Classroom

BURBANK — A new amplification system is saving teachers’ voices this year at Luther Burbank Middle School. Lightspeed, the name of the system, works by using a wireless microphone around a teacher’s neck to project the teacher’s voice through four speakers at each corner of the classroom. Teachers have used the system — which costs about $1,000 to $1,500 to install in each classroom — at John Muir Middle School since the campus piloted the system for the district last February.

Molly Shore After Alicia Ritchie graduated from college with a journalism degree, she volunteered in a friend's elementary school classroom. That experience was enough to convince the 1993 John Burroughs High School graduate that journalism and public relations were not her calling. "I loved teaching," Ritchie said. "I just knew that it was for me." Ritchie, 28, returned to college, earned her teaching credential and is in her first year as a second-grade teacher at Bret Harte Elementary School.

It takes Dorothy Hernandez at least five minutes to walk through Washington Elementary's school yard to reach Room 29 where she teaches third grade. In what would normally be a two-minute walk, the delay is in all the students lining up for hugs before the bell rings from the newly named Burbank Unified's Teacher of the Year. Even after school has let out on a recent Friday afternoon, Hernandez' students in the after school program still have their eyes trained on her as they smile and wave back through the windows of her classroom.

Measure S is a worthwhile investment for our community. For the cost of what a parent, grandparent or neighbor pays for a few candles from one band fundraiser each year, the community gets a huge return - safer, well-maintained schools with technology upgrades needed to enhance classroom instruction. Healthy well maintained schools help to keep our property values strong. Measure S is ultimately an investment in protecting Burbank's economy and its status as a desirable place to live.

Come September, elementary school children in the Burbank Unified School District will start getting eduction in the arts again. Bravo. This is a crucial element of a well-rounded education, one that has been missing for years now. Burbank Unified is putting arts back into its core curriculum with Arts for All, a 10-year strategic plan to bring back the arts. The district will hire a specialist who will begin instructing teachers in August on how to incorporate first the visual arts ?

His emotional thermometer rising along with the triple-digit temperatures, Len Haynes decided it was no time for subtlety. Confronted with yet another day in which the mercury in his Burbank High School classroom soared past the century mark, the longtime science teacher elected to send a message to district administrators. He hung two prostate dummies out of his classroom window with signs affixed to their backs reading "No air," and "We're dying in here."

Gary Moskowitz BURBANK -- Jerry Jones had a goal to help Burbank youth. Jones, president of the Burbank Noon Rotary, worked with club members to raise about $2,000 -- funds that were matched by the Burbank Unified School District -- to provide books for classroom library collections at Robert Louis Stevenson, Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Edison elementary schools. The books, which will be delivered in March or April, will go into kindergarten through third-grade classrooms, Jones said.

Gary Moskowitz MAGNOLIA PARK -- Behind the tall fences surrounding construction zones at John Burroughs High School are pools of mud. The first phase of construction at Burroughs -- a $24 million-endeavor that broke ground in April -- will turn that mud into a modernized campus set for completion this fall. The completed project, in its entirety, will cost $39 million. The first phase will include a three-story classroom building and library facing Parish Place; a multipurpose room; a cafeteria; a swimming pool, and a gymnasium.

Community members nominate John Muir Middle School's Patty Hirsch for the Teacher of the Year Award.If you see a student dressed like Benjamin Franklin or King Tut wandering down the hallways of John Muir Middle School, they are most likely headed to the classroom of sixth-grade teacher Patty Hirsch. Hirsch, who teaches English and social studies at the school, has so impacted the children she instructs that community members have nominated her for the Disney Teacher of the Year Award -- a national award that recognizes teachers for their creativity and ability to promote a learning environment in the classroom.

Molly Shore On the first day of school at Miller Kindergarten, the youngsters arrived with mom or dad, and mixed emotions about beginning their new adventure. Anet Boghozian's son Monte Honarchian, 5, was one of the new students. "He almost cried 'Mommy, please stay here and volunteer' " Boghozian said. Even before she left, she said he told her, "I miss you so much. Mommy, take me with you." But as soon as Boghozian left the classroom, Monte was sitting on the floor in Sylvia Kang's classroom with the other children, and did not shed a tear.

Burbank school officials unveiled a proposal Thursday that would, in part, expand high-speed Internet service throughout district schools by 2017. The cost of the project would be funded by proceeds of Measure S, a bond measure passed by voters in March. Officials, however, said they do not yet have a firm estimate of the price tag. Charles Poovakan, director of information and technology for the district, provided the board during the special meeting with an overview of the district's current computing power and a suggested timeline on how to best build out its technological infrastructure.

Measure S is a worthwhile investment for our community. For the cost of what a parent, grandparent or neighbor pays for a few candles from one band fundraiser each year, the community gets a huge return - safer, well-maintained schools with technology upgrades needed to enhance classroom instruction. Healthy well maintained schools help to keep our property values strong. Measure S is ultimately an investment in protecting Burbank's economy and its status as a desirable place to live.

It takes Dorothy Hernandez at least five minutes to walk through Washington Elementary's school yard to reach Room 29 where she teaches third grade. In what would normally be a two-minute walk, the delay is in all the students lining up for hugs before the bell rings from the newly named Burbank Unified's Teacher of the Year. Even after school has let out on a recent Friday afternoon, Hernandez' students in the after school program still have their eyes trained on her as they smile and wave back through the windows of her classroom.

At Bliss Unlimited in the Burbank Town Center, everything has a back story. Take, for example, the work of San Francisco-based Serendipity Glass Studio artist Carla Geraghty, an Army wife who creates decorative fixtures and glass vases. Or the bowls made out of recycled candy packaging by kids in India or the bowls made out of recycled telephone wire made in Vietnam. Each art piece and ware the retail gift shop sells can be traced to independent artists around the world — from India and Guatemala to Vietnam and El Salvador.

A Los Angeles City College student sued the college recently after his professor allegedly called him a ?fascist? and refused to let him finish an in-class speech opposing same-sex marriage. According to the student, who is a Christian, the professor told him to ?ask God what your grade is? and threatened to expel him when he complained to campus authorities. Some of the students? classmates were reportedly offended by the speech, however, and the dean quoted one of them accusing the student of ?

Efrain Valenzuela opened the door to his mobile dairy classroom — an unusual classroom to say the least — to reveal a cow. And his audience was duly impressed. About 60 students sat on the floor of Roosevelt Elementary School’s playground in amazement Monday morning. “Wow,” the children said in unison as Milky Way, the cow, chomped on hay and whisked flies away with her tail. The children unanimously agreed that Valenzuela, of the Dairy Council of California, doesn’t look like he lives in the city.

BURBANK ? The school board unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday that will allow the district to receive higher developer fees. A Senate bill passed in 1998 requires developers who are building commercial or residential property within a school district?s boundaries to pay fees, according to a district staff report. The funds go toward school construction projects such as building additional classrooms, according to the report. The fees, set by the State Allocation Board every other year, are published in January, said Lori Ordway-Peck, assistant superintendent of business services.