Why suburban schools are inflating kids grades

PASADENA (CBSLA) — A final curtain call is looming for an after-school music and performing arts program being run on the director’s own dime because its home campus, Pasadena’s Wilson Middle School, is set to close at the end of this school year. Students at Wilson Middle School are working hard to rehearse for their upcoming Christmas shows, but it’s a bittersweet effort because they could be their last. Wilson Middle School is shutting down at the end of this school year, part of a wave of school closures in the Pasadena Unified School District due to declining enrollment. (credit: CBS) The after-school performing arts program, which has been run by Marvin Hatchett for more than 30 years, is a staple in the community and students are sad that it could all soon end for good. “I just enjoy the people here,” student Nikki Nittianandan said. “I hang out with them a lot and it’s fun to do all the cadences and stuff.” Hatchett has been … [Read more...] about Beloved After-School Music Program Faces Final Curtain Call In Pasadena After More Than 30 Years

This week marks seven years since my sweet 7-year-old son, Daniel, was murdered in his first-grade classroom, along with 19 other classmates and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how his death — and that of hundreds of other students since then — could have been prevented. While we as a nation continue to fight about how to keep our schools safe, the rates of school shootings continue to escalate. Many of America's kids are now living in fear, as we prepare them for seemingly “inevitable” violence.  But gun violence is not inevitable; it is preventable. ADVERTISEMENTHere are seven steps that our elected officials in Washington can take to protect our kids in 2020 and beyond. Pass universal background checks (S. 42/H.R. 8). More Americans support this bipartisan legislation than any other currently in discussion. Taking this critical step forward in preventing gun violence is … [Read more...] about 7 things Congress can do to make schools safer in 2020

PASADENA (CBSLA) – Amid declining enrollment numbers, the Pasadena Unified School Board voted Thursday to close three elementary schools at the end of the school year. The board late Thursday night voted by a narrow 4-3 margin to close Franklin, Jefferson and Roosevelt elementary schools. Jefferson Elementary School in Pasadena. Sept. 27, 2019. (CBS2) “School consolidation, closures, is the most difficult thing a school board member has to do,” PUSD Board President Lawrence Torres told the audience Thursday night. For the 2020-21 academic year, Franklin students will be asked to move to Altadena Elementary, Jefferson students will be moved to Longfellow Elementary, and Roosevelt students will be asked to transfer to Madison Elementary, according to the Pasadena-Star News. “I don’t like the whole change for her, you know, when I was a kid, we went to one elementary school, and then you went to one middle school, and we wanted that stability for her,” … [Read more...] about Pasadena Unified To Shutter 3 Elementary Schools

ROCKAWAY, NJ — She lost her 12-year-old daughter to bullying and is on the verge of losing a bill aimed at toughening New Jersey's anti-bullying laws. But Dianne Grossman is unbowed, undeterred and asking for everyone to join her fight to make "Mallory's Law" a reality before time runs out on the legislative clock. The bill is named for Grossman's daughter Mallory, a gymnast and cheerleader from Rockaway, who took her own life in 2017 after relentless bullying, according to her parents. The legislation was approved unanimously in the Senate in June but stalled in the Assembly under the powerful influence of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, Grossman said. "They are very kind. I believe their hearts are in the right place," Grossman said. "But I feel as if they are disconnected down in Trenton." Grossman said she was invited by leaders of the New Jersey school administrators group to sit down and discuss the bill and changes they wanted to make to it. The … [Read more...] about ‘The Right Kid Hasn’t Died Yet:’ The Fight To Pass Mallory’s Law

Five days before 18-year-old Barnard College student Tessa Majors was slashed to death in Morningside Park at the edge of campus, a younger teenage girl was chased into the 118 Deli one block further away. The younger girl lost her footing as a boy who would prove to be 13 came in after her. “He kicked her on the floor,” the woman behind the counter would recall. “Situation like that, all I know is I got to call the cops. Once I see something like that, I’m calling the cops.” The counterwoman, who declined to give a reporter her name, made the call. She then took a cellphone photo through the deli window of the boy after he rejoined four other young teens out on Manhattan Avenue, two male, two female. The boy who had kicked the girl wore a black parka with red and white stripes, the hood up. He and his friends had departed by the time police responded. The girl who had been kicked remained in the store. The counterwoman had been told that the boy and … [Read more...] about The ‘Little Kids’ Suspected in Tessa Majors’ Murder