The James Logan Courier

By Rick La Plante, New Haven Schools Director of Parent and Community Relations

City Hall will remain open until 8 p.m. on Election Day (Tuesday, May 3) to accommodate voters who want to turn in their ballots in the special election to decide Measure B, the emergency funding measure for the New Haven Unified School District.

Measure B, the “Taking Care of Our Kids” parcel tax, would raise approximately $3 million to minimize class size increases and reductions to the school year and to fund after-school activities. Due to state budget cuts, New Haven Unified is facing a $10 million budget deficit for the 2011-12 school year.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

For all the things we wish Sega would do differently with its iconic brands, it has been glorious in ensuring the "Yakuza" series — arguably its best active franchise — makes the journey from Japan to the hands of a modest but devoted American following.

And if you're not part of that following yet? Don't worry: You're still warmly invited.

"Yakuza 4" continues the events as we left them in "Yakuza 3," and the respect it pays to storyline continuity is another jewel in the crown of one of gaming's best storytellers. For the uninitiated, Sega includes a nice "Reminisce" feature that recaps the previous games' key milestones.

By Rick La Plante, New Haven Schools Director of Parent and Community Relations

Should school grades take into account factors such as homework, classroom behavior and participation, or should grades primarily reflect how much a student knows?

The Board of Education pondered questions like that April 19 during a report from the District’s Grading and Assessment Task Force, made up of parents, teachers, administrators and a high school student who have been meeting since last fall to review and help lead an improvement of District-wide grading practices.

By Beatrice Esteban, Courier Editor-in-Chief

Students and teachers likely will not have access to the Media Center at James Logan High School as a result of district budget cuts next year.

Library clerks received pink slips, informing them that they may not have jobs next year.

Meanwhile, Media Center Specialist Carla Colburn said she was “personally told by Derek McNamara (New Haven’s associate superintendent of personnel services) that our jobs are going to be eliminated.”

“These cuts have been initiated as precautionary measures to prepare for a worst case scenario,” said McNamara. "All of the proposed reductions impact our students negatively, so in the coming months we will be looking very critically at which items are the highest priority for reinstatement.”

By Michael J. Mishak
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

VISALIA — The vast fruit fields, picturesque farmhouses and rolling foothills of Tulare County, Calif., mask an ugly reality: Nearly a quarter of the population in this Central Valley agricultural hub lives in poverty, and one in three residents receives state aid — the largest proportion in the state.

With the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown slashing billions of dollars in government services to help balance the state budget, few places will feel the effects more deeply. Local officials fear that when roughly $8 billion in budget cuts take effect, some as early as July 1, the poorest residents will tumble into homelessness.

By Julia Prodis Sulek
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

SAN BRUNO, Calif. — The week before the giant excavator tore apart her burned-out home in San Bruno, Calif., Carlene Vasquez sat on the front porch and said goodbye.
"Thank you, home," she said. "You've been good to us."

It's been seven months since a Pacific Gas and Electric gas pipeline exploded and a fireball roared through the Crestmoor neighborhood, killing eight people and destroying 38 hillside homes.

Carlene and Art Vasquez know they are two of the lucky ones. They survived. But since the September inferno, this couple in their 60s who raised their three children here have had to come to terms with what it really means to lose not just their house, but their home. In every way, through pain and with hope, they are making their way back.

By Rob Hotakainen
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

WASHINGTON — In Canada's Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma.

For 60 years before the early 1990s, an average of nearly 8 million wild salmon returned from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River each year to spawn.

Now the salmon industry is in a state of collapse, with mortality rates ranging from 40 percent to 95 percent.

The salmon run has been highly variable: The worst year came in 2009, with 1.5 million salmon, followed by the best year in 2010, with 30 million salmon. But the overall trend is downward.

By Beatrice Esteban,Courier Editor-in-Chief

Logan’s teachers have approved a new bell shedule for next year, which provides for an earlier start time, and a weekly voluntary collaboration period for teachers which will shorten the student day on Wednesdays.

According to Paul Bisbiglia, the Logan teacher who this year chairs the Logan Site-Based Decision Making committee, which spearheaded the election, almost 95 percent of teachers, or 162 of 171 Logan teachers, voted on the issue, with 127 voting yes and 35 casting no. Yes votes were cast by almost 79 percent , according to Bisbiglia.

By Julia Ortiz, Courier Staff Writer

Fish, rubber bands and a combination of Coke and Mentos were only a few of the key components to the momentous Teacher Dares at Logan last Thursday. Nothing like this has ever happened before at Logan and many students had the chance to humiliate some of their favorite teachers.

Logan's Interact Club put together a charity event to raise donation money for Japan and Interact's shelter box. They sold tickets, put up fliers and even decided to humiliate their teachers for the chance to make a difference both here and in Japan. They collected $120.