Bret Harte

CITY HALL — The Burbank Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday night to appoint three new principals to lead Bret Harte, Providencia and George Washington elementary schools. Washington’s interim Principal Arlene Zenian will immediately assume control of the school, while newly named principals — Sheari Taylor at Bret Harte and Tom Kissinger at Providencia — will assume their positions July 1, Supt. Greg Bowman said. “We have the opportunity with these three new appointments to continue to move our schools in the direction we’d like to be, which is continuing the improvement of student learning,” Bowman said.

BURBANK ? After two years of participating in the Los Angeles County Music Center's arts education program, one of three Burbank schools is dropping out. Increased costs and a change in priorities have sent Ralph Emerson Elementary School teachers away from the Music Center's summer workshop program and into a multimedia workshop provided by the Los Angeles County Office of Education. "Money is part of it," Emerson Principal Linda Acuff said of the decision not to participate in this year's weeklong summer workshop for teachers through the Music Center.

ON THE AGENDA The following items will be discussed at Thursday’s Burbank Unified School District Meeting: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Supt. Gregory Bowman is expected to recommend the appointment of new principals to lead Bret Harte, Providencia and George Washington elementary schools. At the end of the school year, Bret Harte Principal Diane Berger and Providencia Principal Maria Teresa Delgado plan to retire. Washington’s acting principal, Arlene Zenian — who replaced Jane Clausen after she became the coordinator of special education for the board — could be named the school’s next principal, officials said.

Irma Lemus BURBANK -- As nervous parents and other contestants looked on, Bret Harte Elementary School fifth-grader Jean Lee took first place at the fourth annual Burbank Unified School District Spelling Bee Finals Tuesday night. "P-h-e-a-s-a-n-t" was the deciding word as Jean and Chloe Searcy, a Theodore Roosevelt fifth-grader, competed for the elementary school championship. They were the last two standing out of a field of 11 fourth- and fifth-grade students who participated in the contest at the Burbank Association of Realtors.

Maya Kukes BURBANK -- There's nothing like the real thing -- that's the idea behind Outdoor Science School, where fifth-graders get to learn about science and the environment on trails and under the stars. Each year, hundreds of Burbank students travel to camps at Lake Arrowhead and Wrightwood. For one week, they sleep on bunk beds in cabins, dine in mess halls and transform the outdoors into a classroom. Sylvia Mares' son Josh, a student at Roosevelt Elementary School, leaves for Arrowhead Ranch on Monday.

Molly Shore The three R's of education have taken on new meanings. With education dollars shrinking, parents, educators and municipal employees are now thinking recycle, reuse and repaint. That's what Mary Ann Wassem, Emerson Elementary School PTA president, thought when she learned bookshelves, desks, tables, stools and other equipment at the old Buena Vista Branch Library were slated for auction by the city. After Doris Crutcher, a retired Buena Vista library assistant, called Wassem to let her know the city planned to move the equipment into storage and eventually sell it, Wassem said her first thought was: "Oh no, why can't we have it?"

Irma Lemus BURBANK -- The playground blues could soon be a thing of the past for some Burbank students. For the first time, the district has come up with a plan to seek funding for new equipment, which in the recent past has been left up to the campuses themselves. About $700,000 is needed to replace playground equipment at six of Burbank's 11 elementary schools and to lay new asphalt at all of those campuses as well as the district's three middle schools, said Ali Kiafar, assistant superintendent for planning, development and facilities.

Jacqui Brown Nine of the city's 17 public schools met or surpassed the state's academic goals for 2004, according to results released this week. Four of the nine schools, Ralph Emerson (823), Bret Harte (807), Thomas Jefferson (845) and Theodore Roosevelt (843) Elementary schools surpassed the state goal of 800. The Academic Performance Index, using standardized test scores, is measured on a scale of 200 to 1000. The state's goal is 800. "This is a consequence of great teaching and hard work on the part of our students and staff and assistance from our principals," Burbank Unified School Supt.

Rosette Gonzales A $100,000 donation goes a long way, but a kind word from a child means even more, former Burbank Mayor Michael Hastings said. He and Burbank Police, civic leaders and community members are raising $100,000 for a museum to go along with the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C. But to get local support, the fundraisers decided to challenge youngsters with an essay contest about why frontline police officers of Burbank deserve the community's respect.

Jacqui Brown McKinley Elementary School used to stand as a solitary two-story red brick building covered in sweeping vines reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting, but over the past 70 years, it has expanded to become a much larger campus, capable of taking overflow students from other campuses in Burbank Unified School District. The years, however, have created a need for renovation to bring the school up-to-date with state safety codes and technology upgrading.

TODAY Providence St. Joseph Medical Center will present a lecture by Boyd Flinders, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, on how to stay healthy at 9 a.m. at the Burbank Town Center, 201 E. Magnolia Blvd., food court on the third level, Burbank. For more information, call (818) 566-8617.   Burbank Adult School will host a community open house from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 3811 W. Allan Ave., Burbank. Guests can learn about new community enrichment classes.

Three Bret Harte Elementary School students crouched over a two-foot hole in the school’s playground Wednesday morning. After examining the hole’s depth, and the squirming worms that inhabited it, they began to dig. The rest of the second-grade class peered over the diggers’ shoulders, while a groundskeeper for the Burbank Unified School District and volunteers from Warner Bros. Studios prepared to plant one of 18 donated trees. Wednesday marked the eighth year Warner Bros.

Caitlyn Batchelor came home one day and asked her mother if there were any old blankets around. The Bret Harte Elementary School second-grader wanted to donate the blankets to Operation Blankets of Love, a volunteer organization that provides blankets and bedding to local animal shelters and rescue groups. “I feel bad for the animals, and I don’t want them to feel cold,” said Caitlyn, 8. She is one of several students at the school who contributed 212 blankets to the organization, which was started in January by Burbank resident Eileen Smulson.

CITY HALL — The Burbank Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday night to appoint three new principals to lead Bret Harte, Providencia and George Washington elementary schools. Washington’s interim Principal Arlene Zenian will immediately assume control of the school, while newly named principals — Sheari Taylor at Bret Harte and Tom Kissinger at Providencia — will assume their positions July 1, Supt. Greg Bowman said. “We have the opportunity with these three new appointments to continue to move our schools in the direction we’d like to be, which is continuing the improvement of student learning,” Bowman said.

ON THE AGENDA The following items will be discussed at Thursday’s Burbank Unified School District Meeting: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS Supt. Gregory Bowman is expected to recommend the appointment of new principals to lead Bret Harte, Providencia and George Washington elementary schools. At the end of the school year, Bret Harte Principal Diane Berger and Providencia Principal Maria Teresa Delgado plan to retire. Washington’s acting principal, Arlene Zenian — who replaced Jane Clausen after she became the coordinator of special education for the board — could be named the school’s next principal, officials said.

RANCHO DISTRICT — Burbank Unified School District officials are in the first stages of a process to fill principal vacancies that will open up at two elementary schools at the end of the 2007-08 school year. Bret Harte Elementary School Principal Diana Berger and Providencia Elementary Principal Terri Delgado are slated to leave their posts in June, leaving vacancies for the 2008 fall semester, Superintendent Greg Bowman said. In addition, George Washington Elementary School Principal Jane Clausen has moved to the position of coordinator of special education, making former Assistant Principal Arlene Zenian the interim principal for the remainder of the school year, he said.

School was out for spring break at Bret Harte Elementary on Thursday, but a group of civic-minded volunteers were hard at work on school grounds. More than 40 Lockheed Federal Credit Union employees put down their pens, pushed away from their keyboards and picked up paint brushes, setting their sights on four fading portable classroom units that were left out of the school’s modernization efforts in 1999. “We’ve always had these eyesore bungalows that no one has really done anything about,” Principal Diane Berger said.