ALL FOR ONE: All six elementary schools... - Los Angeles Times
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ALL FOR ONE: All six elementary schools...

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ALL FOR ONE: All six elementary schools in the La Habra City School District start a mandatory dress code this year: white shirts and dark blue pants, skirts or shorts. But the kids won’t be the only ones clad uniformly. . . . Some of the district principals and teachers say they’ll wear the same colors as the students. . . . Says Walnut Elementary School Principal Pat Miller: “I want to give the impression that we’re all in this together. Uniforms give you school spirit because everybody’s dressed the same.â€

BI-SMART: Kindergarteners at the Las Palmas Elementary School in San Clemente aren’t just drawing pictures and reading stories. They’re learning to speak two languages. It’s a voluntary, highly popular “two-way language immersion program†in which students start to learn a second language--Spanish or English. Principal Doug Kramer says the goal is to have each of them fluent in a second language by the end of sixth grade. . . . In its third year, it’s up to the second grade now. . . . “The students love it, the parents love it,†Kramer says. “It’s preparing their children for the world they live in.â€

BABY TALK: They’re having a baby at the Oak Ridge Private School in Santa Ana this year. It’s a nine-pound computerized girl doll which cries, wets and has a warning light teachers can monitor for abuse or neglect. . . . It’s all part of their sex education course, which includes lessons in abstinence, says director Patricia Burry. Each student cares for the baby for three days. Says Burry: “It takes the cuteness out of raising a baby. The students learn the responsibilities are serious.†. . . The parents, she says, are unanimous in approving it.

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STUDENTS’ VIEW: If you want to know what’s on students’ minds these days, you ask them. A group of Tustin high school students have been interviewed for a PBS TV special on school violence to air Oct. 14. . . . Says the show’s executive producer, Sue Castle: “It’s like 60 Minutes meets MTV. The idea is to stimulate students and get them to realize that teens working together can make their schools safer.â€

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