Items in today’s column include:
*How various public schools named for Jews rank academically
*Archaeology in Israel will be subject of day-long colloquium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
*Political Bytes
*Honorable Menschen
*Passages
How various public schools named for Jews rank academically
SAN DIEGO — Voice of San Diego recently published “A Parent’s Guide to Public Schools” in association with UC San Diego Extension and the San Diego Workforce Partnership. The guide evaluated all the public schools in San Diego County. As a matter of parochial interest, we decided to look closely at the evaluations of those schools that were named for our fellow Jews in the San Diego Unified School District.
These are the Albert Einstein Academy Charter Elementary, Benchley/ Weinberger Elementary, Jonas Salk Elementary, Gompers Preparatory Academy; Albert Einstein Academy Charter Middle School; Farm Middle School, and Wangenheim Middle School.
The elementary schools named for Jonas Salk and for Jacob Weinberger (along with Belle Benchley) were consistently at the top of the evaluation scales. They both scored very high in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Einstein Academy Charter Elementary, named for physicist Albert Einstein, was rated medium for English Language Arts and high for math. Those ratings were reversed at the Einstein Academy Charter Middle School with a high score for English Language Arts and a medium score for math. Wangenheim Middle School, named for early 20th century San Diego leader Julius Wangenheim, similarly was rated high for English Language Arts and medium for math.
Having more room for improvement were the Farb School, named by the late philanthropist Harry Farb for his wife Jean Farb, which was given a medium rating in English Language Arts and a low rating in math. Gompers Preparatory School, named for labor leader Samuel Gompers, scored low in both English Language Arts and math.
Gompers also had the highest percentage of students receiving subsidized meals — 84 percent — followed by Farb with 69 percent, Wangenheim and Einstein Middle both with 54 percent; Einstein elementary and Jonas Salk at 37 percent, and Benchley-Weinberger at 21 percent. In a complicated ranking for closing the gap between typical students and those with disadvantages, Benchley-Weinberger scored highest with a 9 out of 10 possible points, followed by Farb 7, Einstein Middle 6, Wangenheim 5, Gompers Prep 4, Einstein Elementary 3, and Jonas Salk unrated.
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Archaeology in Israel subject of day-long colloquium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
UC San Diego, Scripps Institution for Oceanography in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Murray Galinson San Diego-Israel Initiative will host an opening lecture and five panels on the archaeology of Israel on November 20 at Scripp’s Seaside Forum Auditorium. Gideon Avni will deliver the opening lecture titled: “The Archaeology of Israel 2020–What Has Been Achieved and Future Challenges.”
Titles of the panels are “Archaeology in Jerusalem: A Macro- and Micro-Archaeological Approach”; “The Judaen Lowlands”; “Islamic Archaeology”; “Trade, Production and Coastal Archaeology in the Souther Levant”; and “Bronze and Iron Age.”
Tom Levy, co-director of the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology, will open and close the day-long session.
Political Bytes
Supervisorial candidate Terra Lawson-Remer is tying incumbent Supervisor Kristin Gaspar as closely as possible to President Donald Trump. In a fundraising appeal, she wrote: “In times of such corruption, vitriol, and turmoil coming from Washington, it is imperative that local officials stand up for our community. Kristin Gaspar has chosen to stand with Trump instead. Recently Supervisor Kristin Gaspar was invited to the Trump White House to offer her unwavering support to Trump’s horrific immigration policies. She even sued California on behalf of the Trump Administration.”
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Honorable Menschen
San Diego Police Captain Rich Freedman has been appointed to a San Diego Unified School District task force designed to improve interagency cooperation in cases when children may have been subjected to sexual abuse. City Attorney Mara Elliott also serves on the task force along with students, parents and hospital experts …. In her column in The San Diego Union-Tribune, Diane Bell told Saturday about photographer Paul Nestor finding personal mementos of the late state Senator Wadie P. Deddeh on sale at Koby’s Swap Meet. Nestor swept up a letter to Deddeh from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a framed document naming the CalTrans Building at Old Town after him, and a gold Assembly member’s badge (Deddeh served in the Assembly before moving onto the Senate). Then Nestor donated all the items to the very pleased Deddeh family, who inadvertently had included them in an estate sale at the time Deddeh had moved from his home to a retirement facility. … In the same edition of the U-T, columnist Karla Peterson reported that Jacob Manowitz, a student at Mt. Carmel High School, was among young photographers whose works will be on display through March 1 at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. His photo, “Polaris” resulted from his experiments in astro-photography.
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Passages
Chabad of La Costa has announced the death of Hendel Fogel, mother of Martin Fogel. Her funeral will be held on Sunday, Sept. 29, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com