Glendale Unified School District

GLENDALE — A state agency has approved reimbursing Glendale Unified School District about $16.8 million for campus improvements, but none of it can be used to offset teacher layoffs, officials said. The State Allocations Board will compensate Glendale Unified less than half of the roughly $37.9 million district officials requested last year. The funds can be spent only on facilities, Chief Budget Officer Eva Lueck said. A projected $18.5-million deficit by 2011-12 has set the stage for rounds of teacher layoffs in coming weeks, pitting union leaders against district officials and the school board.

EDUCATION Edison, Keppel and Franklin elementary schools could be converted to magnet campuses this fall if Glendale Unified School District is awarded a $3-million federal grant. Under the proposed change for next school year, Edison would have an advanced technology component throughout the curriculum, Keppel would elevate arts instruction, and Franklin would feature additional foreign-language classes and an arts academy. District officials are preparing an application for a three-year, $3-million federal grant to pay for the program, said Joanna Junge, Glendale Unified’s director of special projects and professional development.

GLENDALE ? Edison, Keppel and Franklin elementary schools could be converted to magnet campuses this fall if Glendale Unified School District is awarded a $3-million federal grant. Under the proposed change for next school year, Edison would have an advanced technology component throughout the curriculum, Keppel would elevate arts instruction, and Franklin would feature additional foreign-language classes and an arts academy. District officials are preparing an application for a three-year, $3-million federal grant to pay for the program, said Joanna Junge, Glendale Unified?

SOUTH GLENDALE — The city’s week of Armenian Genocide-related commemorative events kicked off Sunday with a blood drive in honor of those who died during past atrocities, organizers said. The Armenian National Committee’s fifth annual blood drive was expected to draw more than 80 donors for collections facilitated by the American Red Cross, said Elen Asatryan, executive director of the committee’s Glendale chapter. Blood collected through the event, held the Krikor & Mariam Karamanoukian Glendale Youth Center, was expected to be used for medical procedures at local hospitals, Asatryan said.

CRESCENTA VALLEY— About 16% of Crescenta Valley High School students have enrolled in a voluntary drug testing program, which could expand into other Glendale Unified School District campuses, officials said. The program was announced in December as part of a communitywide push to keep drugs out of the La Crescenta school, and to facilitate conversations between families and their children. Of the 2,946 notices sent out, 1,444 were returned. Of those, 473 students chose to sign up for the testing program.

GLENDALE — Health-care premiums for Glendale Unified School District employees will rise by at least 16%, forcing administrators to potentially add another $6 million to a projected deficit for 2012-13 that had already stood at $18.5 million, officials said. The rate increases from Blue Shield are more than double what the district had been assuming since last year. The initial estimates can be negotiated down a few percentage points, but the rate hikes are too big to be ignored, said Eva Lueck, chief financial officer for school district.

Children entering kindergarten through sixth grade can sign up for the Glendale Community College Summer Enrichment Program. The classes are from June 28 through July 23 at John C. Fremont Elementary School, 3320 Las Palmas. This is the college?s seventh year of partnering with Glendale Unified School District on the summer program. Tuition is $395 and $325 for each additional child enrolled from the same family. After-school child care is available until 6 p.m. at an additional cost.

The upcoming school year will probably be shortened, as Glendale and Burbank unified school districts look for ways to cut costs. Unpaid work furlough days are not a done deal, officials in both districts say, but they remain a major topic in contract negotiations between the Glendale Unified School District and its teachers union, officials said. In Burbank Unified, furloughs are expected to be discussed when district officials and the Burbank Teachers Assn. begin negotiating in the next few months on a 2010-11 contract.

GLENDALE — An agreement between the Glendale Unified School District and teachers union failed to materialize in a mediation session Wednesday, officials said. Both sides will join the state-appointed mediator again April 16 to reach an agreement on a follow up contract to the one that expired in June. Mediation is the first step in a process that was triggered when Board of Education members last month declared an impasse in the protracted negotiations. The Wednesday session took place at the district’s central office for seven hours, where a government-appointed mediator shuttled back and forth between both sides, each in their own room, trying to reach a settlement.

GLENDALE — Shutting down a campus before the start of the 2010 school year — as other districts are doing — is not among the options to narrow an $18.5-million deficit projected by July 2012, at least for now, Glendale Unified School District officials said. Supt. Michael Escalante said closing a campus before the start of school next year is off the table, but he wouldn’t rule it out as a cost-cutting option in the future. “I think over time, when people get more and more desperate for how to keep the district solvent, obviously something as desperate as closing schools becomes an option,” he said.