School News

The Palo Alto City Council recently voted to allocate $3 million for a subsidized housing project for teachers and administrative staff, but it’s still unclear whether educators serving students from Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Mountain View will benefit from it.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian has spearheaded the project, which could establish 60-120 below-market-rate housing units for local teachers. The Board of Supervisors agreed to donate 1.5 acres of county land at 231 Grant Ave. in Palo Alto, along with $6 million from an affordable housing fund for the project. Simitian hopes that the Palo Alto Unified School District, the Mountain View Whisman School District, the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District, the Los Altos School District and the Foothill-De Anza Community College District will be involved in the project.

Courtesy of Foothill College
Program Director Phyllis Spragge, right, celebrates with the inaugural baccalaureate class June 29.

Twenty-three Foothill College graduates walked away with something new June 29: a bachelor’s degree.

The inaugural class earned dental hygiene degrees as part of a pilot initiative that allowed 15 community colleges in the state to develop baccalaureate programs for technical degrees in 2014. Four years later, the first graduates are ready to enter the workforce with a degree that will give them flexibility in their careers, according to Phyllis Spragge, program director. Graduates with an associate degree can work as dental hygienists, but they can’t move on to other related jobs.

Campbell

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s expected but critical blow to public labor unions, local teachers unions are expected to remain strong because of high membership rates and union support.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 June 27 that employees who are not union members will no longer have to pay the union’s agency fees in states where they were previously required.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

Shoshanna Green of ScienceTellers conducts an experiment June 20 at the Los Altos Library as part of the district's summer reading program.

Through its summer reading program, “Reading Takes You Everywhere,” the Santa Clara County Library District hopes to encourage local residents of all ages to discover the different places books can take them this summer.

The goal of the free program – which began June 1 and is slated to run through July – is to have each participant read five books and log their progress online.

Los Altos resident Geoffrey Wildanger recently won a Fulbright Open Study/Research Award to study literature at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board administer the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, an international educational exchange designed to build lasting connections among students from different countries.

The Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District Board of Trustees June 18 passed a 2018-2019 budget of $92.6 million, based on a total revenue of $93.2 million.

According to a district staff report, 88 percent of its revenue comes from property taxes, 6 percent from other local sources, 5 percent from the state and 1 percent from federal funding.