Tag archives: education
It was a late afternoon in early 2017 and Jonathan Fox was en route to a pre-dinner cocktail with Lee Luria, the philanthropist extraordinaire that had just given Fox’s Ensemble Theatre Company a new lease on life — quite literally. With her favorite gin and tonic at her side and Fox acquiring a glass of […]
Facing the second year of not being able to offer their students a yearly springtime trip to Boston, Crane Country Day School fifth-grade teachers Carrie Althoff and Ryan Long set out to “bring Boston to Montecito,” allowing their students the opportunity to have unique learning experiences. The Boston trip has been a rite of passage […]
Amid a global pandemic and dire nursing shortage, Westmont’s proposed Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) arrives just in time to meet a great need not only in the Santa Barbara community, but also in California. The program, run in partnership with Cottage Health, received unanimous approval for its feasibility study from the California […]
They say the most important quality a student can have is “grit.” You want grit? I’ll show you grit — the class of 2021 began its freshman year with the onset of the Thomas Fire, which turned into the subsequent Montecito debris flow causing hundreds of students and their families to evacuate their homes — […]
Westmont’s determined and resilient class of 2021 will walk across the stage and celebrate Commencement in person on May 8, at 9:30 am on Thorrington Field in a special, socially distanced layout. Sandra Richter, Westmont’s Robert H. Gundry professor of biblical studies, delivers the address, while President Gayle D. Beebe will present the Westmont Medal […]
Inclusion is not a special interest; it is a human right. For the educator in me, this is a mantra that safeguards the term inclusion from how it trends currently in our discourse. In the rhetoric of our time, it has lost both its efficacy and meaning. It has become threadbare in its overuse and […]
Dear Concerned Community, Recent stories have been shared by the press which portray our beloved Cold Spring community as a war-torn battlefield, the casualty of infighting between the parents, teachers, school board, and administrative staff. Although that narrative is interesting, entertaining and presumably sells papers and gets clicks, it is also hurtful and grossly inaccurate. […]
Santa Barbara Education Foundation Executive Director Margie Yahyavi was reluctant to have her office visible during our Zoom call last week, even going so far as to employ a virtual background of a rustic cabin complete with a woodburning stove in place of her actual surroundings. “Oh my God, this office is insane,” Yahyavi said. […]
Next Tuesday, March 30, Santa Barbara Unified School District Superintendent Hilda Maldonado will share the status of the district’s schools. The presentation is hosted by the Santa Barbara Education Foundation and sponsored by Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, LogMeIn, UCLA Health, DA Davidson, KBZ Architects, Hohbach-Lewin, Oniracom, and Lazy Acres. The virtual event features […]
Someone once said, “Journalism is what somebody doesn’t want you to know. The rest is advertising.” I find that quote not just clever, but true, and precisely why local journalism is so vital. With so much overwhelming national news, not to mention two diametrically opposed sets of news to choose from, both biased, I often […]
Ninety-two percent of Westmont graduates from the class of 2020 have found a job or are attending graduate school (or planning to attend) despite a national economy sickened by the coronavirus. “What an encouraging achievement for recent graduates in the midst of a pandemic,” says Paul Bradford, director of Westmont’s Career Opportunities and Vocational Exploration […]
The New Roundabout Nightmare Brought to you by the same storytelling government that said closing southbound ramp would not adversely affect Coast Village Road. Plus, they knew they didn’t have to close the ramp until they widen the freeway through Montecito. The only conclusion we can make is they wanted Montecito to suffer. Hurt the […]
The Art of Compromise Dear Mr. Hazard, I know you expect an answer from President-elect Joe Biden. But here is mine to your letter. One Party Rule. Read Constitution, Article II, sec. 1. The concept of electors did not make any sense then, and it does not make any sense now. The country is mature […]
I have been writing this column for years and I wonder how I could have missed a visit to the Howard School, the oldest operating private school in Santa Barbara. Once located on San Ysidro Road in Montecito, the 1934 designed campus, now the Laguna Blanca Lower School, is a community landmark. On a crisp […]
Very few Westmont students have tested positive for the coronavirus since returning to campus in mid-September, and faculty and staff are finding innovative ways for students to thrive while staying safe. More than 90 percent of students chose to return to campus rather than learning remotely in their homes. All students were tested for the […]
In the 1950s, Harold Hill sold the kids of River City a band program. In the 2020 revival, he’s selling a bond program. Last week, while checking the Nextdoor website/app to learn which neighborhood cat was missing this week, I stumbled across some residents passionately debating Bond L2020 – Cold Spring School District Bond Measure. […]
Four stellar new professors join the Westmont faculty this fall: Katherine Bryant (political science), alumnus Daniel Gee (music), Robert Haring-Kaye (physics), and Blake Victor Kent (sociology). Bryant, a visiting assistant professor for three years at Westmont, launched a study of the effectiveness of Christian aid organizations. Her research focuses on the efficacy of foreign aid […]
You may find this hard to believe, but it wasn’t until after I had gone all the way through the British school and college system, and emigrated to the U.S., with a bachelor of arts degree in history, that I became aware of the fact that “education” is a subject which can itself be studied […]
Due to the ongoing pandemic, Casa Dorinda residents and staff missed out this year on celebrating the recipients of the Casa Dorinda Scholarship in person, an annual tradition dating back to 1998 when a group of Casa residents began a fund to help staff members and their families achieve their educational goals. But the pandemic […]
On May 26, the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to hire Hilda Maldonado as Superintendent in charge of the education of the county’s more than 14,000 elementary, junior and high school students. Maldonado’s prior job: Associate Superintendent of Leadership and Partnerships for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the […]
