Flag ban, cheating scandal, UCI’s 50th: the year in education
Irvine High School football player Curtis Jackson moved to Irvine with his mother when he was 11 from South Central LA. When his mother died of lupus, Curtis was about to move back to LA when a friend, Mikey Filia, and his family became his guardians so he could stay in Irvine to pursue football and his education.
Here are the Daily Pilot’s top education stories from 2015, listed in reverse chronological order:
Former NMUSD HR director requests releasing of records, district ordered to released documents
After about a year of battling the courts and the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, former personnel chief John Caldecott won his appeal to force the district to release dozens of documents concerning Supt. Fred Navarro.
Caldecott initially made the request in January asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to compel the district to release emails and other files related to complaints about the superintendent. Caldecott, a 10-year contract employee, was fired less than a week after he made that request.
The judge denied his requests in May, but in December a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Caldecott saying the school district must release many of the documents related to Caldecott’s allegations against Navarro.
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Vision 2020 plan for OCC approved and Neutra buildings outcome
Coast Community College District board unanimously voted to approve Orange Coast College’s Vision 2020 Facilities Master Plan, a project that was initiated six years ago and underwent back-and-forth negotiation since then.
Under the plan, the campus is set to move forward with the renovation of certain facilities and the construction of new ones, including a parking structure near Adams Avenue Lot, student housing by Adams Avenue and a dance facility across from the Robert B. Moore Theatre. An idea to build a hotel on the campus was scrapped.
But the project also calls for the removal of the school’s beloved and historic Neutra buildings, designed by renowned architect Richard Neutra.
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UCI celebrates 50 years
UC Irvine is celebrating its 50th anniversary this school year. Since 1965, the university has built its own culture and identity from the ground up, from the birth of its furry mascot Peter the Anteater to its annual tradition of breaking a Guinness world record at the beginning of the past six school years.
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Irvine student is taken in after mother’s death
Irvine High School senior Curtis Jackson moved with his mom from his hometown of Watts at the age of 11 to live in Orange County. He lost his mother to Lupus at the age of 16.
The Filia family of Irvine, whose son was Curtis’ teammate on Irvine High’s varsity football team, then welcomed Curtis to live with them where he found the motivation to raise his grades and stick with his passion for football.
Curtis is still living with the family while Mike and Stacey Filia are continuing to be his guardians.
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UC applications offer six gender identity options
Starting fall 2015, students applying to UC schools were given the option to self-identify among six different gender identities on undergraduate application forms.
The options are male, female, trans male, trans female, gender queer/gender non-conforming and different identity.
The additions to application forms were reportedly made so that schools may gain a better understanding of student needs and experiences.
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Tutor pleads guilty in CdM cheating scandal
Irvine tutor Timothy Lance Lai pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court in August to 20 felony counts of computer access and fraud and one felony count of commercial burglary for his involvement in a cheating scheme at Corona del Mar High School.
Prosecutors allege Lai helped a group of CdM students hack into their teacher’s computer to change grades.
Lai was sentenced to one year in jail and five years of formal probation as part of a plea deal with the court.
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UCI reverses controversial ban on flags
A student resolution adopted by the legislative council of UC Irvine’s Associated Students called for the removing of all flags, including the American flag, from the common lobby area of student government offices in early March.
The move garnered national attention, and soon after a five-member executive cabinet overseeing the school’s student government vetoed the decision.
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Woman urges district to remove pesticides from schools
In her anti-pesticide mission, Costa Mesa mother of two Vanessa Handy persuaded Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials last January to scrap herbicides in favor of nontoxic alternatives as a test project at Davis Magnet and Newport Elementary schools.
Davis Magnet is the only school in the district that has been pesticide-free for two years, Handy said. She wants to see the pesticide ban spread districtwide.
