Antioch resident, Lauren Rojas, a 12-year-old student at Cornerstone Christian School, launched her Hello Kitty doll into space, last month, using a weather balloon, and as a result has become an internet sensation garnering national attention.

Her science experiment for a class she’s taking caught the attention of ABC News. The video of it has received over 555,000 views.  See the article by clicking here  and the YouTube video of the space flight, by clicking here.

Presented by the Antioch Police Department

Antioch students at Belshaw and Carmen Dragon Elementary Schools will get a visit this spring from “Mr. Beeps,” an animated robotic car that makes important traffic safety lessons fun and memorable. Diablo Vista, Jack London, Lone Tree, and Turner Elementary students met Mr. Beeps this past fall.

Mr. Beeps teaches children about proper helmet fit, how to stay safe in busy school drop-off and pick-up zones, traffic symbol recognition, and how to properly and safely cross the street for both signalized and unsignalized intersections.

Also this spring Park Middle School students will participate in a 3-day interactive traffic safety program taught by certified bicycle safety experts and health and safety professionals from the community. Students will learn the 3 Cs of bicycle checks, the nuances of rights/laws of pedestrians vs. bicyclists, emergency stops, and more.

Street Smarts Diablo is a bicycle and pedestrian safety program designed to reduce car trips to schools by providing students and parents with the knowledge and confidence to start walking, biking, and rolling to school safely.

Street Smarts programs are available to all public schools in Antioch. Contact Kerri Heusler for more information: kerri@511contracosta.org.

Measure B passes

By James Ott

Antioch voters elected one new member and chose to keep the status quo and voted back in the two current Antioch Unified School District Board Members who ran for re-election, while approving Measure B to improve Antioch High School.

Newcomer Barbara Cowan took the top spot with 13,933 votes for 19.65% of the vote, followed by school board incumbents Diane Gibson-Gray and Claire Renee Smith with 11,033 votes for 15.57% and 9,167 votes for 12.93% of the vote, respectively.

Those figures are as of today, December 3rd. But, the County Elections Office finalized their vote count, earlier today.

The vote wasn’t all that close. The next highest vote-getters were Debra Vinson with 7,860 votes for 11.08% and Jack Yeager with 10.79% of the vote for a total of 7,654 votes. In sixth place was retired school nurse and former teacher’s union representative Linda Anderson with 7,043 votes for 9.93%; seventh place finisher was Randy Benevides with 5,667 votes for 7.99%; Synitha Walker placed eighth with 5,005 votes for 7.06% and Zandra Raphael who was unable to campaign much due to knee surgery in October, was last with 3,358 votes for 4.74%. There were 188 write-in votes.

Trustees Gibson-Gray and Smith were part of a school board including Walter Ruehlig and Gary Hack, who were faced with large state budget cuts to education. Although they made changes including laying off teachers, renegotiating teacher contracts, and increasing class sizes they also currently have surplus general fund balance of about $30 million, which may have swayed voters to bring them back.

Both Cowan and Gibson-Gray said they believe their educational experience as well as Gibson-Gray’s experience on the school board, helped them gain a majority vote. They were both endorsed by the teacher’s union, known as the Antioch Education Association.

In addition to the financial difficulties the board has faced in recent years they are also facing angry teachers who are upset at the cuts to their pay. Teachers have flooded recent school board meetings demanding some type of raise after they say they made pay sacrifices to get the school district back on track.

Teachers say they have not received a pay raise of any significance in six years and now that the board has a surplus, they are asking that the board pay them back for their willingness to take pay cuts when the district was struggling in the past.

Cowan said that she is looking forward to working with the teachers and the students to improve the district.

“I’m looking forward to continue a fiscally conservative policy in that we need to keep a healthy reserve but we need to allow for teachers and employees to make a living wage,” said Cowan. “I’m looking forward to assisting school teachers and students in making Antioch schools a better institution.”

Gibson-Gray also said that she believes that the district is on the right track because of their surplus and said that negotiations with teachers are underway.

“I don’t see much changing because we are on the path for negotiations and Prop 30 passed which is a windfall,” said Gibson-Gray. “I’ll be a fiscal conservative and continue what I’ve done for the last four years.”

Prop 30 is expected to raise billions for public schools and community colleges over the next seven years by increasing income tax on earnings over $250,000 and by increasing sales tax by a quarter cent over the next four years.Measure B monies cannot be spent on administrative costs and decisions on how the money will be spent must be decided in public meetings and is subject to an annual audit.

The school board members will take their oaths of office at their regular meeting on Wednesday, December 12, which will include reorganization of the leadership, with a new Board President and Vice President, as well as committee assignments.

Also benefiting the school district was the passage of Measure B, the $56.5 million bond for improvements to Antioch High School. It required only a 55% vote to pass and garnered over 62%, with 11,520 votes in favor and 7,008 votes against the measure.

According to the Impartial Analysis from the County Counsel, the bonds will cost “$49.80 per $100,000 of assessed valuation during each year beginning in fiscal year 2013-2014, when the first bonds would be sold, and continuing through fiscal year 2046-2047, which is 30 years after the last bonds would be sold.”

There will be an citizen’s oversight committee formed and appointed by the school board, who will keep an eye on the use of the Measure B bond funds.

NOTE: Claire Smith was unavailable for comment for this article, due to a family emergency.

Publisher Allen Payton contributed to this article.

Brought to you by the Antioch Chamber of Commerce

Cyndi Soraoka, (fifth from left) with others from the internship program in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD (in dress white uniform, fifth from right).

By Cyndi Soraoka

I was one of only four Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) Advisors, out of over 40 applicants, selected to do a one-week internship in the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States, this past July in Washington, DC.

I was privileged to learn about our public health system including the Medical Reserve Corps, the US Public Health Service, and the US Public Health Commissioned Corps, which is on par with the Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard in service to our country. We visited the Department of Human Services, learned about the Emergency Management System that is deployed in case of a nationwide medical emergency and visited the Secretary’s Operation Center (SOC)—a 24-hour operation that serves as the “nerve center” for public health emergency preparedness. I learned how different medical career personnel can serve our country at the federal level. We visited the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) which houses a medical school and graduate nursing department funded by the federal government.

I am sharing what I learned during that week with the Dozier-Libbey Medical High School HOSA chapter and incorporating it into the 10th grade Health Science curriculum. It was a once in a life time experience!

HOSA develops leadership and technical skill competencies through a program of motivation, awareness and recognition. To learn more visit www.HOSA.org.

To learn more about the internship please check out our blog at http://2012internship1.blogspot.com/

Most of Antioch’s public schools are improving, but as a whole they are still below state and government education standards and assessments.

At the Wednesday, October 25 school board meeting, Antioch Unified School District Director of Educational Services Mary McCarthy gave a presentation that highlighted the targets the schools were supposed to hit. Antioch Unified, like every district in California, needs to meet certain state and federal standards.

There are several state tests that are used to determine whether students in a school are improving and meeting those standards, like the California Standards Test (CST) and the California Modified Assessment (CMA), for example.

Overall, Antioch’s students have done fairly well on these tests this year. The students that are tested – second grade through eleventh grade students – have increased their Language Arts CST scores an average of 2.5 percent over last year. And their CST Math scores, (only second through seventh grade were available) have increased about 3.33 percent over last year.

The States Academic Performance Index (API) takes tests such as the California Standards Test (CST) and the California Modified Assessment (CMA), in consideration when they determine a school’s API score.

The API is growth model, represented as a number, from a low of 200 to a high of 1000, which reflects a school’s performance level based on the results of statewide testing. It’s supposed to measure the academic performance and growth of a given school.

The API is calculated by converting a student’s performance on statewide assessments, into points on the API scale. These points are then averaged across all students and all tests. The state requires all schools and districts to achieve a score of 800 or higher on the API.

According to McCarthy’s presentation, the district as a whole has seen an average growth this year of +12 and a four year growth trend of +30 on average for their API scores.

Only 5 of the 24 schools have reached the state mandated score of 800 for the API, according to McCarthy’s presentation. However, one third of Antioch’s schools have seen at least some growth, something that is encouraging, McCarthy said.

Of the five schools that reached 800, including John Muir Elementary, Dozier-Libbey High, Orchard Park Middle, Diablo Vista Elementary, and Lone Tree Elementary, four of them saw growth of four or more. Only John Muir’s API score fell and by a significant 30 points, something McCarthy said she and John Muir’s staff are looking into.

In addition to state standards, schools must also meet federal government standards. One of the biggest government criteria is the Federal Accountability Adequate Yearly Progress, (AYP), standard.

The federal government’s goal is 100 percent of all tested students will demonstrate proficiency or better in English-Language Arts and Math by 2014.

AYP is determined for elementary and middle school students by using STAR testing. High school student’s AYP scores are determined through the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) scores and a minimum graduation rate.

In addition, all students must show a combined API score of 740 or at least one point of growth and a certain participation rate on those tests.

McCarthy said that it is very difficult to meet AYP because 46 individual criteria have to be met.

Not only do all schools and the districts as a whole have to meet the above minimum test and participation standards, but there are many additional subgroups that must meet them too. Student subgroups including African American, Asian, Filipino, Hispanic/Latino, White, Socio/Economically Disadvantaged, English Learners and Students with Disabilities, all have to individually meet the AYP targets for a school to pass.

For example, AUSD could have hit 45 of the 46 standards and they still wouldn’t pass because they’re target graduation rate is 76.01 percent and AUSD’s graduation rate was set by the AYP at 75.86 percent – a gap of just .0015 percent. They would have missed their goal by only about two students.

AUSD however, only passed 26 of the 46 AYP criteria and have not met the AYP criteria as a district for the last five years in a row.

Although the district is in its third year of steady improvement, they are still far below the required 78.4 percent efficiency in English-Language Arts and the 77.4 percent efficiency in Math. As a district, AUSD is right at 50 percent efficiency for Math and English.

The closest subgroups to reaching proficiency in English and Math are Asians, Filipinos and Whites, all of whom are at or above 60 percent proficient.

All other subgroups are lagging behind and are well below 50 percent proficiency.

Only Fremont Elementary, Mission Elementary and Marsh Elementary schools are meeting AYP standards in all areas.

Amber Chiang, Director, NCMPR District 6 and Barbara Cella, Director, Marketing & Media Design for Los Medanos College and the NCMPR District 6 Medallion Awards received by Los Medanos College

Los Medanos College has been recognized with eight Medallion Awards from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations District 6, which serves two-year colleges in southwestern United States. The NCMPR District 6 Medallion Awards recognize outstanding achievement in communications at community and technical colleges in District 6. It’s the only regional competition of its kind that honors excellence exclusively among marketing and public relations professionals at two-year colleges. The NCMPR District 6 Medallion Awards are awarded in levels of gold, silver, and bronze.

Los Medanos College was recognized for:

·Gold Medallion in the category of Banner or Outdoor Media – “Planning to Transfer?”

·Gold Medallion in the category of Website – “Los Medanos College Official Website”

·Silver Medallion in the category of Poster – “How I Learned to Drive”

·Silver Medallion in the category of Banner or Outdoor Media – “Be a Major Success”

·Silver Medallion in the category of Original Photo – “You Look Great”

·Silver Medallion in the category of Logo Design – “Vision 2020”

·Bronze Medallion in the category of Brochure/Flyer – “Career and Technical Education”

·Bronze Medallion in the category of Original Photo – “Committed and Proud”

The awards were presented Friday, September 28, at the conclusion of the NCMPR District 6 Conference in Santa Barbara, California. Los Medanos College was competing with more than 200 entries received from colleges in NCMPR District 6.

“The Medallion Awards recognize excellence in community college marketing,” said Amber Chiang, director of NCMPR District 6. “Often, community college marketing departments are designed to make other departments on campus look good. This is an opportunity to recognize the contributions of marketing staff and achievement in community college communications.”

District 6 includes community colleges in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Territory of Guam.

The National Council for Marketing & Public Relations is the only organization of its kind that exclusively represents marketing and public relations professionals at community and technical colleges. As one of the fastest-growing affiliates of the American Association of Community Colleges, NCMPR has more than 1,550 members from more than 650 colleges across the United States, Canada and other countries.

Los Medanos College is located in Pittsburg with an extension in Brentwood. For more information visit www.losmedanos.edu.