Good morning and welcome to the TimesOC newsletter.
It’s Wednesday, March 3. I’m Carol Cormaci on rotation with my colleagues, editor John Canalis and reporter Ben Brazil, to bring you the latest roundup of Orange County news and events.
One of the most disturbing side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is not physical but xenophobic. Too many Asians and Pacific Islanders have been taking the heat since early last year for the spread of the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China.
A news article published last summer and written by our colleague Ahn Do details some of the 800-plus reported racist taunts (“You started the corona!”) that had been hurled against Asian Americans as of July. Eight months later such hatred still seethes unabated and violent attacks continue to be reported around the state and beyond. Last month, a man was beaten with a cane in Rosemead.
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Tito Ortiz strolled into a Huntington Beach burger shack, steps from the sand on Pacific Coast Highway, as he did every Sunday.
But this time, the employee behind the counter at TK Burger told the recently elected mayor pro tem he wouldn’t be served unless he put on a mask.
Angered by the snub, Ortiz pulled out his phone and started recording.
“So they won’t let me order unless I have a mask to come in,” the mixed martial arts fighter-turned-politician said in January from outside the eatery, a fixture in the community since 1995. “First time all year that I’ve actually been forced to wear a mask, but I’m not wearing a mask. TK Burger you lose my business. You lose H.B.’s business.”
As coronavirus case rates continue to drop in Orange County, students in Huntington Beach have made their way back to campuses for the first time in weeks.
Huntington Beach Union High School District marked the start of the second semester Tuesday with a return to a hybrid learning model. Students had been distance learning exclusively for about a month, since Jan. 4.
Huntington Beach City School District and Ocean View School District also returned to their hybrid models on Monday.
“It was wonderful to see them return in their hybrid schedules, returning and learning in classrooms with their teachers,” OVSD Board of Trustees President Patricia Singer said. “It’s always good to have the kids back in their classrooms . We’re happy to see that the [COVID-19] rates go in the right direction, and we’re committed to keeping in this hybrid schedule and consistency as long as possible.”
Orange County students plan to strike in support of teachers
Huntington Beach High School students strike for teachers
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. - A group of high school students from the Huntington Beach Union High School District has organized a strike after they say teachers aren’t being given the option to continue the second semester with distanced learning. This is basically students not attending their zoom classes, however in order to do it in a responsible way we are emailing our teachers for work beforehand just to make sure we aren’t striking for the wrong reasons. We’re doing this just to prove our point that we stand with our teachers in this sense, said Huntington Beach High School Junior Sam Shaw.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a multitude of preexisting problems. In California, the standardized testing debate is one of them.
For years, educators, researchers and students alike have pointed out several major flaws of the SAT and ACT as a part of the college admissions process. Many argue that despite efforts to create more equitable testing, standardized tests still do not measure intelligence or academic ability and that the test is biased, such as that it tends to put students of color, students from low-income families and disabled students at a disadvantage.
“I don’t think those tests tell you a ton about whether [a student] is going to be successful or not,” guidance specialist Lindsey Gonzalez said.