Category: Education

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Scholarship Is an Annual Event

By South OB Girl

For students in Mr. Patrick McElhaney’s history classes at Point Loma High School there is an event that students have begun to look forward to every year.

The lucky students of McElhaney’s AP US History, AP European History, and American Government classes have the opportunity to attend a lavish banquet at the Bali Hai, where many students are presented with awards and scholarships. This year was the 11th year Mr. McElhaney has coordinated the event.

This year the event on June 9th included costumed Union and Confederate soldiers, presenting the flag for the pledge of allegiance, and doing a 21 gun salute (with blanks and Civil War-era guns) to honor the life of PLHS Vice Principal Mr. Kevin Gormly, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in October. Previously The OB Rag reported on fund raisers for Mr. Gormly .

by Gregory Fearon

Over a million dollars worth of scholarships were announced last night in a ceremony in the Point Loma High School Gymnasium.

Representative of local organizations recognized student achievements in academic, athletic, and community participation.

Included for the first time, were students who announced the amount of academic or athletic scholarships awarded from schools they planned to attend.

The Class of 1966 Pointer Sisters and Brothers selected nine more students, and were pleased to see them selected for numerous other awards. in

In one of the most touching moments of the evening, Judy Hagar Schon, mentioning that the Pointer Sisters had been meeting monthly after 50 years in social gatherings, said –

“Remember that you can all stay friends even after all these years”.

By Joe Flynn

“Planning? We don’t need no stinking planning!” No, I am not talking about The Treasure of Sierra Madre, I’m talking about the treasure of our old Central Library. One would think after decades of working to build a new central library, some thought would have been given to a new use for the old library.

And it is not just another old building; this one has a lot or treasured memories for many San Diegans, especially those who spent hours there doing school projects and term papers or just for the pure enjoyment of literature.

Many of us look back with nostalgia on digging through the card catalogues using the Dewey Decimal system, and going to the stacks for a needed reference.

Pro-Tip: Start at the Bottom of Your Ballot

By Jim Miller

While most of the attention is on the Presidential race this primary season, there are still some important things progressive voters can weigh in on down-ballot here in San Diego on June 7th that will do some good.

Here is a short list:

Vote Yes on Proposition I: Sure, $15 an hour is coming soon in California, but voting yes on Proposition I in San Diego will immediately lift the local minimum wage to $10.50 an hour (and eventually $11.50), giving a well-deserved raise and providing five much-needed sick days to over 170,000 hard working San Diegans. It will also right the wrong that was done by Mayor Faulconer and the Chamber of Commerce crew when they screwed local workers out of this necessary hand up.

Open Letter From SDSU Staff and Faculty Regarding Naming and Targeting of Students

The following is an open letter sent to President Hirshman from the undersigned staff and faculty at San Diego State University regarding flyers posted on the university campus in April. The flyers listed the names of seven students from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA), accusing them of “Jew-hatred” and of being linked to “terrorists.”

They were singled out because of their support of the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement (BDS), which is used as a means of holding Israel accountable for human right violations against Palestinians. The letter touches on the broader implications of the flyer incident, whereby the naming and targeting of students represents a marked escalation of wide-ranging efforts to suppress the growing momentum of BDS campaigns across American campuses.

Tuesday night, May 24th, the school board voted to approve bright lights and other improvements to Point Loma High School which include a new library, despite opposition from some local residents.

In an unanimous vote, the San Diego Unified School District Board moved forward on the improvements,which include:

• 7 new poles with speakers mounted at the top;
• Four 70 foot light poles around the field;
• four 20-foot light poles in the grandstands;
• a new classroom building
• a new library
• upgrades to existing campus structures.

By Jim Miller

Despite all our best efforts, things don’t always go the way we would hope. Sometimes we are stunned by the unexpected bad turn and left groping for answers.

Last week in my column about what motivated me to go on the March for California’s Future, I explained how the stories of my students inspired me:

As a community college professor at City College, I am particularly attuned to the painful realities of economic and racial inequality because I see the costs of poverty on a daily basis …

Academic Senate votes in support of divestment resolution

UC San Diego Academic Senate

UC San Diego’s Academic Senate announced the passage of a resolution calling on the UC Regents to divest the University of California’s investment portfolio of stocks in companies whose primary business concerns the extraction and sale of fossil fuels.

According to its 1868 charter, governance of the University is shared between the Regents and the Academic Senate. The vote by tenure-track faculty and academic leadership took place electronically over a two week period ending May 11.

By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos

Here we go again, with yet another “incident” fueling right-wing outrage about black people and symbolism. The latest was over a photograph of 16 black female cadets who had come together to celebrate their upcoming graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The New York Times reported:

The gesture, posted on Facebook and Twitter last week, touched off a barrage of criticism in and out of the armed forces as some commenters accused the women of allying themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement and sowing racial divisions in a military that relies on assimilation.

In Response to Nixon’s Invasion of Cambodia, American Campuses Exploded in Protest in May 1970

Today, May 4th, 2016, is the 46th anniversary of the infamous Kent State Massacre – where 4 students were shot to death by National Guardsmen during anti-Vietnam war protests on the Ohio campus.

Protests at Kent State were part of a wave of demonstrations that swept the country right after President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. Ten days later, 2 Black students were shot to death by police during an anti-war protest at Jackson State.

By the Lumumba-Zapata Collective

On the night of Friday April 8^th, the University of California, San Diego campus was covered with anti-Mexican slogans chalked by supporters of presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Following a string of throughout the country (including incidents at UC Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Riverside), slogans supporting Trump have persistently coincided with xenophobic attacks against underrepresented communities, specifically Latino, Black, Arab and Muslim students.

The recent chalking incident at UCSD specifically targeted incoming admitted students of Mexican descent. The perpetrators chalked “Build the Wall,” “Deport them All,” and “Fuck Mexicans” …

As part of a Reading Awareness Month in the City of San Diego, there is now a Summer Reading Book Drive that just began – a campaign for donations of kids’ books at both the Ocean Beach and Point Loma libraries. The drive for children’s books will run from now through May 31, 2016. Donation bins either already have been placed or will be placed and visibly located near the entrances to the libraries.