George Laase

Jerry Chabola, who retired last year as a teacher and the Athletic Director at Culver City High School, talked this week about his thoughts on seeing that his hard work on getting the track and field resurfaced finally is coming to pass.

A ceremonial Golden Shovel event was held at Culver City High School’s Helms Field yesterday afternoon to kick off the $4.85 million renovation project that includes a variety of long overdue and much needed upgrades to the track and field facility.

In their home opener yesterday afternoon, Culver City High School’s baseball team, defending their Ocean League title, scored...

Editor’s Note: Nearly a dozen brokers accepted City Hall’s walk-through invitation this morning at the old Fire Station No. 3 property. Todd Tipton of the Community Development Dept. said that brokers have until April 29 to submit their proposals, and then the department’s recommended choice will be submitted to the City Council.

Second of two parts.As more boomer-aged educators retire, our state education system probably will continue to struggle to educate our next generation of students. Retiring educators need not worry, though, because the state budget already is skewed in their favor. Written within the state code, state retirees have a statute in place guaranteeing that their benefits receive top priority in state funding. Thereby, their benefits must be paid first, before state education is funded.

The maximum monthly benefit workers can receive depends on the age at which they retire. In 2013, for workers retiring at the full retirement age of 66 years old in the Social Security system, their maximum allowable monthly benefit is $2,346. This is based on the optimistic idea that...

Just in - Culver City High School basketball player Taylor Tanita, a senior, has been named the Ocean League’s Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row. By no coincidence, the Lady Centaurs were undefeated league champions for the second straight year. They went to the CIF D2A Finals and were invited, once again, to play in the state tourney.

Martin Beer, the win-clinching hero, scored three goals, Cayden Nakashima, Logan Young, Matthew Suyetsugu and Elliot Stanger each made two as Culver City High School’s lacrosse team defeated Mira Costa, 15-14, on Monday. The Centaurs (3-3) play at Redondo this afternoon at 4:15.

Second of two parts. If the column showing the “Average Years in the District” is an indication of teacher retention, it would seem the CCUSD, at 11.8 years, is quite in the norm among the 10 other Westside/South Bay school districts that are highlighted in pink.

Below is a spreadsheet I have generated with the intent of informing the School Board about what other L.A. County unified school districts had done fiscally during the Great Recession. Since I was the one to assemble this dispersed data into a large spreadsheet, it was my task to define and identify which districts appeared to be fiscally foolish in their actions during the past Great Recession.