Although Arcadia students slipped in their 1983-84 California Assessment Program scores compared to their own performance last year, they still scored well above the average compared to schools statewide. According to figures released by the Arcadia School District and the State Department of Education, Arcadia students in grades 3, 6, 8 and 12 did well above average in all areas tested.
Increases in total attendance and total parimutuel handle, compared to last season, and a decline in daily average were in evidence in figures released after the November 16 close of the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Park.
Enrollment in Arcadia schools, for the 8th school month declined compared to the same month last year. Enrollment overall, slipped from 7,553 to 7,419.
Crime statistics for the first six months of 1980 show an increase in all categories. There have already been five bank robberies this year. According to Police Chief Charles Mitchell, "We're taking a beating."
The Arcadia Unified School District's high school dropout rate was 1.13% for the 1987-88 school year. Erroneous figures previously released by the state Dept. of Education had the figures at 7.05% to 15%.
According to the Arcadia Police Department's monthly activity report for the month of December, which reports statistics for the entire year, daytime burglaries increased while night burglaries decreased. Also, there were no murders, 3 rapes, 2 attempted rapes, 36 assaults with a gun and 13 arrests for indecent exposure in 1987.
An international businessman was abducted from his Arcadia home and later released the same evening after his abductors demanded he pay them $1 million. He was told that he would be contacted the next day with instructions about where to put the money, but no money has been paid. This is the first kidnapping of this type in Arcadia, although there have been four other kidnappings in the San Gabriel Valley since last October.
Arcadia's proposed city budget will be about $24.4 million, up 8.9% from the $22.4 million 1985-86 budget, according to a report from City Manager George Watts.
From now through 1990, the number of students attending Arcadia schools should drop by 369, according to a 3-year projection developed by Associate Superintendent of Personnel Services, John Sinclair.
Arcadia police, working with other law enforcement agencies, uncovered a major auto theft ring operating in the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys. Two men were arrested and four cars were recovered from a warehouse in Arcadia.
One robbery was foiled at Arcadia's Southland Bank, but earlier the same day another man got away with just over $1,000 from the First Interstate Bank on South Baldwin Ave.
The 14-year-old son of Arcadia real estate developer Charles Bluth shot and killed one of 2 intruders who had broken into the Bluth home in the exclusive Whispering Pines neighborhood.
A decline in enrollment which has threatened to close one of Arcadia's 3 junior high schools appears to be less precipitous than anticipated, and may even be leveling off. According to official figures presented by the Arcadia Board of Education, there has been a loss of 164 students, far less that the drop of 429 that was expected.
Brian Lawrence Snoke, a 24-year-old Arcadia man, was found guilty of three murders in an attempt to assume control of a lucrative cocaine sales network.