Tag: Education

  • Central’s Mediocre Numbers, Multiplied by Marten’s ‘X Factor’

    By Will Carless It’s very rare that all five San Diego Unified school board members agree on something. But in February, the board made a decision that was both unanimous and unorthodox when it named an elementary school principal Cindy Marten as the next superintendent of California’s second-largest school district. In their announcement, the board…

  • Marten Leaves Central Elementary For Central Office

    Cindy Marten, San Diego Unified’s next superintendent, left Central Elementary School Friday and begins training for her new role this week. | Video Credit: Nicholas McVicker, KPBS By Kyla Calvert Wherever Cindy Marten goes on the bright Central Elementary campus, children flock to her, throw their arms around her and if they’re too late to…

  • New Classes Target Students Who Struggle to Master English

    By Kyla Calvert About a quarter of California’s public schools students are learning English as a second language. But by middle and high school more than half of those students have not mastered English. Like many long-term English learners, Desiree Vauve was born here. But she hasn’t spent all of her school years in San…

  • ‘Everywhere There’s Violence, There’s Kids’: Healing 44th Street

    Residents on 44th Street continue to meet following the shooting deaths of Rickquese McCoy and Stephen McClendon on June 30. They’ve moved from Rickquese’s grandfather’s courtyard to a space at the nearby elementary school. | Photo Credit: Megan Burks By Megan Burks After a double homicide took his grandson’s life last summer, Ricky McCoy Sr.…

  • Back Together Again: Crawford Students Adjust to Consolidated Campus

    By Kyla Calvert Back Together Again, Aired March 12, 2013 on KPBS Radio [audio:http://speakcityheights.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/CRAWFORD.mp3] Ideas about improving public education come and go. Few people know that better than students and staff at Crawford High School in City Heights, which has been reorganized twice in the last eight years. In 2003 San Diego Unified got an…