Tag: Education

  • Where Layoffs Destroy a School’s Fabric

    Laura Barragan has known her son Nathan’s preschool teacher, Athena Gonzalez, for six years. That’s because Gonzalez also taught Barragan’s 5-year old daughter, Joanna, and her 9-year-old son, Angel. Barragan has a lot of uncertainty in her life. She doesn’t know whether her husband will keep his job as the recession continues to roll on.…

  • City Heights Students Learn by Running Their Own Micro City

    Haga click aquí para leerlo la en Español It’s a typical Wednesday afternoon for Veronica Lias’ fifth graders at Joyner Elementary School in City Heights. She’s reviewing everything the students have learned about the respiratory system before the test they’ll take the next day. “You breathe air in through your . . .” she prompts.…

  • What Layoffs Do to a City Heights Classroom

    I visited Central Elementary School in City Heights on Tuesday morning as part of a three-day reporting project to see the impact of San Diego Unified’s layoff crisis at the school level. With one in five teachers at city schools currently being laid off, I wanted to see how the financial mess is affecting teachers,…

  • City Heights Elementary School Could Lose All But Two Teachers

    By Megan Burke, Maureen Cavanaugh, Joanne Faryon and Claire Trageser At Fay Elementary School, 27 out of 29 teachers received layoff notices this year. This means the elementary school in the City Heights neighborhood could start the year with almost all new teachers. Eileen Moreno, principal of the school, said more schools in San Diego’s low-income…

  • A School Board Candidate Scorecard

    By Will Carless We’re two weeks out from the primary elections, and you might not have paid much attention to who’s running for a seat on the San Diego Unified School District board of trustees. So, you should take a few minutes now to get schooled. With city schools facing an unprecedented financial crisis, the makeup…