Arcadia School District will continue to charge fees for bus transportation for students despite uncertainties caused by a Court of Appeals ruling and a pending state Supreme Court decision.
The Supreme Court has prohibited school districts from charging home-to-school bus fares. During the 1987-88 school year, approximately 800 students paid $59 a quarter for bus service in Arcadia.
Ernest "Cal" Ford recently retired after 27 years of driving a school bus for Arcadia School District. Ford is a second generation school bus driver. His father drove a school bus for Arcadia in the 1930's.
Helen Weakley will be honored by the Board of Education for outstanding service. She has been a bus driver for the district since 1965. She also trains bus drivers. Biographical notes included.
A report presented by the Arcadia Board of Education indicates that 6th grade students at all Arcadia elementary schools are exceeding reading and math goals set by the state from now through the 1989-90 school year.
Arcadia Board of Education has authorized the administration to enter into an agreement with Performing Tree Inc. to provide Arts-in-Education programs for all schools within the district during the 1983-84 school year. Supt. Elb Souders said he would ask the Arcadia Auditorium Foundation to pick up the $2000 cost.
After 19 years as an employee with Arcadia Unified School District, Virgil J. Goode has retired. Goode worked over the years as custodian, groundsman and bus driver.
The family of David Taylor, an Arcadia High School student who was killed in a bicycle accident last year, has presented a claim of $500,000 to the Arcadia School District. The claim was denied by the school board and turned over to the district's insurance company.
The Los Angeles County Commission on School District Organization voted 9-0 to deny Sierra Madre's petition to join the Arcadia School District. The matter will go to the state Board of Education, which may take 3-4 months to make a decision.
Some Sierra Madre parents want to split from the Pasadena Unified School District and join the Arcadia Unified School District because of Arcadia's high-ranking CAP scores and low dropout rate. Members of Arcadia's Board of Education question whether they could handle the influx of new students.
The Arcadia High School Apache Marching Band will travel to Arcadia's sister city, Newcastle, Australia, in late June. Parents have agreed to make up the difference, if the $37,000 still needed cannot be raised. Besides Newcastle, where they will perform for 5,000 high school students, the band will sight-see and perform in Canberra and Sydney.
All Arcadia High School students have now been granted permission to participate in voluntary drug urinalysis testing, an option previously open only to athletes and student body officers.
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.