Member 10,000 applicants to receive grants to study, JON MEYER, Member teach and conduct research. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.