COMPLIMENTARY COPY
Healing California Part 1
Upcoming Women’s National Team Game in Pasadena Inspires Local Athletes to Play Their Best Page 2
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THURSDAY, AUGUST 1 - AUGUST 7, 2019
Since 1996
VOL. 23,, NO. 30
BACK TO SCHOOL:
STRESSFUL TIME FOR PARENTS & CHILD
Public and Private schools will soon be open for 2019-2020 classes - File Photo by Terry Miller
Terry MILLER tmiller@beaconmedianews.com
H
ard to believe, in this heat, that school bells will soon be ringing and traffic will be that nightmare, again when kids are being dropped off and picked up. You think you were stressed this summer, just wait. Returning students are stressed about school, however parents are apparently so worried about their child that they lose sleep in the back-to-school season. A new survey of 2,000 parents of schoolaged children (aged 5–18) revealed that 57% find the back-to-school season to be the most stressful part of the year. Since 2007, the Huntington Backpack Index has tracked classroom supply and school fee costs to highlight the burden of school expenses beyond assessed taxes. Addressing the need for access to connected devices at home, the
2019 index added the cost of a basic laptop and home internet to the usual collection of classroom supplies and extracurricular fees. For the upcoming year, according to the Huntington Backpack Index, parents can expect to pay per child: • $1,017 for elementary school supplies, extracurricular fees and technology. • $1,277 for middle school supplies, extracurricular fees and technology. • $1,668 for high school supplies, extracurricular fees and technology. This is an immense burden on low income families but fortunately there are many wonderful agencies like Foothill Unity Center that can help your kids get ready for school thanks to the generosity of benevolent people in communities like Monrovia, Arcadia and Pasadena and Sierra Madre. In fact, on Aug. 6, Foothill Unity Center’s annual back to school event at Santa Anita Race Track will help thousands of children, providing many of the essentials for the new school year at no cost to
the parents. From worries over their child making friends at school to concerns about school lunches or academic success, results revealed that parents actually worry MORE than their child (29% vs. 12%). The top worries were found to be whether their child will have good teachers (50%), if their child is eating healthy foods at school (44%) and the cost of new school supplies (42%). Commissioned by Herbalife Nutrition and conducted by OnePoll, the survey found parents’ concerns about their child’s safety (41%) and whether they’ll make friends at school (40%) rounded out the top five. The Good News State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond recently announced the release of the Multilingual Program search feature within the California Department of Education’s (CDE) California Schools Mobile Application. The California Schools Mobile
Application provides quick access to information on all public schools in California with their location identified on a map. This new feature of the application allows users to search for schools that offer multilingual programs in specific geographic areas. “As the child of an immigrant, I understand the importance of cultural and linguistic pride,” said Thurmond. “One of my top priorities is the growth of more multilingual programs in the state, and this mobile app search function will help parents give students the opportunity to be bilingual so that they can not only succeed, but lead, in the 21st century.” The California Schools Mobile Application can be found on the iOS App store, the Android Play Store, and the Microsoft Store by searching the term “CA Schools.” More information about the application is available on the CDE California Schools Mobile Application web page. More information regarding multilingual programs can be found on the CDE Multilingual Programs web page.