Thursday Night Fever: Roller Skating and New Moon premiere

Night Fever, Night Fever... Lots of things shaking Thursday in and around the Creek.

Those kids at Walnut Creek Intermediate had their skate party at Golden Skate in San Ramon. You can see the after-effects of this massive party for suburban middle schoolers, in the form of kids' rented roller skates piled up on Golden Skate's rental counter.

And lots of older kids and young adults were lined up, and camped out later Thursday night--outside the Century 14 movie theater in downtown Walnut Creek. They were there, presumably waiting to snag tickets and seats inside to see New Moon, the second cinematic installment in the Twilight teen vampire saga.

It was a pretty, brisky, autumn night out. Not the worst night to be sitting out with friends, in jackets, mittens, camp chairs, and blankets, waiting to get into the theater to see the big showdown between Edward versus Jacob. And Edward versus the Volturi and Bella versus her own sulky, melancholic fixation on men she can't have...

Las Lomas High principal to retire

Las Lomas High School Principal Patrick Lickiss has said that he will retire at the end of this school year in June, after a 37-year career in the Acalanes district and 17 years as principal at Walnut Creek’s downtown high school.

In a letter to the community, the 59-year-old Lickiss thanked the district, where he has worked his entire career in education, and said he has “mixed” feelings about leaving.

“It is rare that a person can go to work each day knowing that they have a wonderful and fulfilling career," he wrote. "I am one of those people who can say that they have the perfect job."

Second knife possession incident at Walnut Creek Intermediate, and another reminder to parents

While investigating reports of smoke bombs on campus Friday morning, school officials found a second student in two days in possession of a knife. This was a “locking blade knife,” according to the Walnut Creek police daily bulletin.

The student was released to the custody of parents, and school officials say the student is no longer enrolled at WCI.

School officials say no one was threatened or even shown the knife at school. “While this was the second knife that was found at WCI in two days, an event like this remains a very rare occurrence.”

They add that “students found in possession of a weapon on campus are issued a five-day suspension and the police are called. The student may face criminal charges and be recommended for expulsion.”

The 7th grade student in Thursday’s incident was arrested, according to the Walnut Creek police daily bulletin. The day before, that student had apparently been seen exhibiting the weapon on the trail next to the school.

Measures G & H: Early results show they are passing the 2/3 "yes" vote necessary

In very early results, the two measures to extend parcel taxes in school districts covering Walnut Creek elementary and middle schools and Walnut Creek and Lamorinda high schools are receiving a very positive response from voters. Both measures, so far, have received more than than the 2/3 of voter approval needed to pass.

With seven of 49 precincts reporting, Measure G, which would allow the Acalanes Union High School District to permanently extend its $189 per-parcel tax, has received a "yes" vote from nearly 74 percent of voters so far. Twenty-six percent of the total 24,576 have said "no."

With four of 23 precincts reporting, Measure H, which would allow the Walnut Creek school district to permanently extend its $82 per parcel tax, has received a "yes" vote from 75 percent of voters so for. Nearly 25 percent of the total 10,790 have said "no."

Mt. Diablo schools to keep winter sports going

Mt. Diablo Unified School board trustees voted Tuesday night to keep winter sports at the district's six high schools going, and to consider keeping spring sports going at a later date.
So says the Contra Costa Times' Theresa Harrington.

The trustees said they were impressed by the fundraising efforts by parents and other communiy members and would use donations and other revenues to pay for the winter programs.

Every 15 Minutes at Northgate High Tuesday

If you see a fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, and even a CalStar helicopter rushing towards Northgate High School Tuesday, don’t worry. The massive emergency response is actually part of a dramatic recreation called Every 15 Minutes that is designed to teach teenagers about the dangers of drinking and driving.

For Every 15 Minutes, police will be closing Hutchinson Road near Northgate High School to through traffic between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. A staged DUI traffic collision will take place in the 800 block of Hutchinson Road.

Every 15 Minutes is a two-day event that is presented to high school juniors and seniors. The title refers to the statistic that, every 15 minutes, someone in the United States dies as the result of an alcohol-related collision. The program recreates the aftermath of the crash, with students pretending to be accident victims, and sometimes their parents participating and pretending to get the news that their child has been killed. According to the Walnut Creek police Crime Prevention Coordinator Amy Doyle, the purpose of the program is “to challenge teens to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, the need to make mature, responsible decisions, and the impact their decisions have on family, friends and many others.”

Every 15 Minutes at Northgate is being organized by the high school, the City of Walnut Creek, the Walnut Creek police, and the California Highway Patrol.

If you are interested in learning more about the Every 15 Minutes program, Northgate High School will host a community meeting this Thursday at 7 p.m. You can watch a video of the two-day event, and program participants will be available to discuss alcohol-related issues and answer questions about the program.

8-year-old Tracy girl vanishes Friday...And why are we first hearing about it on Sunday?

Sandra Cantu of Tracy has been missing since Friday. She's 8 years old.

And why is the greater public finally learning about this on Sunday? She's been missing since Friday, after she disappeared from the mobile home park in Tracy where her family lives.

She had checked in at home Friday afternoon. She was last seen sometime that afternoon, anywhere from 2:30 to 4 p.m., according to different news reports.

She was supposed to pop in to visit a friend. She apparently never made it to the friend's home.


Sandra lives in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park on West Clover Road in Tracy, with her mother, siblings, and grandparents.

"There are few clues to explain Sandra's disappearance, the San Francisco Chronicle says. "The little girl did not express any desire to run away, her aunt said, and is close to her mother, Maria Chavez, 41. She attends Jacobson Elementary School and shares a mobile home with her mother, three older siblings and grandparents in a mobile home park full of friendly kids."

She didn't return home for dinner. Her family apparently looked for her. When they couldn't find her by 8 p.m., they summoned police.

Apparently, the police mounted a search that included "hundreds of search-and-rescue personnel combing the rural area, along with crowds of just folks eager to help," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

And the FBI has apparently been involved in the search since Friday.

Did I miss something Saturday or this morning? While I was listening to local news radio stations, scanning news websites, or even surfing TV news networks, I saw no mention of Sandra Cantu's disappearance until this afternoon.

And, having covered a few other missing kids' casing in my time, especially involving kids of this age, this sort of disappearance is usually headline news news within hours of the kids going missing. Police say those first few hours are critical in helping to find a missing child. So, with this two-day delay in making this headline news outside of Tracy, I'm wondering what's going on.

I see that Fox News finally reported it Sunday. My goodness, Fox News usually gets pretty excited by any news of a child abduction, and tends to report updates on these cases, however minor, 24/7, until the child is found--alive or dead.

Do I wonder if there is some ethnic or class bias on the part of law enforcement and media in this case? Yes, I'm afraid I do. Hispanic girl living in a trailer park. I also realize that there may be other factors surrounding this case that aren't being made public--that would explain the reason for the delay in making a big deal out of this. Issues in her family, their several-hour delay in reporting her missing, or initial leads the police received that convinced them she be safe.

If anyone wants to tell me I'm wrong in wondering about the two-day delay in making this story a big deal, you know how to reach me.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. Police are asking anybody with information to call the Tracy Police Department at (209) 831-6847. For urgent tips, people should call (209) 831-4550. Tips can also be phoned in to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (800) 843-5678.

Rumors of bomb threat spook hundreds of students to skip school Friday

This week’s mass killing at a high school in Germany, a disturbing reminder of the shooting at Columbine High massacre nearly 10 years ago, may have fed fears that students were going to bomb San Ramon’s California High School.

The Contra Costa Times says that 600 to 700 students stayed home from school today, and school officials speculate the huge number of absences has to do with rumors flying around the area that students were planning to set bombs at the school.

Police and San Ramon Valley School District officials heard those same rumors earlier in the week, investigated them, and found no credible threat. School officials assured parents of that in e-mails sent Thursday.

The rumors turned out to be based on idle chit-chat among students hanging out at a San Ramon skate park, officials told the Times. Students overheard two boys about a video game that involved diffusing bombs set at a high school and how such an attack could be carried out at California High School.

Despite the district’s assurances that students would be safe, hundreds stayed home The 2,700-student school usually has about 70 students absent daily.

Walnut Creek schools budget news: It’s bad but not THAT bad

Or rather, it’s not as awful as it could be. That’s the news that a group of parents received this past week from Walnut Creek School District Superintendent Patricia Wool. She was holding one of her series of meetings with parents. In the meeting with parents at my son’s elementary school, she had fresh information regarding the school’s budget.

This was in the wake of legislators signing off on the state budget the week before and figures coming in regarding how much Walnut Creek schools would receive in federal stimulus money. In fact, Wool said these numbers were so hot off the presses, they came across her desk as recently as last Monday, and there was still much finessing to work out.

Essentially, she expects that the 3,200-student school district will have to send out layoff notices to 15-23 of the district’s 175 teachers by March 15. Wool hopes to bring back a fair share of those teachers once budget and enrollment numbers are finalized this summer; it’s just that the district, legally, is required to give teachers notice by March 15.

As for the projected spending cuts, the district, which serves five elementary and one middle school, will look at cutting back on spending anywhere this year from $500,000 to $1 million.

The $1 million figure has to do with what the district should possibly cut in order to be conservative over the next two to three years, what with the uncertainty over the state budget and the national economy, and about whether the district can renew its $82 parcel tax, which expires June 2011. The big question is whether the district should attempt to raise the amount of that parcel tax, or keep it as it is and go for a renewal.

Would voters owning property in the district go along with the parcel tax as it, or even agree to an increase, enough to give it a two-thirds majority vote, as required by law.

In the 2007-08 school year, the district had to trim $1.6 million from its $26 million budget. For the 2008-09 year, the district expected to lose up to $800,000 in state funding, but that number has been reduced to $600,000, 3 percent less than the expected 16 percent. “I’ll take all of the sunshine we’re going to get,” Wool said. “It’s not as horrible as we thought.”

As for federal money, the district will receive total of $749,000over the next two years. That money must be directed to students eligible for Title 1A benefits and for special education. Although this money is directed to certain students and programs, it helps the district overall because it means the district has less it needs to shift from its general fund to cover Title 1A and special education expenses, Wool said.

As part of making the cuts, the district will look at the possibility of increasing class sizes in the kindergarten through third grades, but not by too many children per grade. The district also hopes to maintain the number of classes available for the fifth grades and keep the number of students in the core classes at Walnut Creek Intermediate at 26 students.

If you build it, they will come--and you'll piss off your neighbors and irk your town’s planning commission

Once upon a time there was a rich Danville man who decided to do something he thought would be nice for himself and his 11-year-old son’s little league team which he had volunteered to coach. David Lowe decided to build himself and the kids a private slice of heaven: an 18,000- square-foot private athletic field, complete with a 14-foot-high fence, artificial turf, batting cage, and lights for night practices.

Lowe had a piece of land to do it, on a ridgeline above his Danville home. And it was so necessary. With his busy job as a stock market investor at a San Francisco-based firm he co-founded, Lowe found it hard to fit in practice times for his son’s team.

So, in 2007, Lowe spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build his field of dreams (which you can see here in this San Francisco Chronicle photo). But, apparently, he failed to mention his plans to his neighbors--and he failed to get any permits from the city.

Not surprisingly, Lowe’s personal field of dreams turned out to be a nightmare for his neighbors and for Danville town planners. Some neighbors complained to different news outlets that the high wire fences on the hill made it look like they were living beneath a prison, a suburban version of Guantanamo Bay. Others said the field and fencing blocked their views of Mount Diablo. Still others complained about the noise the kids made during the practices and expressed concerns about the stability of Lowe’s unauthorized retaining wall.

Danville officials weren’t too happy either and ordered Lowe to tear down his field.

Lowe and his wife, Connie, decided to go back to the drawing board. They worked with architects and town planners on ways to bring the field in compliance, the Danville Weekly reports. It turns out that zoning in the area allows the Lowe family to build the field, but Lowe agreed to reduce the field's size to 15,000 square feet and the fence to six feet high. He also said he would plant oak trees on two sides to “reduce the visual impact,” and to not hold organized team practices on the field. To go forward with his plans, he just needed permission to move 273 cubic yards of soil.

He sought that permission and submitted his revised plans to Danville Planning Commissioners for them to approve at their meeting this past Tuesday night. One neighbor who spoke, Joni Wolf, still expressed concerns “about the artificial turf field and the possibility of lead leeching into the soil or dust from the field settling into the neighbor's properties,” the Danville Weekly said. "[Wolf] said she understands about being able to make improvements on private property, but there is more than just their property affected. 'Yes, it's their back yard, but I don't think they should have this sense of entitlement. This is a hillside that impacts the area in a lot of ways,' " she said.

The planning commissioners didn’t say yes or no to the revised plans, much to David and Connie Lowe's evident disappointment, the Weekly reported. (They left the meeting without making any comment to the Weekly.) Commissioners said they needed more information on plans for the fencing, the landscaping, and erosion control. But they decided to say “no” to lights and batting cages.

Commissioner Robert Storer said there was no hurry to make a decision: “It's been 18 months. They didn't come back immediately, the neighbors are still upset. There are still things unresolved.”

Happy Valentine’s—from Hannah Montana—and Crazy in Suburbia

This box of Valentine’s Day cards is similar to the ones my son picked out at our local Longs Drugs Store (soon to be CVS Pharmacy) to pass out to his fifth-grade classmates for a Valentine’s party held in his classroom on Wednesday.

My son figured he was being very silly in gracing his classmates with these Hannah Montana/Mylie Cyrus images. "From the hit TV series on Disney Channel!" He took particular delight as we worked to affix the supplied “tattoos” and pink and red hearts to his cards.

We rushed out on Tuesday night to get the cards. His classroom held its Valentine’s party on Wednesday, because his school, which is in the Walnut Creek school district, was not in session on Thursday and Friday. So, on Tuesday night, we were at Longs and lucked into finding the Hannah Montana cards. We hurried home and worked to get them ready.

We did this—him signing his name and working with me to attach the heart stickers and tattoos—while watching, yes, American Idol. In terms of enjoying the alignment of stars in the cheesy pop culture universe, a Tuesday night doesn't get any better than this: American Idol and Hannah Montana Valentine's Day cards.

And, by the way, I learned Wednesday evening from my son that his cards were a big hit.

Mt. Diablo schools superintendent resigns

This is huge, though perhaps not unexpected: Gary McHenry resigned as superintendent of the Mt. Diablo Unified school district. As the Contra Costa Times says, his resignations ends "months of public debate about the administrator's future."

The announcement came at the Mt. Diablo Unified School board meeting Tuesday evening. McHenry was not present. As the Times reports:

Effective immediately, Richard Nicoll, assistant superintendent for administrative services, is interim superintendent.

"The governing board recognizes Mr. McHenry's lengthy tenure in the district and
the many accomplishments which took place during that tenure," board President
Gary Eberhart said. "We now look forward to the future and ask our employees,
parents and greater community to work with us and improve our district
together."

The Mount Diablo school district is responsible for about 35,000 students, 1,700 teachers, and nearly 60 elementary, middle, high school, alternative, continuation schools, stretching from Walnut Creek to Pleasant Hill to Concord.


McHenry's resignation is startling but not surprising. He and the board had long been at odds over a number of issues, most recently a few weeks ago when board trustees refused to follow his recommendations to eliminate six vice principals and instead target the jobs of six district office administrators and McHenry's top aide.


At the same time, McHenry had been undergoing a performance review, and last year Eberhart and fellow board member Paul Strange called for McHenry's resignation. McHenry's decision to go along with their request to resign comes amid long-simmering tensions between him and the board, as well as district's dire financial situation: The board needs to look for for ways to slash $6.6 million from its 2009-10 budget of nearly $297 million, due to state funding reductions.


In searching for McHenry's replacement, the Times says, "the board intends to include the community in its search for a superintendent." Meanwhile, McHenry will leave the position with something of a golden parachute, the Times reports. "The district will pay McHenry about $150,000, including salary and vacation through Sept. 30 and benefits through June 30, 2010, when his original contract was due to expire."


According to the Times, Eberhart, at Tuesday night's meeting, tried to make the best of things, describing McHenry's departure as a "big change. ... The community is demanding change from the school district and that is something we are going to follow through on."

WC schools face teacher cuts, class-size reduction, $1 million in lost revenues

As California has sunk further in debt, with its deficit ballooning from $3.5 billion to $42 billion over the next 18 months, Walnut Creek’s school district is grappling with how to navigate this new uncertainty.

In a message to Walnut School district parents, Superintendent Patricia Wool says “It has become painfully clear to the education community that public schools will not be spared in the current round of budget reductions.”

The Walnut Creek School District, which manages five elementary schools and one middle school and 3,200 students, faces the fact that the state budget crisis is still unresolved.

In response, the district will conduct a series of meetings with district employees and parent groups. “We will brainstorm once again, and send our lists to the Budget Review Committee for consideration," Wool says.

Wool warns that the jobs of some teachers are at risk, as is class-size reduction for the early grades. Wool says tough decisions must be made this month because, by state law, lay-off notices must go out by March 15 to teachers who would face lay-offs.

As for class size reduction? Wool says: “It is inevitable that class size will rise in some grades. This is inevitable since salaries and benefits comprise over 85 percent of our budget.”

Wool says the district will host a series of meetings through March 17, so that teachers and parents can supply their input on which programs they are willing to let go of.

Here is the schedule for upcoming public meetings:

Indian Valley PTO, Thursday, February 5, 8:30 a.m.
Walnut Heights PTA, Thursday, February 5, 9:30 a.m.
Buena Vista PTA, Thursday, February 5, 7 p.m.
Walnut Creek Intermediate PTA, Wednesday February 18, 7 p.m.
Parkmead PTA/PALS PTO, Thursday, February 26, 9 a.m.
Murwood PTA, Tuesday, March 17, 7 p.m

The death of Danville’s Rylan Fuchs: Was it really all that different from those drug killings we hear about—and try to ignore—in Richmond?

No, it turns out that it probably wasn’t, despite the disproportionate media attention given to Rylan Fuchs' January 20 death in front of his home in affluent Danville. Fuchs was in the news again today, with the Times covering his memorial service Saturday in Dublin.

The immediate details about Fuchs' death, reported the morning of Wednesday, January 21 were pretty limited. He was shot in the throat in front of his home the night before by an unknown assailant.

Both, oh those details: Shooting. Homicide. Danville. Teenager. White teenager. All the ingredients to get the Bay Area media frothing were there.

Things like this don’t happen in Danville. Yes, that is true, violence of this sort rarely occurs in Danville, whereas in Richmond—shooting, homicide, teenager, black or Hispanic teenager—seems to be a fairly regular occurrence.

Actually, I once heard from a Contra Costa County Coroner’s deputy that he and other Coroner’s deputies and the Richmond cops have a nickname for the killings of young Richmond males of color. They call them “Richmond Naturals.”

So, the unusualness of such a crime in Danville meant that Fuchs’ death would in no way constitute a “Danville Natural,” and its rarity made it into a big, big story. But even with those initial sketchy details, we had to assume that the shooting of Fuchs wasn’t random. As with all those deaths in Richmond, and as with all murders in general, most homicide victims are killed by people they know. But since this was Danville, not Richmond, my immediate assumption was that Fuchs was killed by someone with whom he had some personal beef—over a girl or over some perceived sign of disrespect or social rejection. I, like most other people, probably didn’t jump to the conclusion that it was drug- or gang-related. But this is where my own personal biases about race and class initially came into play.

Within just a few hours of hearing about Fuchs’ death, I, like many others, discovered his MySpace and Facebook pages and learned that the San Ramon Valley High senior and his friends were very fond of using and distributing marijuana. Those pages showed him and friends posing next to what appeared to be marijuana. They also showed that he claimed affiliation to the “SRV Pot Smokers 09” and an organization that supports the decriminalization of marijuana.

Two days after the shooting, KTVU finally reported what those of us who had seen Fuchs’ Myspace and Facebook pages had come to suspect: that his death was drug-related. KTVU, citing a law enforcement source, said that Fuchs was killed in a dispute over a quarter-pound of marijuana. The next day, police publicly confirmed that his death could be “drug-related” when they announced the arrest of a 15-year-old boy who had once attended San Ramon Valley High.

Finally, it became clear that this killing in affluent Danville wasn’t all that different from those drug and gang killings that plague neighborhoods in Richmond.

As it happens, just as media coverage of Fuchs’ death began to wane, two students at Kennedy High in Richmond died in shootings within three days of each other.

Kudos to the Contra Costa Times reporters in Richmond for making a strong effort to give the deaths of these two boys equal time to that of Rylan Fuchs.

In a series of stories of these killings in Richmond, the reporters described the grief that those deaths caused their families and the shock and horror ripping through Kennedy High School. The Times published similar stories in the wake of Fuchs’ death. So did other media outlets. But the other media outlets, unlike the Times, gave scant notice to these Richmond killings or the amount of devastation that these deaths created.

Here are the basics about the killings in Richmond, as reported by the Times:

Cameron Russell, 15, a freshman at the south Richmond high school, died Friday, January 23 in an apartment where police say a group of teenagers were fooling around with a shotgun. The kid pulling the trigger was a Kennedy High junior, but the police are calling the shooting accidental.

Three days later, late on Monday afternoon, at about 5:40 p.m., Aaron Beltran, 16, died after he went to meet someone near a public park. As his girlfriend sat in the car waiting for him, he walked out view, and she heard the blast of multiple gunshots. Beltran died at the scene.

Police records show Beltran was recently released for previous brushes with the law. This bit of news would confirm the view of many that Beltran, like other Richmond homicide victims, was mixed up in something risky that got him killed. Gangs or drugs. Or maybe Beltran had disrespected someone in a way that we would consider trivial, but that kids over there regard as a matter of life and death.

Some might even say that Beltran and other poor, young minority males are asking to be killed.
But now some are saying similar things about Rylan Fuchs. I agree that such views are harsh in all three of these cases. No young person deserves to die like this. It might be more accurate to say that, just like Cameron Russell and Aaron Beltran, Fuchs was apparently engaging in risky behavior that put his life in jeopardy.

Not surprisingly, the public reaction to this Richmond sort of crime invading fair Danville hasn’t been pretty. There were reports that the suspect in Fuchs’ killing had relatives in Oakland and came from Alameda County,that he left high-achieving San Ramon Valley and briefly attended equally high-achieving Monte Vista High in Danville before being expelled for mysterious, unknown reasons in October. There were also reports that the suspect was living in a group home in Danville. Group homes, by their definition, according to state records, exist to house “troubled youths.”

It’s been interesting to follow what people have been writing on the Times’ message boards about Fuchs’ death: the race and class biases that have emerged. Some posters are angry that authorities are placing “troubled youths” (translation: poor, minority kids from tough towns like Oakland and Richmond, with legal problems or very dysfunctional family backgrounds) in group homes in their fair suburban communities. Some want the “little bastard” prosecuted to the full extent of the law. At least one poster blames single mothers in inner cities for raising future murderers.

But other posters have offered some good perspective and a dose of reality to suburbanites about the extent to which many of our kids are engaging in risky behavior. After all, kids in our affluent communities have access to more disposable income than kids in poor communities. And our kids aren’t spending all that extra cash on the latest Apple gadget. From the Times message boards:

"Open your eyes. Danville has dope running around its streets. If it didn’t, this would not have happened. Only difference is the youth have mommy and daddy’s money to openly appear clean and drug free."

“Dope and coke in Danville? DUH!! It’s been like that for 30 plus years in ALL of the Diablo Valley towns."

“If you play with fire, it is only a matter of time before you get burned. It doesn’t matter what city you live in, who your parents are, how much money you have, and so on. Look at the kinds of pictures [Rylan Fuchs] and his friends flaunted. They live a lifestyle that is ignored by the community either because everyone is in denial it can happen to their child, their family, their community, etc., or everyone is completely ignorant and blissful. I guess when all else fails, point the blame somewhere else. Oakland is always a good cop-out!”

“If [Fuchs] didn’t deal drugs with one person, he would have dealt it with another. Don’t you get it yet? Everyone involved is culpable … group home kids didn’t bring this to the [Danville]. It has always been going on in the city. As someone else suggested, maybe Danville should be named Denialville.”

A February 2007 news report, citing the most recent California Healthy Kids Survey, confirms that kids in our affluent suburbs are using alcohol and drugs pretty frequently and much more than kids over the hills in Oakland or Richmond:

“Correlating state Healthy Kids Survey results for school districts in Alameda and Contra Costa counties with data on free lunches that indicates relative levels of wealth in school districts, reveals youthful substance abuse is more common in the East Bay's richer areas.

"More-affluent districts generally had higher rates of juniors who admitted to binge drinking or consumed alcohol within 30 days of the survey. They also had higher rates of juniors who admitted having been high from drugs.

"In the state health report, 29 percent of 11th-graders in Lafayette's Acalanes high school district reported binge drinking in the previous 30 days. In the San Ramon Valley district, 26 percent of 11th-graders reported the same.

"In the less affluent Oakland and West Contra Costa districts, the number of juniors reporting binge drinking were 14 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

" 'You can make some general assessments that affluent areas have higher alcohol and marijuana use," said Sean Slade, regional manager for the California Healthy Kids Survey. He said he is confident the results are accurate: Studies show students are likely to answer truthfully when surveyed anonymously."

Arrest in Danville teen's slaying: drugs a possible motive

A 15-year-old Alameda County resident, who had been living in group home near the residence of slain Danville teen Rylan Fuchs, was arrested early Friday morning in connection with Tuesday night’s fatal shooting. The suspect was arrested in Oakland at the home of relatives, news reports say.

Danville’s police chief told reporters that the shooting could involve drugs. KTVU, citing a law enforcement source, said Fuchs was shot in front of his home in a dispute over a quarter pound of marijuana. You can read more about the arrest of the boy, who attended San Ramon Valley High with Fuchs, here.

According to state records, there are more than 100 group homes for trouble youths at various locations throughout Contra Costa County, most located in West and East Contra Costa. There is one group home listed in Danville.

And speaking of the issue of group homes with troubled youths being housed in so-called "nice" communities like Danville, there is an interesting discussion going on on the Contra Costa Times message board. The posters are also debating to what extent Fuchs was asking for trouble, because of the pot-using ways of himself and his friends, which are very much on display on his Myspace and Facebook pages.

Walnut Creek author offers expert advice to parents on the pros and cons of kids' use of the new technology

RJ Lavallee is a Walnut Creek writer and father who, like a lot of us parents, faced a daunting challenge when his oldest child begged him to buy him the the latest cool electronic gadget to hit the kindergarten playground.

Lavallee's 5-year-old son desperately wanted a Nintendo DS, and Lavallee and his wife were scrambling to figure out how to respond. On one hand, neither had been gamers growing up and Lavallee says he had some pretty common worries: that his son just wanted because everyone else had one; that the game would put him in bad company; that the game would lead him to a sedentary, unhealthy, obsessive electronic gaming life-style.

Those worries led Lavallee to do some serious research into the true dangers and benefits of video games, cell phones, and other 21st century communication tools. What Lavallee learned challenges some of what I'll call the current hysteria surrounding kids and modern technology.

In developing what would turn out to be his book, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), Lavallee rigorously analyzed the most cutting-edge studies on the topic of kids and technology. He also interviewed leading national experts and kids themselves. He developed conclusions that may defy conventional wisdom, but ultimately offer a smart, balanced, and useful perspective to parents trying to make sense, for themselves and for their families, of this brave new technological frontier.

What follows is my Q&A with Lavallee, in which he offers useful ideas for parents to consider when deciding whether a particular gadget or technology is appropriate for their child.

We read so much about kids becoming victims of cyber-bullying or sexual predators, luring kids through Internet sites, into dangerous online and actual relationships. Shouldn't parents be worried?
Of course they should be worried, but not about the online world. A draft of a report by a researcher named danah boyd [sic] for the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November of 2008 noted how the same kids who are threatened online are typically at the greatest risk of experiencing the same dangers in real life. This is why sociologists think what we’re seeing on the Internet is nothing new. Parents should be worried: worried about being responsible parents who communicate with their children, but not about the Internet specifically.

How often does cyber-bullying or child victimization via the Internet actually take place?
Empirical statistics are hard to come by for events and/or behaviors that emanate or are specifically caused by interactions on the Internet. Even in the area of law enforcement there is nothing that specifically notes if a crime is related somehow to the Internet. Since it is practically impossible for a child to avoid some form of contact with the Internet after the age of 10, I propose that almost every bullying or victimization event would involve the Internet in some way. The underlying, and most important facts here are, however, that somewhere over 98 percent of all child abductions and abuse claims are perpetrated by either a family member or a close family friend. Some statistics indicate that number is as high as 99.8 percent.

Do you think kids are actually better able to make safe decisions than we give them credit for?
Absolutely. A recent interview session with a group of 4th and 5th graders illustrated this. These kids are what researchers have coined “digital natives.” They get the Internet better than their parents do. One must remember, however, that they are children. How many times did your parents remind you when you were young to look both ways before crossing the road? The children are savvy, but they do still need parental guidance, which can only come from communication. I tend to note that a lot: the importance of communication.

What about kids not being active like they used to, because they're slouched on the couch with their Nintendo, or lying in front of the TV, playing their Xbox? Shouldn't that make us say no to these games?
Well, we really haven’t given them many choices, have we? When I was a child my mother used to say to me “be home by dinner.” That was when I was in first grade. I would run a quarter-mile down the street to the house of the next closest kid I knew, we would run another bit to another kid’s house, then we’d be off through the neighborhood, or blasting down the biggest hill we knew on our bicycles. I would love to do that with my kids today, but I find myself restricted by social pressures from other parents, afraid that someone might actually call social services on me for allowing my kids to venture out unsupervised. But that’s when I played, and ran around, and exercised my body, and my decision-making skills, which weren’t always that good, and often meant a sprint back home so my mom could patch up whatever I cut or tore or bruised. So we parents recognize this and schedule play-dates, or involve them in organized sports that last an hour or an hour and a half at most after school. I’d love to be able to say “no” to these games, but they need some form of outlet after school, and while video games should not be the only outlet, they are an adequate choice to put in the mix.

Can you explain how the new technology and the games involved play a role in kids' social lives?
This is probably where I see the greatest benefit to allowing a child to play video games, or interact in online virtual worlds: cultural touchstones. The vast majority of children with whom our kids interact at school are going to have some degree of exposure to the Internet and video games. The access that you allow your kids, and at what age, really becomes a personal choice, and is something that will answer itself, mirroring your family’s beliefs and feelings towards technology. The only thing that I’d add is that to totally restrict a child’s access to these media is analogous to the parents of the '70s withholding television from their children. Did those children do well in school? Some would argue better. Were those children total cultural outcasts? No. The only thing those kids missed were the occasional cultural touchstones that wove themselves into playground games and recess talk: the water cooler babble of children.

What is the fascination with social networking sites? If our kids want a Facebook account, should we let them and are there things we should watch out for?
The fascination is carnal; humans need and like to connect with each other, we communicate, we are social creatures. That the Internet would lead to this was only a matter of time and innovation. Ten, even 15 years ago places like this existed, they just weren’t so visual. As the technology matured so did the presentation methods.

Facebook? For kids? Not yet, but that’s my personal opinion. My 10-year-old nephew “friended” me on Facebook, and it weirded me out. I do not want to have to censor myself in that landscape, and that my brother-in-law thought it OK to let his 10-year-old son onto Facebook I found curious, but that’s his decision. For social networking there are places that are much more age-friendly and specific. Club Penguin is perfectly satisfactory for elementary school kids. Middle school: I could see using MySpace, even Facebook, but you need to communicate the importance of restricting access: keeping the site “private” and only inviting or accepting invitations from people you absolutely know. That’s where it gets hairy– that balance between infringing upon your child’s space and giving them a sense of privacy and autonomy–but that’s the tough part about parenting, isn’t it?

If our kids are into gaming, how can we make sure that the games are kids play are safe and age appropriate?
With your kids: communicate, communicate, communicate. Practically every start-up page of every online game is targeting a very specific demographic that is fairly easy to discern by that page. Ask your kids to show you the websites of the online games they are playing. If they’re playing console games, like on a Sony PS3, or Nintendo Wii, or handheld games like a Nintendo DS, all of the games are rated by a rating agency, like the MPAA does for movies. You can reference the Entertainment Software Rating Board for more information about their rating system, and look up specific game titles.

To buy Lavallee’s book go to Lulu.com. Look for IMHO on Amazon.com starting in March. Lavallee also maintains a blog examining the cultural ramifications of technological innovations, under the Technology: Culture – The Blog link.

Other resources:
The New York Times Technology, Science and Arts sections
The Wall Street Journal Tech pages
Virtual Worlds Weekly
TechCrunch
ArsTechnica
CNBC.com

"Person of interest" identified in Danville teen's "homicide; Possible motive? "Drug deal gone bad"

Update 1/23: KTVU is reporting that the motive for the shooting was a "drug deal gone bad."

A law enforcement source told KTVU late Thursday that the motive for the fatal shooting of a Danville teenager Tuesday night was a marijuana deal gone bad.

The source told KTVU that 17-year-old Rylan Fuchs was shot in front of his home during a dispute over a quarter pound of marijuana and that the gunman is another teen, age 15 or 16.

Danville police confirmed that they have identified a "person of interest" in Tuesday night's fatal shooting of 17-year-old Rylan Fuchs, reports NBC11.

The station reported Thursday that they have identified a teenager as a person of interest but wouldn't release details Thursday night. Police have interviewed a large pool of witnesses that helped lead them to this possible suspect.

Fuchs, a senior at San Ramon Valley High School, was shot once in the throat during an altercation that took place in front of his El Capitan Drive home Tuesday. The shooting took place shortly after 9 p.m.

Fuchs was transported to John Muir Medical Center where he died Wednesday morning. Fuchs' stepfather, Ron Harmon, told reporters Wednesday that he heard a gunshot around 9 p.m. and what sounded like a bump against the front door. He found his stepson outside bleeding from the neck.

While police have said that Fuchs knew his killer and that the shooting was not random, they have not released any information about a motive.

Teen Stress: When sulky, disrespectful, or disruptive behavior signals your child is in serious trouble

Kerry Dickinson, a Danville mother who helped push for changes in the homework policy in the San Ramon Valley School District, continues to pen interesting articles or share interesting articles she comes across. This is one she wrote regarding Teen Stress, and it was published in the newsletter of that school district’s Healthy Choices Team.

Other local school districts, including those in Walnut Creek and Lamorinda also have Healthy Choices Teams.What Kerry writes about the San Ramon Valley community and the teen-agers who struggle to make it through its high-achieving schools could, of course, pertain to kids and schools in towns throughout central Contra Costa County.

Her article also reminded me of an excellent article I recently came across in San Francisco magazine about the suicides of more than a dozen teens from privileged Marin County. They ended their lives by throwing themselves off the Golden Gate Bridges. The article deals with the long-simmering debate about whether a barrier should be erected along the bridge to deter people from using it as their means of self-destruction. But, more interestingly, it closely follows the lives of a few of these deceased teens, chronicling the seemingly ordinary stressors that prompted these kids to want to die—fear of failure at school, not doing a perfect job on a homework assignment, a fight with parents. These upsets, which to a teen-ager can seem like defining, devastating moments life, apparently touched off the sudden spiral of despair that led them to the bridge.

Kerry's article is a lead-up to an invitation to parents from all over, not just the San Ramon Valley district, to attend a talk, this Tuesday, January 13, by local doctor J.B. Humphrey. Starting at 7 p.m., the talk takes place at the Commons at San Ramon Valley High School in Danville. His topic, “Got Moods?” will cover adolescent brain development and related mood disorders, such as depression, ADD/ADHD, addiction and more.

As Kerry writes, some of the symptoms of these various disorders are often dismissed as typical but benign adolescent angst, rather than serious trouble requiring professional intervention. After Humphrey speaks, there will be time for some questions and answers.

Meanwhile, here is Kerry's article:

The Ramon Valley is a beautiful, privileged, affluent, and successful community. At times, life can seem almost perfect here. Even in this community, however, serious problems affect our teens. "Affluent kids are two to three times more likely to suffer from depression and to self-medicate with drugs than any population," according to Dr. Denise Pope, speaking at a recent conference in Marin County.

Teen stress can come from different sources in our teens' lives, including school, family, friends, and even extracurricular activities, for example. There are many aspects of school that can cause stress for teens. Ideally, teens should be engaged in school and self motivated.

Often, instead of focusing on learning, however, teens find themselves under pressure with regard to grades, test scores, homework, and the college application process. Teens are rewarded for their performance with regard to school, and this external motivation places much stress on them.

Dr. Michael Riera spoke at San Ramon Valley High in October and reminded parents that praise should be limited to comments about their students' effort, not their performance. For example, instead of saying, "You are really smart, you got an A," say, "You really worked hard on that assignment."


The family should be the ultimate source of love and support for the teenager. Dr. Ken Ginsberg tells us that in order for our teens to be resilient, parents need to unconditionally believe in them and hold them to high standards. Because this is the time in life when teens shift from concrete to abstract thinking, teens will argue with parents, practicing their ability to use abstract thinking. Unconditional acceptance and love will foster greater communication between parents and teens during these times of argumentation.

As Dr. Riera explained during his lecture, parents are essentially the "managers" of their children while they are young. But as children become teenagers, parents are essentially fired as the children's "managers" until their children are ready to rehire them at a later date as "consultants." Consultants don't lecture, but remind teens to listen to the voice in their head that knows what is right and to operate within established family boundaries and expectations.


A teen's daily life can be stressful because of problems with friends as well. … Positive peer influence plays a major role in a teen's life.. A young person's best friends model behavior for the teen. However, Dr. Riera reminds us that teen attitudes are influenced more by parents than peers. Parents should be sensitive to the fact that a teen can have a difficult day at school because of issues that arise with friends.

Dr. Denise Pope, co-founder of Challenge Success, a Stanford University program that questions the usual measures of success, advises parents to connect with teens at the end of the school day by asking them questions about how their day went with their friends, instead of focusing on academic questions.

While extracurricular activities are important for teens, maintaining balance for a healthy lifestyle is critical for teens so that they do not feel overburdened or stressed on a daily basis. As Madeline Levine noted at the recent Stressed Out Student conference at Stanford University, "we don't have families on school nights anymore, we have machines."

Teens should be able to participate in some creative activities while also spending quality, down-time at home. Their lives should not be overly structured and adult-directed during their waking hours. When teens are constantly told what to do by adults (e.g., parents, teachers, coaches) they become fragile and afraid to make decisions and take risks on their own. Parents need to remember that it is acceptable not to sign up their teenager for every available extracurricular activity. Down time, especially for teens, is critical for their mental, emotional and social growth and development. It is also critical for students to get plenty of sleep).

Teen stress is real and some of the causes can be related to school, family, friends and extracurricular activities. Stress in teens can result in depression, anxiety, bulimia, anorexia, ulcers, cutting, drugs, drinking, cheating, lying and even suicide.

While families are fortunate to live in an area that offers so many choices to our teens, parents must realize that providing teens with everything, both in terms of material possessions as well as over-crowded schedules, isn't always the right decision for the student.

Dr. Wendy Mogel noted at a recent lecture in San Francisco that "we worship at the idol of our children's achievements" instead of having a broader vision of our students. When adults focus on teens' performance and achievement over effort and a healthy balance in life, they unwittingly rob teens of their young years and often cause them stress.

Lafayette shop offers solution to the lousy problem of lice infestation

Claycord.com this week reported that a lice infestation had broken out at Walnut Creek’s Valle Verde Elementary School. Students in my son’s fourth-grade class at another Walnut Creek elementary were frequent targets of lice last year. It seemed that every few weeks, he came home with a notice from his teacher, telling us that unnamed students had to be sent home because of lice, and advising us to do lice checks on our kids’ scalps.

Fortunately, our family has so far dodged this very annoying and stigma-producing bullet. But if my son or any member of my family contracted lice, we would immediately head to LoveBugs Salon, a Lafayette business that specializes in removing lice from kids’ hair and helping their families remove them permanently from their homes.

LoveBugs charges $90 per session—and it recommends that your child come for at least two sessions: the initial delousing and then a follow-up appointment to make sure the sesame-seed size insects and their eggs are completely gone. To me, the cost would be worth it.

LoveBugs, which was a Diablo magazine Best of the East Bay 2008 Editor's Pick, uses gentle, nontoxic methods, and makes the experience as quick and pleasant as possible for your child and you. The salon offers kids books and portable DVD players to keep them occupied while a technician with special goggles, a magnifying glass, a fine-tooth comb, and natural oils searches through every millimeter of your child’s hair.

A LoveBugs technician will also check out your scalp and that of other family members, since these critters spread very easily through head-to-head contact and the sharing of personal items such as combs, brushes, sleeping bags and sports helmets. Owner Mailana Mavromatis emphasizes that lice are “equal opportunity annoyers,” and even prefer clean hair, so getting lice has nothing to do with your family’s hygiene habits or socio-economic background. She adds that head lice are almost as widespread and contagious as the common cold and that outbreaks tend to occur when kids return to class from long breaks, such as our winter break.

Mavromatis opened the salon after years of lice-outbreak notices from her kids’ Lafayette schools. Those notices reminded her of the irritation and embarrassment she suffered after being infected when she was a kid. But she also appreciated her Greek-born mom’s gentle, but matter-of-fact delousing method, which including saturating her hair with a special potion of olive and other oils and, one by one, manually removing the six-legged creatures and their nits--the small, yellowish, oval shaped eggs that stick to the hair shaft. Mavromatis advises against using commercially available chemical treatments because they might expose you or your child to harmful chemicals and there is “strong circumstantial evidence” that head lice are becoming increasingly resistant to these treatments.

LoveBugs gives parents homework: cleaning the kids’ clothing, bedding, and car seats, bagging stuffed animals, etc. LoveBugs guarantees its methods will work after the initial two or three appointments. If not, the salon will keep working at it until your child’s lice are gone.

You are also welcome to bring your children and yourself in for a free scalp check—if you've just received news of an outbreak their school.

LoveBugs Salone is located at 3746 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Ste. 122, Lafayette. For more information or to make an appointment, call (925) 283-7700 or visit www.lovebugslice.com.

WC School District Makes Cameo Appearance in "Milk"

What’s referred to as the “Walnut Creek School District” provides the setting for one scene in the new critically acclaimed film biography of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to a major political office in the United States.

Before I tell you how our local school district gets its “closeup,” I’ll just say there are lots of things I could write about this film, including its relevance to issues of today (the ongoing Proposition 8 debate).

I also have strong personal memories of being a straight, teenage girl living in Walnut Creek at the time Milk was elected supervisor in 1977 and of seeing him on TV through the following year, speaking out against Proposition 6, a proposed law that would have made it mandatory to fire gay teachers and any public school employee who supported gay rights.

I also have pretty vivid memories of those horrible 10 days in November 1978—first of when news broke on November 18 about the Jonestown cult mass suicide/massacre, which involved a number of former Bay Area residents—and then of when Milk and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down in San Francisco City Hall on November 27, 1978. Their assailant was a City Hall colleague, Dan White, a disgruntled, anti-gay supervisor who had just resigned his seat. I remember watching TV coverage of then-Board of Supervisors president and now-U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein announcing the deaths of Milk and Moscone and then, that evening, the spontaneous candlelight march from the Castro district to City Hall, which spanned the width of Market Street, and extended a mile and a half long.

Many of these events are covered in Milk, starring Sean Penn as the former camera store owner who became the “Mayor of Castro Street.”

The cameo by the Walnut Creek school district comes during the part of the film that covers Milk’s campaign against the aforementioned Proposition 6. Just some background: Leading up to Proposition 6, there was a wave of anti-gay votes in municipalities around the United States, including a repeal of an anti-discrimination ordinance in Dade County, Florida, led by former beauty queen and orange juice pitchwoman Anita Bryant. Proposition 6 wound up on the California ballot with conservative state Senator John Briggs as the major figurehead behind it. In fact, the measure was known as the Briggs Initiative.

Milk, as depicted by Milk, saw defeating Proposition 6 as a milestone in the fight for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Briggs and Milk engaged in numerous debates around the state, during which Briggs maintained that homosexual teachers wanted to abuse and turn children gay. Milk responded with statistics compiled by law enforcement that provided evidence that pedophiles identified primarily as heterosexual, and dismissed Briggs' points with one-liner jokes: "If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around.”

Some of those debates took place in school gymnasiums, including one identified as belonging to the Walnut Creek School District, of which I’m a graduate and which my son currently attends. The scene is presented as a “Channel 7” live presentation of the debate between Milk and Briggs. And it is during this scene that Milk makes his joke about how "you’d have a helluva lot more nuns running around” if it was true that children would turn gay just by having an openly gay teacher.

As I said, I remember the Proposition 6 measure being on the ballot, and I remember Milk’s role in speaking out against it and his jubilant demeanor during an interview after learning of its defeat on election night in November 1978. I don’t remember Milk and Briggs coming to Walnut Creek to debate the proposition—not that they didn’t. I just don’t remember.

In the fall of 1978, I was student directing my Walnut Creek high school drama department’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s tender family comedy, Ah, Wilderness! Milk was killed the week we presented that show. Most noteworthy about that show: the student playing O’Neill’s idealized version of a father was a good friend of mine who, in the wake up Milk’s death, would come out openly as gay in our high school. He was harassed by some jocks on campus.

My friend never said so but it’s likely he was taking to heart and putting into action the words that Milk spoke in an electrifying speech he made on the night that Proposition 6 was defeated. In a few weeks, Milk would be dead.

Rob Epstein, who directed the 1984 Academy Award-winning documentary, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, quoted some of Milk’s speech in a recent column for the Huffington Post, in which he analyzes similarities between this year’s Proposition 8 debate and Milk’s anti-Proposition 6 campaign 30 years earlier:

"...to the gay community all over this state, my message to you is, so far a lot of people joined us and rejected Proposition 6, and we owe them something. We owe them to continue the education campaign that took place. We must destroy the myths once and for all, shatter them. We must continue to speak out, and most importantly, most importantly, every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is you must tell your immediate family, you must tell your relatives, you must tell your friends, if indeed they are your friends, you must tell your neighbors, you must tell the people you work with, you must tell the people in the stores you shop in (thunderous applause), and once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better."