The Arcadia Unified School District is taking a "zero tolerance" position against violence and drugs in the schools. Anyone caught assaulting another student, bringing a weapon to school, or using or selling drugs on campus will be expelled.
Arcadia High School opened the school year with an added 800 9th grade students, bringing total enrollment to 3050. 50% of the students are new to the school.
Starting in 1993-1994, Arcadia High School will change its grading policy that awards an extra grade point to students taking honors classes. The new system will give no more weight to honors courses than to regular courses.
Many Arcadia High School students are unhappy with the quality of the photos in the 1998 AHS yearbook, taking away some of the thunder from the school's first interactive CD-ROM yearbook.
The new J Building and Music Building are ready at Arcadia High School, made possible by passage of the $28 million bond issue in April, 1993. The new facilities include the Library Technology Center, the new nurse's office, Associated Student Body Office and the Trading Post student store.
Students at Holly Avenue Elementary School can choose the traditional September-June schedule or attend year-round classes with 4 shorter breaks, instead of the three-month summer vacation. The new schedule has the usual 180 days, but includes 4 sessions of about 9 weeks and breaks as long as 20 days.
About 40 Arcadia High School students showed up outside City Hall at 3:15 to demonstrate against the city's 50 year old curfew, which subjects those under 18 to a misdemeanor citation if they loiter in public after 10 PM.
The City Council increased the bed tax, charged to customers staying in a hotel, from 8% to 10%. The increase will generate an estimated $140,000 a year, which would help to close the city's projected $2.2 million shortfall in the 1993-94 budget.
Next fall, students who want to use a computer in the Arcadia Unified School District will be required to sign a contract outlining student responsibility before being allowed access to the Internet.
For the second time in three years, science students from Arcadia High School took the top prize Saturday in the county regional competition of the National Science Bowl.
About 300 students in kindergarten through 5th grade will attend new schools in September because the school board unanimously approved changes in school attendance boundaries.
Private schools pay annual rent for classrooms at two area public schools. There is a controversy over the use or misuse of classrooms by these students.
Thirty-seven portable classrooms-or nearly half the campus - are being used to house students at Arcadia High School while the school undergoes and $8.5 million renovation.
Camino Grove elementary teacher Patricia Ann Baltz will be one of 60 teachers profiled by the Disney Channel. 36 finalists will be culled from the 60 teachers profiled, and each will receive an honorarium of $2500. Disney will also award one additional cash prize of $25,000 to an "Outstanding Teacher of 1993." The teacher's school will receive $25,000 and the school district $10,000.
The boundaries for the 6 elementary and 3 middle schools are going to be changed so that enrollments at each of the schools are more balanced. About 300 of the district's 6000 students will be affected by the changes.