Math

Laguna Beach Unified School District is pushing forward a social media platform that connects teachers with students outside of the classroom. Victor Guthrie, district director of Educational Technology and Information Services, said the program - Edmodo - is essentially Facebook for the education world. "It reaches [students] the way they reach out to their peers," he said of the program. "Everyone is connecting on some sort of digital media and, historically, education is slow to adopt it. " LBUSD wants to change that.

Showing students how math relates to the real world is part of what makes Laura Vinyard a great teacher. Vinyard, Burbank Unified School District's teacher of the year, has been selected as one of the 20 finalists in the Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year Program. "I'm really honored because I was nominated by my fellow teachers," said the Jordan Middle School math and science teacher. "It means a lot to know that the people I work with think so highly of me."

They're in training. They want to be in top shape for the big competition. But it's not their bodies they are exercising; it's their minds. El Morro Elementary School's fifth-grade "Math Stars" have been working diligently with math coach Mark Lewis, meeting every Friday, learning myriad math concepts. Their knowledge will be put to the test against other Orange County school teams at a competition at Saddleback College on May 21. "We're going to do estimation today, figuring out how many cups will fit in this pot; it's interactive and fun," Lewis said.

CHUCK DEVORE Unfortunately, Berenice Maltby's letter, "DeVore's park plan uses fuzzy math" (March 25), repeats some bad financial data to criticize my plan for saving California taxpayers millions of dollars at El Morro village. There are four main inaccuracies that require correction. First, rents paid by the people who live at El Morro are $2.2 million today, not $1.2 million. The state realizes a cash profit of $1.2 million with another $1 million going to maintain the 32-acre village -- maintenance the state cannot now afford as the statewide parks maintenance backlog is $900 million.

It seems apparent, from all that has been written lately, that Assemblyman Chuck DeVore must believe that California taxpayers are extremely naive. He wants us to believe his bills would save taxpayers pots of money by allowing El Morro trailer park residents to continue squatting on public property for another 30 years. His claim of earning $50 million to help the state out of its financial problems sounds great, but is it? Using the infamous "fuzzy math," even an ordinary person can see that if removing the current tenants from El Morro would amount to an annual loss of $1.2 million, it means -- based on 300 trailer spaces -- the trailer residents are currently paying approximately a $333.

Laguna Beach High School’s talented musicians will help raise money for a safe and sober graduation night. The 22nd annual “No Suits Allowed” music talent show will take place 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Artists’ Theater. All of the proceeds will benefit the senior class. Directed by math teacher and acoustic guitarist Gary Shapiro, the evening will showcase 40 students in 30 acts, in all of which Shapiro plays guitar. “Some students will share their own music that they’ve written, but we’ll play mostly cover songs with our own spin on them,” Shapiro said.

Laguna Beach Unified School District continues to receive high scores on the annual Standardized Testing and Reporting test, according to an official report released this month by State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O?Connell. Overall, the district has shown steady growth in the percentage of students scoring at or above the proficient level in English-language arts, mathematics and history compared to last year?s results. Sixth-grade mathematics and 10th-grade summative mathematics showed the greatest improvement, with a 14- and 18-percentage point increase, respectively, compared to last year in the amount of students testing at or above the proficient level.

The Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot went to El Morro Elementary School and asked fifth-grade "Math Star" GATE students: "What is your favorite subject?" "Math, because I'm really good with numbers -- adding, subtracting, multiplication, division -- and we're learning geometry." LUKE BARKER, 11 "Math, because I think it's my strongest subject." CHASE CORNELL, 10 "Math. I think it's from last year. We did a lot of math, and I started to like it."

Two changes to the school district's curriculum should help student's both mentally and physically, district officials said this week. The two additions will be a math adoption process for kindergartners through fifth-graders and a lifelong fitness program for all grades, said Steven Keller, assistant superintendent for the Laguna Beach Unified School District. "Both of these programs will have a positive impact on every student in our district," Keller said.

Percentage of students meeting state targets by school EL MORRO -- ENGLISH MATH GR. 2003 2004 2003 2004 2 53 53 76 73 3 64 51 69 62 4 73 66 65 64 5 69 70 44 64 -- TOP OF THE WORLD -- ENGLISH MATH GR. 2003 2004 2003 2004 2 66 58 85 75 3 72 50 77 74 4 81 70 82 77 5 79 82 69 76 -- THURSTON -- ENGLISH MATH HISTORY GR. 2003 2004...