An official news publication of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, 9300 Imperial Highway, Downey, CA 90242, 562/922-6360.

  Board of Education: Douglas R. Boyd, President; Rudell S. Freer, Vice President; Katie Braude, Gabriella Holt, Maria Reza, Thomas A. Saenz, Rebecca J. Turrentine

Produced by LACOE Communications Dept.:
Frank Kwan, Director
Margo Minecki, Editor
Contributing writers:
Rick de la Torre, Dan Pollock and Nimfa Rueda
Graphic design: Timothy Cox

PIN # 2011-11-10-NEWS-16

A LACOE teacher and two colleagues from L.A. County have been honored as among the state's best K-12 educators.

 

Florence Avognon, a LACOE teacher for nine years, was named as a 2012 California Teacher of the Year along with Ken LaVigne of the Whittier Union High SD and Rebecca Mieliwocki from the Burbank USD.

 

The three were among the five classroom educators announced on Nov. 7 as the state's top classroom teachers by California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in Sacramento.

 

Avognon teaches English and history at The Phoenix Academy, a residential treatment program in Sylmar for teen substance abusers. Previously, she taught at the Central Juvenile Hall near downtown L.A.

 

LaVigne is an English teacher at La Serna High School and Rebecca Mieliwocki teaches 7th-grade English at Luther Burbank Middle School. Mieliwocki also was selected by Torlakson to serve as the state's representative in the National Teacher of the Year contest next spring.

 

Read the full story.

Photo: California State Teachers of the Year (l-r) Rebecca Mieliwocki, Burbank USD; Florence Avognon, LACOE; and Ken LaVigne, Whittier Union High SD.

Why not learn from the best?

That's the simple logic behind a web-based initiative recently launched by LACOE that provides a chance for some of the area's top K-12 educators to help their teaching colleagues.

 

The initiative, known as Teacher 2 Teacher, is a professional training program that features current and former California and L.A. County teachers of the year offering guidance and support. 

 

The program's goal: create a friendly learning community so that teachers, especially those new to the profession, can learn from those who have distinguished themselves as exemplary educators.

 

"We wanted to create a way for teachers to connect with each other for practical advice, tips and feedback," said Vicky Limon, the T2T organizer and coordinator of LACOE's L.A. County Teacher of the Year Program.

 

Read the full story.

 

Visit the T2T website.

LACOE's L.A. County High School for the Arts is one of three programs recently inaugurated as UCLA Confucius Classrooms for their efforts to promote Chinese language and culture.

At an Oct. 3 ceremony hosted by the UCLA Confucius Institute, Chancellor Gene Block said the classrooms provide an enriching cultural experience and embody a commitment to helping students succeed in a changing global economy.

LACHSA has been offering Mandarin classes for three years and has a sister school in China, the Hangzhou High School for the Arts.

 

"Our emerging China Exchange program is designed to promote cross-cultural understanding and growth," said LACHSA Principal George Simpson. "As artists and scholars, our students are able to explore what it means to be human by examining the universal traits that bind us irrespective of race, language or nationality."

 

Simpson was part of a 21-member delegation to China in September that was sponsored by the Confucius Institute. The group visited schools and met with education officials in Shanghai and Hangzhou.

 

Fourteen students from the Hangzhou sister school visited LACHSA in early October, attending arts and academic classes and staying with LACHSA families. The visiting students were welcomed by L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, a founder of LACHSA, who hosted a special breakfast in their honor at the Hall of Administration.

 

In the spring, a group of 15 LACHSA students will travel to China for a 10-day educational journey that will take them to the Hangzhou arts high school and other programs and sites in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Beijing.

 

Also designated as Confucius Classrooms on Oct. 3 are Broadway Elementary in Venice and the Norton Space and Aeronautics Academy in San Bernardino. Confucius Classrooms are sponsored by Hanban, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization in China.

 

Photo: Students from LACHSA, at right, with visiting students from Hangzhou arts high school at the Oct. 3 ceremony at UCLA. The tie-wearing adults are (l-r) Xu Fei, vice president, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; George Simpson, principal, LACHSA; and Randal Johnson, interim vice provost, UCLA International Institute.

Young women incarcerated at a juvenile probation camp in northern L.A. County who are unable to leave the facility recently visited the Aquarium of the Pacific more than 50 miles away in Long Beach.

 

With the help of videoconferencing technology, a group of 18 students from Camp Scott-Scudder in Saugus took a two-hour virtual field trip to the Aquarium on Oct. 27 for an interactive lecture and squid dissection.

 

"The girls enthusiastically shared their prior knowledge of cephalopods, defining important terms and lifecycle patterns," said Diana Velasquez, principal of the Road to Success Academy, LACOE's school serving students detained at Scott-Scudder, the only probation camp for girls in L.A. County.

 

Each student had received her own squid courtesy of the Aquarium. The museum curator led the group through the dissection step by step allowing time for questions.

 

"They delved into the dissection process with deep curiosity and respect," Velasquez said, noting that this type of hands-on learning really solidified the content students had previously studied in textbooks and on video.

 

As one student observed about the virtual field trip: "It's better than a book. We can actually feel it and see it."

 

Velasquez said the learning experience was a resounding success and her plan is for each curriculum unit to include one or two virtual field trips.

 

Hands-on learning is a key component of the Road to Success Academy, which focuses on engaging students in theme-based interdisciplinary projects and providing regular activities that promote self-esteem and empowerment.

 

The Academy is designed to serve the special needs of young women in the justice system, who struggle with a host of emotional and psychological issues brought on by life traumas that include abuse, drug addiction, prostitution and homelessness.

 

The Academy is operated by LACOE in partnership the L.A. County Probation and Mental Health Departments. Read more.

 

Learn more about virtual field trips to the Aquarium of the Pacific.

LACOE is helping educators understand that the future of teaching and learning is digital and online.

 

The Office recently hosted the 21st Century Learners Symposium, one of the biggest events of its kind in the state. This special yearly conference on the innovative and inspirational ways that technology is now being used in K-12 schools featured presentations, hands-on workshops and displays on effective and"hot" classroom uses, trends and applications. Topics included mobile technology, digital textbooks, online learning, Google and Web 2.0 tools.

 

"We wanted to give people the chance to learn from each other and be better equipped to have an impact in their schools and districts," said Raymond Chavez, director of LACOE's Instructional Technology Outreach, which organized the Oct. 14 symposium at Cal State University, L.A. 

 

"Our goal," Chavez added, "was to enrich, engage and empower the attendees in new and exciting ways."

 

Nearly 700 educators from public and private schools from across Southern California were at the symposium. They included teachers, technology coordinators, administrators and other staff, as well as select students presenting their multimedia projects.

 

In addition, 15 superintendents were in attendance, including the school chiefs from Manhattan Beach, Pasadena and South Whittier.

 

The keynote presenters were Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, and Mike Lawrence, executive director of Computer-Using Educators.

 

Click here to see news coverage of the Symposium by KNBC-TV Channel 4.

Photo: At the 21st Century Learners Symposium, LACOE Chief Technology Officer Richard Quinones with (l-r) three school district superintendents, Sandra Lyon, Santa Monica-Malibu; Barbara Nakaoka, Hacienda La Puente; and Amy Enomoto-Perez, Rosemead. 

LACOE is participating in a federally funded initiative by the L.A. County Department of Public Health to help schools address the growing problem of childhood obesity.

 

Under the initiative, known as Project RENEW, LACOE has been working with campuses in seven area school districts that have a higher rate of overweight and obese students: ABC (Cerritos), Compton, El Monte City, LAUSD, Mountain View (El Monte), Pasadena and Pomona.

 

"Our goals are to increase student access to quality physical education and increase student and community access to physical activity opportunities," said Joanie Verderber, project director of LACOE's School Health and Physical Education Programs, or SHaPE. Verderber oversees the two-year $1.8 million RENEW grant for LACOE that ends in March 2012.

 

The grant has provided professional development for teachers and administrators, physical education materials and equipment for the targeted schools and support for establishing joint/shared use agreements.

 

One joint use effort is a new water safety program in Compton to help overcome the socio-economic barriers that prevent African American and Latino students from learning to swim. The pilot program began this fall to provide exposure to swimming, a life-long physical activity, as children of color drown at the rate of 3 to 1 compared to whites.

 

An Oct. 5 poolside ceremony at Carver Elementary School featured four-time Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg who spoke to the students about the importance of identifying goals and working hard to reach them. Compton's project will provide swimming lessons for fourth- and fifth-graders and adults through the Krayzelburg Foundation.

Photo: At Compton's Carver Elementary are (l-r) district Associate Supt. Abimbola Ajala, Joanie Verderber of LACOE, Olympic swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg and district Interim Supt. Karen Frison.

Can engaging at-risk students in the arts make a dent in the dropout crisis?

 

What can be done to enhance creative engagement in alternative schools that serve at-risk youth?

 

These were the questions posed to a select group of 25 leaders from diverse fields who were part of a roundtable held this past summer and co-hosted by LACOE and The HeArt Project, a nonprofit group that provides arts education in alternative school settings.

 

The roundtable aimed to start a dialogue about how to collaborate more effectively across various sectors to provide creative pathways that increase the number of youth graduating from alternative schools.

 

Among the notable participants from such fields as research, advocacy, education and business was creativity guru Sir Ken Robinson, whose lecture on schools and creativity is the top-viewed TEDTalk.

 

The HeArt Project has produced a report that captures the discussion, provides background on the issue and outlines next steps at the policy and program levels. Get a copy of the report "Creative Engagement: Dropout Prevention through the Arts in Alternative Education" by clicking here.

 

Read the related article, "Why Alternative Education Needs to Go Mainstream."

 

LACOE is a partner with The HeArt Project in operating the Hollywood Media Arts Academy, an arts-focused alternative school. Learn more.

 

Photo: Participants in the creative engagement roundtable included (l-r) Dan Sackheim, California Dept. of Education; Russell Rumberger, California Dropout Research Project; Peter Rivera, California Community Foundation; and Keren Taylor, WriteGirl (facilitator Beth Farb is in the background). 

School districts throughout L.A. County are encouraged to participate in LACOE's Student Art Exhibition. The annual competition showcases outstanding artwork created by K-12 students.

 

Selected work is permanently displayed at LACOE buildings and exhibits are held at local malls. All submissions receive a certificate of participation. Districts may submit up to eight pieces of art from each school at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

 

The deadline to register is Jan. 27, 2012. Get more information and registration form by clicking here.

 

Learn more about LACOE's Visual and Performing Arts programs.