Memorial For LAH Teen Set For Saturday

Services for Emily Benatar who died of spinal meningitis last week, will be 7 p.m. at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos HIlls.

  Emily Benatar, a 19-year-old Palo Alto High School graduate who died from complications of a meningococcal disease last week will be rememberd at memorial service Saturday in at Congregation Beth Am. Meningococcal disease is best known for causing meningitis, which is the inflammation of protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord and has a high mortality rate if it goes untreated. Benatar was diagnosed in late April. Benatar, who was in her first year at Washington University in St. Louis, died last Wednesday at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis with her family by her side, university Chancellor Mark Wrighton said. Benatar was one of the captains of the lacrosse team in her senior year at Palo Alto High School, helping …

• Photos (1)

POLL: Should County Ed Board Come to Los Altos May 22?

Parents asked the county board of education to come to Los Altos last January. Five months later, discussions were restarted and a possible meeting date was resurrected at Eagle Theater.

  Is it a go? Will it happen? On Wednesday night, they'll talk about it. After some starts and stops, a subcommittee of the Santa Clara County Board of Education (SCCBOE) has convened and re-identified a date and a location for a forum in Los Altos: May 22, Eagle Theater. The board will discuss whether that date and that forum can go forward, more than five months after the board acceded to Los Altos parents' entreaties for the board to come to the community and engage in dialogue about its role in authorizing the Bullis Charter School and community expectations. The main difference now is that a tentative long-term agreement has been reached between Bullis Charter School and the Los Altos School District, that has the potential to bring a…

•  19 Comments
• Photos (2)
• Documents (2)

Joan J. Strong

8:21 am on Thursday, May 17, 2012

It's illegal to NOT enroll your child in their local neighborhood public school. This is the same model we've had here for some 250 years. It's dishonest conflation, therefore, to say that public schools are "exclusionary" just like BCS. Meanwhile, BCS recently corrected their illegal behavior in this regard when an SCCBOE board member called this out. Kudos. Now, will BCS "really" reach out to …   more ›

Parents: Show Us The Bullis Agreement For Two Weeks

Concerned about a complex agreement getting passed on a tight time-frame, parents urged the Los Altos School District board to "sunshine" the long-term agreement that is being negotiated with Bullis Charter School.

  Parents want any agreement hammered out between the Los Altos School Board and the Bullis Charter School to be available for public inspection for two weeks before any vote. During a special meeting of the board Monday night, the LASD Board of Trustees invited input on two topics: the tentative long-term agreement announced May 7 with Bullis Charter School (BCS) that would result in it moving to its own campus, and the prospects and possible timing for a bond measure to build that campus. The board is under a tight June 1 timeline to try to resolve a number of details about a 10-year agreement that means: Parents had several opinions, and board president Mark Goines asked they also try to come with possible solutions and alternatives, …

•  47 Comments
• Photos (8)

LIVE BLOG: School Board Special Meeting, May 14

Follow the discussion—and join the conversation—Monday night as the Los Altos School Board discusses the tentative agreement with Bullis Charter School, real property options from the Citizens Advisory Committee on Finance, and more.

  Can't make the special meeting of the Los Altos School District at Egan Jr. High School Monday night? Los Altos Patch will be there. If you are going and want to join the conversation, you can use #LASD on Twitter. (If you've never done this, you must try it; the live side dialogue is engaging.) Think your friends are interested? There are tools at the top of the story to pass along this handy url. Use the Facebook "Recommend" button and the Tweet button, both at the top of the story. Good ol' e-mail works here, too! There's a button for that, also at the top of this story. The more you join in, the better Patch knows it should spend its resources deploying staff to meeting to live blog. Want to just comment below? Patch would love that.

• Photos (1)
• Documents (2)

Where Do You Turn When 'Regular School' Isn't the Right Fit?

The director of a private tutoring academy discusses how her business can sometimes be a better fit for students from Palo Alto, Los Altos and other local districts, who don't thrive in a 'pressure cooker' environment.

Gunn Students Take Home Top Journalism Awards

Paly also takes home awards at San Francisco Peninsula Press Club's 2012 High School Journalism Awards.

Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto took top honors at the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club’s 2012 High School Journalism Awards which were presented Thursday afternoon at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo. Gunn’s newspaper, The Oracle, was recognized as the first-place winner in the General Excellence category. The paper’s editor and advisor will be honored at the Press Club’s Evening of Excellence May 19 at the Crowne Plaza in Foster City. In all, 11 Peninsula high schools participated in the competition, which drew 419 entries in 12 categories from 223 students. Fifty students representing eight high schools won awards. The Outlook of Aragon High School in San Mateo took 12 awards, the highest number to a single school in the…

• Photos (6)