Morning Report: A South County School’s Winning Formula
EM - News Moderator 
Don’t sound the death knell for American education just yet. School success stories are out there. You just have to find them.
Our South County reporter Jim Hinch found one such story at Southwest Middle School in San Ysidro.
The school serves some of San Diego County’s highest needs students and grapples with the usual post-pandemic challenges.
Yet, Southwest Middle is on a winning streak. Test scores are up. Chronic absenteeism is down. And kids show up to school early and stay late.
Last year, Hinch visited the school to report on the retirement of an award-winning mariachi teacher who helped put the school on the map.
Hinch checked in a year later to see how things are going. Judging by the full house at a recent school-wide Fall Festival, the school – and its new music teacher – remain on an upswing.
Kids and their families packed the campus to hear performances by multiple student music ensembles – beginning and advanced mariachi bands, a steel drum group and two rock bands. The cheer squad danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Students staffed a farmers market offering produce grown on campus.
A student-designed Haunted Trail featured recreations of famous scary movie scenes that doubled as engineering challenges. One particularly immersive room included a lifelike pirate ship made of stacked metal folding chairs, brown construction paper, cotton sheets and a discarded bed frame found on the street by one of the school’s science teachers.
What’s the school’s secret for keeping even the most school-averse students engaged?
San Diego Zoo’s New Parking Rates
The San Diego Zoo released new parking rates this week for its historically free lot.
According to the zoo’s website, members can continue to park for free and non-members will pay a $16 flat rate for the day.
Members can register their vehicle online through a parking portal with a valid membership number found on their physical or digital membership card. Non-members can pay the flat rate at any of the kiosks in the lot, or on their phone.
Last week we reported it remains unclear what the city’s cut will be with paid parking at the zoo. The zoo parking accounts for $3 million baked into the city’s budget revenue.
In Other News
- San Diego City Councilmember Raul Campillo told the Union-Tribune he wants to make it harder for the city to raise fees for services such as trash collection. Campillo’s proposal would require a cost analysis before residents vote on such proposals and would make it easier to protest higher fees.
- San Diego’s College Area could see major changes under a new land-use plan approved last week by a City Council committee. The plan calls for higher-density housing, expanded public transit, new bike lanes and a town center area near SDSU. Opponents say the plan, which requires full City Council approval, is too ambitious and raises fire risks. (Union-Tribune)
- A state traffic safety program has awarded a $400,000 grant to the San Diego Sheriff’s Office to reduce drunk driving. The grant will fund DUI checkpoints and other initiatives. (KPBS)
- Why is downtown San Diego’s Spreckels Theater still closed after shutting its doors in 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic? Times of San Diego identified a possible culprit: Private equity.
- San Diego’s brand new men’s soccer team marches on. San Diego FC beat Minnesota United 1-0 Monday, advancing to the semifinals in the MLS Cup playoffs. (Union-Tribune)
- Gramma, the San Diego Zoo’s beloved 141-year-old tortoise, died last week after battling a degenerative bone disease, the zoo announced. In a statement, zoo officials called Gramma “a quiet and constant presence at the zoo, a witness to history, a beloved icon, and an extraordinary ambassador for her species.” (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch and Mariana Martínez Barba. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.
The post Morning Report: A South County School’s Winning Formula appeared first on Voice of San Diego.
