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Point Loma High School teacher Tchaiko Kwayana speaks up, speaks out and speaks often.
“I think I have the longest record of attempts at administrative transfers of any teacher in the San Diego City Schools,” Kwayana says in this weekend’s Q&A feature. “I question things. Not rudely. But we’re not supposed to do that.”
That’s not all she does. For more than 20 years, Kwayana has told her students to tackle an Identity Project, in which they study their background, family and culture.
“I wanted them to know who they were,” she says. “And I wanted the chance for parents to write so they could begin to talk about their students. The youngsters are so estranged; in some houses they had their own television sets in their own rooms and nobody ever spoke to anybody.”
In other news:
- Two San Diego school members are not going to get a gold star from the district’s teachers union after their comments this week. As we explain, one has declared “that the teachers union sacrificed its youngest, least senior members to minimize the pain for more senior teachers.”
- I joked in the Morning Report earlier this week that we could give La Jolla a new name: University City North. (I went to school at UCSD, and we thought of it as part of La Jolla, to the north and northwest of University City.)
“This explains why La Jolla has become a joke,” writes a miffed reader from Lakeside, who recalls how the village by the sea stretched “east of Interstate 5, all the way to 805, and in some cases, beyond.”
What to do about this great controversy over where the upscale enclave begins and ends? Let us join hands, unite across this great city of ours and send the world a single message: We’re all La Jollans now.
Elsewhere:
- The San Diego City Attorney’s office has decided it won’t go after The Linkery, a North Park restaurant, for charging a service fee instead of allowing patrons to give tips. (U-T)
- Lindbergh Field will get some of those controversial full-body scanners that give screeners a view of body parts that you might not want them to see. Where’s a plastic surgeon when you need one?
What We’ve Learned This Week
And Then There Were None … But Wait!: San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye says she won’t run against longtime GOP County Supervisor Ron Roberts. Now it looks like the board of supervisors could remain all-Republ…
Wait, hold everything! (Don’t hold that, though. Thank you.) Breaking Friday afternoon news: the conservative blog SDRostra.com reports that school board member Shelia Jackson has decided to run against Roberts after all. (She’d earlier bowed out.) The U-T confirms that Jackson is in.
The City’s Up a Certain Creek Again: Remember how San Diego patched its budget to fill a $179 million hole and then faced a $77 million gap? Hold onto your hat. Now a brand-new shortfall is looming, and it might be $40 million. Or $60 million, maybe.
This Is Why They Call Them Swindles: The massive North County housing scam that we uncovered last year is costing federal taxpayers a bundle.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Also, Wrong: Our new Fact Check feature had a busy week. We declared a councilman’s layoff numbers to be “false”. We also handed out a “huckster propaganda” verdict.
Best. Retirement. Ever. Four hundred former San Diego municipal employees made an average of more than $95,000 in pension proceeds last year. In total, they took in more than the city’s library budget.
The Coffee Collection (stories to read over a cup of java):
Burma Wave: More refugees are coming to San Diego from Burma than anywhere else except Iraq. We tell their story.
Kindergartners Meet ‘Seminar Dialogue’: At San Diego’s John Muir School, teachers try to avoid lectures, and kids don’t raise their hands before speaking. What’s going on?
Quote of the Week: “It doesn’t say anything negative in terms of the judge.” — District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, discussing her office’s boycotts of judges and stretching credulity on KPBS-FM.