Schools

A young Laguna Beach High girls' soccer team showed a glimpse of its future potential by turning in strong performances over the final two weeks of the 2012-13 regular season. In the last three games of the Orange Coast League season, the Breakers didn't lose a match and started the late run with an inspiring, shutout road victory over league-leader Godinez on Jan. 31. They followed that up with another shutout win Monday at Calvary Chapel, and on Wednesday, battled visiting Costa Mesa to a scoreless tie on senior night at Guyer Field.

By day, Joanne Culverhouse and Jenny Salberg are principals. On Monday night, they also were servers in a restaurant. Culverhouse, principal at Laguna Beach High School, and Salberg, principal at Thurston Middle School, got a workout walking plates to hungry customers inside a packed Lumberyard Restaurant, where diners decided whose cuisine would reign supreme. Culverhouse and Salberg teamed up against Ron LaMotte and Chris Duddy, principals of Top of the World and El Morro elementary schools, in the fourth annual Chef Challenge, a fundraiser organized by SchoolPower for the four public Laguna Beach schools.

The Laguna Beach High boys' soccer team got the best of Saddleback when the teams met in an Orange Coast League opener on Jan. 9. On Tuesday in Santa Ana, the host Roadrunners returned the favor by blanking the visiting Breakers, 4-0. The loss left Laguna 2-3-2 in league, and 7-3-4 overall. Saddleback improved to 4-2-1 in league and 12-3-3 overall. "We are very disappointed with this game, not only because of the result, but also at how we responded when we went a couple of goals behind," Laguna Coach Dan Richards said.

The work began in October for Thurston Middle School eighth-grade students. Fast forward to Wednesday and the dress rehearsal inside the school's "black box" or theater room, for "Beauty and the Beast," was in full effect. Twenty-seven drama students donned intricate costumes with guidance from director Mark Dressler and choreographer Erika Whalen. "This is their first day in costume when they're not allowed to stop," said Whalen, who alternated between directing students toward their proper places on stage, and taking notes in the audience chairs.

A group of Laguna Beach High School students have mastered a whole raft of skills and technology to construct and equip their entry in the 2013 Solar Cup. Members of the high school Solar Club have spent school days and weekends since November building a boat from scratch and devising a solar power system to propel their entry to victory in the Solar Cup, a three-day regatta for solar-powered boats built by Southern California students. "It's pretty interesting and rewarding," said club President Brock Csira, who will skipper the single-seat boat in the races.

In the weeks following the tragic school shooting in Connecticut and the arrest of a man who allegedly fired 50 rounds into the air at Fashion Island the next day, newspapers, blogs and just about everyone else is talking school and gun safety. Some folks have called on schools to arm employees who are willing to volunteer for the responsibility. Today we'd like to add our voice to this important discussion by saying that we do not support arming teachers or other traditional school employees, such as principals, coaches, custodians, secretaries and so forth.

Winning by a 5-0 score in boys' soccer might indicate that a team was working on all cylinders. That final was the end result Wednesday for Laguna Beach, which defeated visiting Calvary Chapel at Guyer Field. The outcome pleased Breakers Coach Dan Richards, although his team's performance wasn't indicative of what it could ultimately achieve. "Although the result on paper is good, we really didn't take our chances well enough today," Richards said. "We knew we had the ability to win the game comfortably and create a lot of goal scoring opportunities but didn't truly make it count.

In the past few years, the Laguna Beach High football program has come up with several "firsts. " On Monday, the Breakers added another one to an already impressive list. Five members of the football team have been selected to the 2012 All-CIF Southern Section Southern Division Football Team. It's the most players, in a single year, in school history that Laguna has placed on a Southern Section team. The previous high had been two Laguna players named All-CIF in a single season named All-CIF, and that happened on five occasions.

School District officials and the city's police chief put on a safety presentation at the school board meeting Tuesday evening in response to the recent school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Laguna Beach Unified School District officials went over the plans and procedures that have been in place - which are continually revised and updated - to keep students and staff safe in case of any emergency that may arise. "Obviously, this is a huge topic on everyone's radar right now," said El Morro Elementary School Principal Chris Duddy.