Category: Education

Westside Neighborhood School helps students succeed during the pandemic By Kamala Kirk Schools are the cornerstones of communities and COVID-19 has impacted educational institutions around the world, resulting in the shutdown of schools and posing major challenges to teachers, students and families. As a result, children’s academic performance has been affected, along with their progress in cognitive, emotional and social developmental. Since the onset of the pandemic last March, Westside Neighborhood School (WNS) in Playa Vista quickly pivoted and worked diligently with public health officials to address ongoing changes to health and safety regulations while supporting students’ academic needs...

Crossroads School named a Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School site By Elizabeth M. Johnson The Children’s Defense Fund has designated Santa Monica’s Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences as a Freedom School site for Summer 2021. The school will host a six-week summer literacy and cultural enrichment program for 50 students of color and their families from the Pico neighborhood, which has one of the highest concentrations of poverty in Santa Monica. The program, which begins in June, will focus on addressing summer learning loss and academic achievement gaps among at-risk children that have worsened because of teaching and...

COVID to Code Academy offers free software skills training to the unemployed By Srianthi Perera A Culver City-based tech company has a unique response to the unemployment caused by the pandemic. Sabio, a software training company that runs coding bootcamps for aspiring information technology engineers, has created the COVID to Code Academy, a free course for those who were recently fired or furloughed. Participants, who may be located anywhere in the country, will receive free online software skills training to get a job in the booming industry of information technology. They will learn foundational knowledge of JavaScript and must...

SMMUSD Board appoints Keith Coleman By Kamala Kirk On Jan. 14, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School approved the provisional appointment of Keith Coleman, current co-chair of the district’s intercultural equity and excellence district advisory committee, to fill a vacancy on the Board of Education. He will serve on the board until the next regularly scheduled election of school board members in November 2022. The vacancy was created when former board member Oscar de la Torre was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in the November 2020 election. “Keith has a powerful personal story that speaks to the need...

Santa Monica students prove they’re the best at keeping things green By Stepan Sarkisian Upholding its commitment to environmental advocacy, Santa Monica High School achieved a 21st place finish in its first year participating in the Project Green Challenge. The international competition featured 758 schools across 85 countries with participating students acquiring points by engaging in daily environmentally-themed challenges. Each challenge centered around an issue related to sustainability and tasked students to examine their individual ecological footprints in a variety of ways including measuring water and food consumption, carbon impact and making ethical fashion choices. Along with answering questions,...