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There’s One Money-Saving Move San Diego Unified Won’t Try — Here’s Why
Earlier this week, parents, students and teachers – several of them in tears – lined up at San Diego Unified school board meeting to protest cuts coming to schools. Parents pleaded with trustees to...
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San Diego Unified Wants to Shut Down — and Mimic — Online Charters
Hannah Sanders said suspensions were an every-week thing for her when she was at Kearny High School. As a freshman, Sanders’ mom left an abusive relationship with her dad, but that meant home was a...
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Why District Layoffs Hit Poor Schools the Hardest
The Learning Curve is a weekly column that answers questions about schools using plain language. Have a question about how your local schools work? Write me at Mario.Koran@voiceofsandiego.org. ♦♦♦ This...
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The District Schools Facing the Most Layoffs Are Overwhelmingly Poor
Six years ago, as principal of Central Elementary in City Heights, Cindy Marten argued that because poor schools tend to employ the newest teachers, they’re hurt disproportionately by layoffs. Now, as...
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We Know Why Teachers Leave Poor Schools – But Not How to Make Them Stay
The Learning Curve is a weekly column that answers questions about schools using plain language. Have a question about how your local schools work? Write me at Mario.Koran@voiceofsandiego.org. ♦♦♦...
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The 20 Schools in San Diego Unified Facing the Most Teacher Layoffs
Earlier this month, in an effort to close a $124 million budget deficit, San Diego Unified notified roughly one in seven of its teachers they could be laid off. Most schools in the district have at...
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Undocumented and Upper Class: A House in Bay Park, But No Hope of a Green Card
When Linda first saw Jose, he was hanging from the rafters of her house, working on the roof. She’d hired the company that Jose worked for to complete renovations on her house. It was a 15-month...
View ArticleSan Diego Unified’s Jaw-Dropping Grad Rate Is Now Official. Here’s How it Got...
Data released Tuesday by the California Department of Education shows that 91 percent of San Diego Unified’s class of 2016 graduated, earning the district a record-high graduation rate and making good...
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The Schools More Likely to Be at Risk of Lead Exposure, Mapped
After water tested at one San Diego Unified campus revealed the presence of lead at twice the allowable levels, testing is under way at schools across the district. So far, the results have been...
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State Proposal Would Mean No More Schools Like Thrive
The Learning Curve is a weekly column that answers questions about schools using plain language. Have a question about how your local schools work? Write me at Mario.Koran@voiceofsandiego.org. ♦♦♦...
View ArticleSan Diego Unified Improperly Withheld Emails in Marne Foster Scandal
San Diego Unified illegally withheld emails from the public regarding former school board trustee Marne Foster. Last year, Voice of San Diego published a series of stories that led to a criminal...
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New San Diego Unified Data Offers Clearest View Yet of How Many Students Left...
Last year, more than a third of the students who transferred from a traditional San Diego Unified high school to a charter school were a year or more behind their classmates at the time they...
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At Some District High Schools, Grad Rates Are Climbing as They Lose More...
San Diego Unified’s class of 2016 set a record-high graduation rate of 91 percent. Graduation rates at individual high schools are climbing, too. Recently, 13 San Diego schools made a list of best high...
View ArticleLincoln High Parents Exasperated as Hunt for a Principal Drags On
Lincoln High, which has been without a permanent principal since last July, will likely enter another school year without a permanent principal in place. The district has been searching for a...
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It Is Shockingly Easy to Cheat San Diego Unified’s Online Courses
Googling answers in real time as you take a test. Letting online lectures play on mute while you watch a movie instead. Typing in random letters and numbers as answers and receiving credit. Those are...
View ArticleFrustrated San Diego Unified Parents Say They Can’t Get Answers to Basic...
On a recent evening, a group of PTA parents from Gage Elementary huddled together in the back of a Del Cerro bistro to brainstorm ideas for how to handle a school district that they say can’t or won’t...
View Article‘It’s Worse Than You Think': Teachers, Students Say Online Cheating Is Pervasive
The online courses San Diego Unified has used to boost its graduation rate are shockingly easy to cheat, and students at schools across the district are taking advantage. The online courses enabled...
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‘We’re Abandoning These Kids to a Government Bureaucracy’
Carolyn Griesemer, a San Diego attorney who has represented children in the foster care system, already faced a busy week when she got an urgent call from girl she represented. The teenager was scared....
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‘You Build a 20-Foot Wall, They’ll Build a 21-Foot Ladder’
President Donald Trump continues to energize his base by promising to make the physical barrier that separates Mexico from the United States higher, stronger and more beautiful than ever before. The...
View ArticleFriend of Murdered Mexican Journalist Sees Lessons in His Death
In May, Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas was pulling his red Toyota into a street in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, when two hooded gunmen stopped his car and shot him 12 times, executing him in...
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