Category: Education

by Scott Hopkins / Pen. Beacon – Times of San Diego / Sept. 2, 2025

It was a time of rapid growth in San Diego. The little seaside community was home to 74,683 people in 1920, and that total would double to 147,897 by the end of the decade. The city was already home to a pair of high schools. Russ School, later named San Diego High School, opened in 1892, and La Jolla High School opened to the north in 1922.

HASTINGS’ FOLLY

Edgar F. Hastings, a member of the Board of Education, believed that a new high school was needed in a slowly developing community situated between San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Fellow board members strongly disagreed with Hastings, saying the proposed location was too far from town.

But Hastings persisted, even after his fellow board members termed the proposed new school “Hastings’ Folly.”

And, on Sept. 8, 1925, Point Loma Junior-Senior High School opened.

Pete Ross was named as the school’s first principal, and the school’s stadium bears his name today.

Ross oversaw a staff of 30 teachers who drove their Model Ts to the campus that had no homes around it. They parked their cars in a staff parking lot along Zola Street before walking onto the new campus built in Spanish Revival architecture with three-story buildings featuring curved archways and wrought iron.

Those teachers were expected to deliver a rich and challenging curriculum to each of the 386 students in grades 7 through 12 who arrived on the first day of school. After all, those teachers were making $90 per month, according to federal records.

by Ernie McCray

There’s a dear friend of mine,
Jacquenese A. Barnes Price,
Jacque for short,
who will soon be an inductee
in the Hall of Fame
at Tucson High,
an honor she comes by honestly
because she was prepared naturally
for such esteem
by a mother
who stands as an iconic
Black social and political activist
in Tucson’s history,
a woman we kids used to call
“Miss Freddie,”

By Ray Huard/ San Diego Business Journal / August 26, 2025

As Point Loma Nazarene University looks toward its future, the university is working with Studio E Architects to map out a way to best accommodate the physical changes that come with a changing education program.

“Like all institutions of higher learning, they are evolving. They’ve been adding all kinds of programs and they’re transitioning programs,” said Eric Naslund, Studio E principal.

Jeff Bolster, vice president for university services, said that it’s been at least 20 years since the university took a strategic look at how the university might grow.

“We just felt like it was time for the professional kind of help of kind of looking into what are our strengths and opportunities are on the campus,” Bolster said.

Limited Footprint to Build On
The challenge is that the university’s 90-acre main campus on Point Loma has no extra land on which to expand.

“We can’t grow up or out. We have to grow within the footprint that we have,” Bolster said. “We certainly are planning for growth and looking for growth, but that kind of growth can’t happen on the Point Loma campus.”

ALL DETAILS ARE INSIDE

Come Labor Day in San Diego County, September 1, there are 6 planned protests against the Trump regime, titled “Workers Over Billionaires.”

They’re in downtown San Diego, Chula Vista, La Jolla, Mira Mesa, Carlsbad and Escondido. (All details are herein.)

Downtown San Diego

It begins at 10am and runs to 12 noon at the Waterfront Park at 1600 Pacific Hwy. (That’s San Diego CA 92101)

About this event (Each event — except Escondido — starts at the same time, 10am, has the same demands and script, so we’re running just the downtown San Diego details, but with more info about each of the events.)

There are actually two events, one sponsored by the coalition that organized the No Kings event at Waterfront Park. The other, at the same place and time, is sponsored by San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, No Kings and a host of other groups we list below.

Here’s their script:

This Labor Day we will continue to stand strong, fighting for public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, shared prosperity over corporate politics.

Working people built this nation and we know how to take care of each other. We won’t back down—we will never stop fighting for our families and the rights and freedoms that ensure access to opportunity and a better life for all Americans. The billionaire’s time is up.

On September 1st we will continue the movement we launched together on May 1st, standing in solidarity with all our communities under attack and fighting for real wins for all our people.

By Abbie Black / CBS8 / August 15, 2025

What appears to be pristine water in San Diego Bay is hiding a disturbing secret beneath the surface.

University of San Diego graduate students working with a local company have discovered alarming levels of heavy metals, microplastics and invasive species in Mission Bay and San Diego Bay using innovative cleanup booms made from recycled materials.

The partnership, called 24/7 Blue, pairs USD students with San Diego-based Earthwise Sorbents to test sustainable cleanup technology that could serve as a model for ports and marinas nationwide.

“It’s unbelievable the amount of material that we are picking up,” said Dr. Michel Boudrias, who chairs USD’s sustainability task force. “We’re picking up 30 times the amount of heavy metals that are typically out there.”

The 5-pound, 10-foot booms are placed in local waters for two to three months before being replaced. When flipped over, the seemingly clean-looking devices reveal the extent of contamination lurking in San Diego’s waterways.

By Mary Cairns / President, Ocean Beach Friends of the Library and Co-Chair, Expansion Committee

Good news on the activities for the Ocean Beach Library expansion project!

As of last week, the project is continuing to move along with minimal delays. The city has the necessary funds, and is now going through the process to get to the final selected firm for the work.

In March the Request for Qualifications went out and were due in May. The City selected the top three firms to move forward with Request for Proposals (contract language will be finalized in September) and interview process to determine the final design-build firm. A January 2026 contract award is anticipated.

By Lynne Clark Miller

My granddaughter, Petra, just graduated from Point Loma High School. Watching the ceremony, I remembered my mother, who graduated from PLHS in 1936. I didn’t expect to get a lump in my throat or tears in my eyes when I heard the Point Loma School Song.  But it happened.  Memories surfaced as I watched the 2025 graduation. Four generations walked to Pomp and Circumstance across the football field. Dorothy Gage, Jon, Lynne, and June Clark, and my children, Mark and Cory Miller walked in my memories this June, 2025.

I lived in OB, spent my summers at the beach with friends, and walked home with a sandy towel, and a chocolate bar from Paras Shop. Those days of sun and salt air rest in my DNA and ignite memories of youth.  I rode my bike to OB Elementary, car-pooled and walked to Collier, and took a bus or walked to PLHS. When I went to Collier there was no Nimitz Blvd.  There was just a canyon ribboned with dirt pathways that we explored after the final bell. I remember the excitement of seeing guys who we knew cruise by in their very cool cars.  Sometimes my friends and I would get a ride home with Tim or Curt.  Getting to and from school was part of the whole adventure, wasn’t it?

When Petra Lynne reached out and got her diploma this year, all of the family hands who were PLHS grads were there, reaching across time– at least from my vantage point. Maybe that lump in my throat was encouraged by my Pointer memories!  The first day at PLHS, my way too blue contact lens looked into the mirror at my very tan face with white lipstick, sunbleached hair and an anxious smile.  Walking through the halls over the years was a hormone high.

By Arturo Castañares, Editor-At-Large, La Prensa San Diego

The Mayor of Imperial Beach made a false claim against the Mayor of Chula Vista as the two city leaders face off in a special election to fill a vacancy on the County Board of Supervisors.

Paloma Aguirre posted on social post this week that  John McCann was “at the center” of a school district political corruption scandal that saw 18 people indicted in 2012, including six school board members, but McCann was the only sitting Board member not charged with any crimes in the investigation that included three school districts.

McCann, who had previously served two four-year terms on the Chula Vista City Council before being elected to the Sweetwater Union High School District in November 2010, later returned to the City Council in 2014 and was elected Mayor in 2022.

In early 2012, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis charged 15 individuals in a years-long corruption ring that included the Superintendents of three school districts, school board members, and a private company executive who conspired to direct lucrative construction contracts to companies who had provided campaign contributions and expensive dinners to officials.

But the majority of the corrupt acts occurred before McCann was even elected to the school board.

By Madison Beveridge / Pt Loma-OB Monthly SDUT / May 25, 2025

Three students at Point Loma’s Correia Middle School were rewarded for short documentary-style films they made for the C-SPAN network’s 2025 StudentCam competition.

Students, parents, teachers, administrators and C-SPAN representatives turned out to honor the young filmmakers at a gathering May 21.

The trio’s works were among nearly 1,700 student entries from across the country.

For the 21st edition of the competition, C-SPAN asked contestants to focus their films on the issue most important to them or their community as though they were presenting it to the president of the United States.

Harper Haden and Helena de la Houssaye, seventh-graders at Correia Middle School, won second prize and $1,500 for their video titled “One Pill Can Kill,” a look at the fentanyl crisis and how the San Diego-Mexico border plays a role in fentanyl and other drugs entering the U.S.

On May 10, 1970, a 23-year-old UCSD fourth-year student burned himself to death in Revelle Plaza to protest the Vietnam War.

Editordude: I was at UCSD when George Winne burned himself to death — and wrote about it in my new book, The May 1970 Rebellion. The Rag has published a number of articles about George and those times (see here) and Patty Jones and I from the OB Rag were at UC San Diego in 2014 when a memorial for him was unveiled.

By Alex Reinsch-Goldstein / The Guardian — UCSD / May 12, 2025

It was just past 4 p.m. on May 10, 1970, when George Winne Jr., a 23-year-old UC San Diego fourth-year, strode out into Revelle Plaza.

Ten days earlier, then-President Richard Nixon had drastically expanded the Vietnam War by sending American troops into Cambodia. Four days after that, National Guard troops opened fire on a crowd of anti-war protesters at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four students. Massive anti-war demonstrations were taking over Revelle Plaza every week.

However, on Sunday, May 10, in this tense atmosphere, Winne walked alone. He held a sign that read: “In the name of God, End this war.”

Winne stood at the northeastern corner of the plaza, in front of what is now Galbraith Hall, and began to douse himself with gasoline. Then, he lit a match.

Recent Die-Off Very Apparent at Campus of Point Loma Nazarene

By Angelica Moser / The Point / May 4, 2025

The raccoons on Point Loma Nazarene University’s campus have turned into the center of a wildlife conundrum as a recent die-off has led to concerns over illegal poisoning and the spread of disease among the animals.

The poison found is a rodenticide that causes internal bleeding and neurological disorders in animals, and it was banned in California by Governor Gavin Newsom on Jan. 1 due to its serious risks to wildlife. Photo courtesy of Brad Lally.

Brad Lally, resident and volunteer with the San Diego Humane Society, first noticed something was wrong in late January when a neighbor found a suspicious teal blue substance in the brush by the cliffs after a heavy rainstorm.

“It was really fresh looking and still kind of soft,” he said. “We’re sure that lot was spread around Jan. 26 and 27.”

The substance was later identified as a banned rodenticide by the San Diego Humane Society, which became illegal in California on Jan. 1 this year due to its harmful ecological effects.