Tag archives: school
It’s midnight on the night before my son’s college applications are due and we’re huddled in his room editing his supplemental essays for 12 different colleges. Did I mention I was also eating an entire chocolate cream pie? I thought we had started far enough in advance to get these done early, but no, I […]
Grounding oneself into the realm of Advanced Placement courses, heightened expectations, and overloaded schedules while beginning the search for one’s passions is not simple, to say the least. I’m in the middle of my junior year of high school and the looming idea of college that was always in the back of my mind has […]
Years ago, after graduating from college, I went through a six-month period where I suffered from blood-curdling, ghastly nightmares — where I dreamed that I hadn’t really gotten my diploma after all. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, covers tangled on the floor, breathing heavy at 2 am, convinced I’d forgotten to do something […]
On Tuesday, the bulk of Santa Barbara County snapped “first day” photos for Facebook and returned to the gnarly drop-off lines at area schools — but the cloud of uncertainty surrounding the longevity of in-person instruction remains. With the COVID-19 Delta variant creating disruption at hospitals around the state, local school districts are having to […]
Montecito Union School’s Nature Lab, its interactive 2.5-acre space that’s beginning to take shape on the Upper Village campus, has been serving as a learning laboratory even before ground was broken on the project. The students at the enviable elementary school were a big part of the process about how to use the land adjacent […]
Christina Broderick has been receiving plenty of congratulatory calls from her predecessors at Marymount Santa Barbara — er, The Riviera Ridge School (RRS). After years of discussion, the K-8 private school on Santa Barbara’s Riviera — which serves roughly 20-25 students from Montecito per year — has a new brand for the 2021-22 school year, […]
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 — […]
In the already dramatic annals of parental engagement, one particular case threatens to break the mold. To most outside observers, the drama began on March 10, 2021, when Greg Rolen, a lawyer for Montecito’s Cold Spring School District, filed a restraining order on behalf of three employees purportedly in physical danger from a parent at […]
In an effort to provide a special experience to their 5th grade class, teachers at Montecito Union School brought Colonial Williamsburg to MUS. “Most years, fifth graders are able to attend the D.C./Colonial Williamsburg trip as a culmination of their studies of the early history of our country. Clearly, that wasn’t in the cards this year, but our […]
This week you are being treated to yet another saga from bonnie Scotland –only this time, the story is not from me. Meet Tobias Cole, Montecito native and second year student at the University of St Andrews. I met Tobias for the first time in a coffee shop on North Street, St Andrews. And I […]
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. […]
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 […]
Many Unanswered Questions Thank you, Kelly Mahan Herrick, for the August 6 article on the county’s spraying of herbicides in the debris basins of Montecito. Some questions come to mind after reading the responses of County officials Maureen Spencer and Jon Frye. Ms Spencer mentions that if there isn’t a burned watershed above a debris […]
Our community of schools held their 2020 graduation ceremonies through online Zoom graduations, school drive by parades with their teachers, one in-person ceremony with directives from the health department and two schools opted to postpone an in-person ceremony till later this year. The number of graduates are 186: Montecito Union 58, Cold Spring 20, Crane […]
Entering the campus of All Saints-by-the-Sea Parish School was actually a homecoming of sorts for a variety of reasons, the most recent being that our granddaughter, now 10 and a big fifth grader, attended the Parish School as a toddler. Not that long ago she could be seen hopping around the playground laughing, playing, and […]
On Friday, March 13, it was announced that all 20 school districts within Santa Barbara County would close indefinitely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving over 67,000 students – and their parents – left to begin a homeschooling program. Administrators and teachers from both of Montecito’s public schools have been working around the clock […]
On Wednesday, January 29, 2020, Laguna Blanca School will host its third annual TEDxLagunaBlancaSchool event. With this year’s theme set as RE.IMAGINE, speakers and attendees will be encouraged to re-think what they know, rebel against what’s been done before, and re-discover truths about society and the world around them. Members of the student team have […]
Our Lady of Mount Carmel School (OLMCS) had a gala at the gorgeous Rosewood Miramar Chandelier Ballroom to celebrate their 75 years of existence. As the saying goes, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” It all began in 1944 when Reverend John Meehan along with some of the parents founded the school. It began with […]
Montecito Union School students headed back to class this week, arriving to a campus that underwent several updates over the summer. MUS superintendent Dr. Anthony Ranii sat down with us earlier this week to talk about campus upgrades, enrollment numbers, and what’s new for the 2019/20 school year. The day after school let out for […]
The Crane Country Day School (CCDS) 2019 eighth grade graduation was held on Wednesday, June 19 at 10 am in the school center courtyard. Opening the ceremony was headmaster Joel J. Weiss. He talked about the educational standards at the school, and how well these 8th grade students will excel in academic, athletic and the […]



