During my decision making process, there was a lot of fear and misinformation coming at me from all directions. I heard that there would be a huge decrease in the number of school days, which doesn’t seem to be happening. I heard about enormous class sizes of 50 or 60 students. But my largest class is 40.

Overall Marshall seems to be running fairly smooth, even though it has just changed from year round to the traditional school year. There are a lot of unknowns like pending budget cuts that could hit the school system.

Change is always stressful, but the strong teachers and true spirit of Marshall are keeping the school afloat, making the experience an adventure, not a catastrophe.

This school year something very exciting happened: the kindergartners and 1st graders got a grant for iPads. A technical grant is when someone gives funding for technology to someone or some place.

Enough iPads were given so that every student in one class can use one. After one class uses the iPads they go to the other class. The kindergartners and 1st graders use the iPads as a resource for learning. They also play fun but educational games.

Students are still very young and not quite ready to bring them home to use, so they leave them at school. Ms. Morris, one of Ivanhoe’s kindergarten teachers said: “The kindergarteners use the iPads to learn their letters, new words, grammatical symbols, and numbers.”

Ivanhoe has had a very wonderful technology program for 2nd-5th grade students for the past few years. It is really great the program now extends to the kinder and 1st grades! Computers have been a great resource to our school learning in the past, therefore all of us at Ivanhoe really hope this iPad technology program will be successful in the future.

In January, our 8th graders had High School Placement Tests. We are applying to schools like Immaculate Heart, Loyola and Notre Dame. Also, our Academic Decathlon Team went to the Cathedral Bowl and did well. And finally, we had our Open House and Art Fair. There were very beautiful pieces of art and class work there.

In February, we will continue celebrating Catholic Schools Week through Feb. 3rd and on Feb. 10th, we will be having our annual Father-Daughter Dance. I am planning to go with my father. Last year we had a blast and this year we know it will be fun being with one another.

Students recently survived semester exams and now are back on campus ready for a new term after a much-needed break!

January is always a blur of intense studying as students brace themselves for finals. This year, as a treat in the midst of all our finals preparations, we enjoyed a performance by the men’s a capella singing group from Point Loma Nazarene University, which offered a rousing performance of contemporary and classical songs.

The spring semester now launches with the time-honored tradition known as Ring Day. Immaculate Heart will formally recognize the juniors as upper class members and present them with their school rings. The ceremonies include a special liturgy, as well as a warm welcome from the senior class.

We sent four students to Korner Grill across the street. We also went to the restaurants Pho City, Tang’s Donuts and Garage Pizza. They all were super friendly and let us display our posters.

Straws are harmful because many of them end up in the L.A. River, which goes to the Ocean. Also they are made of plastic, which is made by using fossil fuels that pollute the Earth, trapping heat in our atmosphere.

If you are a restaurant owner consider compostable straws, which will biodegrade. Chances are, your customers will appreciate it. Another is to just not hand people straws with their drinks, why not have them ask for one? Help us save the planet, one straw at a time!

Recently we attended an assembly called “The Power of One.”  It taught us about bullying. We learned to tell an adult when someone is getting bullied. You can stop bullying by not being a bystander.

A really crazy thing has happened. On a super windy night a very old California live oak tree was uprooted on the playground. Workers cut the tree into pieces and some of the trunk pieces will be used as seats for our new reading garden.

On Feb. 4th, at 9:00 a.m. we will plant our reading garden. Thanks to Friends of Glenfeliz (FOG) especially Ms. Emiliana Dore, Lowe’s, and Enrich LA, our garden has come to be.

With talk of another budget shortfall for the Los Angeles Unified School District in the amount of $543 million for the next academic year and possible remedies of increased taxes or a new parcel tax, we asked local educators and a spokeswoman with Los Angeles Unified School District boardmember Bennett Keyser’s for their thoughts.

Karen L. Sullivan Glenfeliz Elementary principal

Students won’t come home talking about their same teachers at Glenfeliz Boulevard Elementary if the Los Angeles United School District budget isn’t remedied. “They’ll notice if they aren’t here. They’ve been here forever,” she said. The budget shortfall will also force us to cut our intervention group, which helps out underperforming students as well as playground supervisors and the music program. The library may also lose its full-time librarian, who keeps the shelves organized and moderates book selection that would be a great loss to students. The librarian reinforces literacy, and also inspires learning by imparting an appreciation for reading through story time sessions. That’s the magic reading brings to a student. In the long run, the economy will be hurt indefinitely because the next generation of workers won’t have as strong an academic background due to the lesser quality in schooling.

Jumie Sugahara, Ivanhoe Elementary School principal

I think what we’re waiting for right now is how this will play out in Los Angeles Unified as far as what budget cuts will be. We don’t receive much as far as categorical funding. It’s not a title one school but there’s still a need to create programs for kids that need more support…. what would affect us is if they have to increase class size. I think right now. . . we’re holding tight to see what Superintendent Deasy does. . . We’re waiting to see what the budget cuts for art and music, and that we have been able to supplement. I think that it’s a big “what if” right now. And it’s a crazy time because right now I don’t know when the official last day of school is, we haven’t heard.

Kristen Murphy, Thomas Starr King Middle School principal

One of the first impacts of budget cuts is the reduction of office staff. I have to answer the phone sometimes. At this point, we really don’t know what the impact is going to be. King is fortunate in being a Title 1 school that we do receive federal Title 1 dollars. We get a per-pupil allocation for 85% of our students that does help us out, so we’ve still been able to purchase things like a full time nurse, a full time librarian and some additional counseling time, so we’ve been really fortunate. We’re also lucky in that our neighborhood councils have been really good to us: the Greater Griffith park Neighborhood Council; the Los Feliz Improvement Assoc., the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council and Los Angeles City Councilmember Tom LaBonge. I don’t want to say I’m not concerned about budget cuts because obviously it’s not a good situation, the state is in trouble, the district’s funds are being cut, but King is a pretty remarkable place… and our teachers have really rallied and our scores continue to go up despite the fact that we’re doing more with less. Budget cuts are never easy for anyone but I think we will weather the storm.

Susanna Furfari, Micheltorena Street School principal

I’ve heard rumors about how it will probably increase the class size. Every time we have these cuts somehow our school has managed to still maintain a lot of the core programs and initiatives that we think are essential. So I’m optimistic for next year. One of the newest ways that we’ve been working on keeping our core programs sustainable is through community partnership. For example [we have a] partnership with the Silver Lake Conservatory, it’s about bartering and trying to make due with what we have. We want to have a girth of services that we can provide to our students at a high quality, whether or not we have lots of money coming in… I think there are a lot of resources in Silver Lake and it’s just about getting to know people and reaching out to them and trying to find ways to work together.

Sarah Bradshaw, Chief of Staff for LAUSD Board Member Bennett Kayser (District 5)

It’s obscene, we have to sit here and wait for the state. We have to plan based on what they might do. Now part of the state’s planning this year is based on what the voters might do with the governor’s proposed ballot initiative. We have to budget for it passing, we have to budget for it not passing, and we have to live with the consequences regardless. It is criminal. We are 49th in the nation for per pupil funding… 42% of our kids are English language learners. 76% of our kids are in poverty. And then with our precious dollars we have to spend a ridiculous amount on testing and doing all back office or not really hands on productive learning stuff. So that’s kind of where it’s at. So much is being asked from the schools and the kids are so needy. The time to fight is now. But among options there are class size increases, shorter school year and more services cut to students.

This story was reported by Ledger reporters Colin Stuz and Tony Cella.

Pilgrim School has a long history of racial integration so we have a lot to celebrate for African American History in February.

This year, we started out early by celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday with a special all-school Chapel. The whole school sang “We Shall Overcome.” We listened to Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech while we saw video clips of the speech and pictures from the civil rights movement.

In choir, we are learning protest songs that activists sang during peaceful civil rights protests.  So far we have learned, “We Shall Overcome,” “Lift every Voice and Sing,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and “If I Had a Hammer.” All the songs are high-spirited and hopeful.

We are also learning about a group of Civil Rights activists known as the Freedom Riders who protested in a non-violent way.

We are also looking forward to visiting the African American History Museum, and participating in an all school African American History Month pot luck.

Now comes the endless days of waiting for that acceptance letter. I’m hoping I get a “yes” from Loyola.

I have to thank OMGC for preparing me for this moment. My nine years in the school with a rigorous academic curriculum has helped me to reach this point in my education.

Until that letter arrives, I’ll continue to prepare for the Academic Decathlon and work hard to finish the year strong.

This semester 6th graders are beginning a project on values. Each student will choose a value to study. I chose the value of saving animals’ lives. Other values my friends chose include artistry, friendship, commitment, individuality and family.

Our first step is to find artwork, which represents our value. My sister has been helping me by drawing pictures for me. We will explore our chosen values also by studying related texts and also finding representations of our values’ influence on our world such as in movies or pieces of art.  We will also be interviewing people we feel cherish our value.

Our class will ultimately be creating a project on Voice-Thread, which is an online slideshow program.