The district is now in year 2 of the Digital Learning Initiative (DLI). This year all 9th and 10th graders at the comprehensive schools, and all students at Lloyde and CVISS have a take-home Chromebook; we have deployed over 3,200 student Chromebooks! We are continuing our partnership with the Sprint 1Million Project to provide free high-speed Internet hot spots to students who don’t have Internet at home. Currently, we have 548 hotspots available through this program. The district has deployed GoGuardian software to better monitor, filter, and control student Internet access on the Chromebook, and also to allow teachers greater monitoring and control over student computers when in class. Our professional development program is growing to help teachers effectively utilize 1:1 Chromebooks to improve student engagement and to provide a greater variety of learning opportunities through a blended learning instructional approach. The voter-approved local parcel tax funded the initiative, so there was no impact on the general fund, and it will save the district money in the long-run by phasing out textbooks.

Tuesday, September 18th marked our 3rd Annual Community Partner Breakfast, in partnership with the South Bay Workforce Investment Board. This year's breakfast proved to be a huge success with over 100 business representatives in attendance! Attendees watched a presentation on how businesses can connect with our career academies and career technical education pathways, a panel discussion including current business partners, and the Platinum Partner Awards. The attendees then had 40 minutes to interact directly with our academy students during the Academy Table Talk time. We are excited to watch these new partnerships develop this year!

Hawthorne engineering student, Alex Lopez, was tasked with a project for NASA during his time in their on-site internship program, NASA Hunch. Hawthorne is one of only forty schools nationwide participating in the manufacturing portion of the program. The Hawthorne High School of Engineering and Manufacturing (HHSME) along with industry partners and alumni, began working to create successful products that are capable of passing a rigorous inspection before being accepted as flight parts for the International Space Station (ISS). Lopez, along with a small group of engineering students and mentors from the industry, worked meticulously to create 10 flight parts. All 10 of Lopez's parts passed the NASA inspection and have been accepted as flight parts that are now in the process of being assembled as part of a Hand Rail System that will be flying to the ISS in a future mission. As a result of Lopez’s hard work and ensuring his parts exceeded expectations, HHSME has the pleasure to announce that NASA has requested 50 additional parts!

Lawndale High School physics teacher, Ms. Maria Genota, was named Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) Teacher of the Year. Genota was selected for her exemplary dedication, compelling classroom practices, positive accomplishments and professional commitment. LACOE selects the top 16 teachers out of the 72,000 teachers within the county. Genota prides herself on setting up programs that provide her physics students opportunities to meet and collaborate with engineers and implementing new strategies in her classroom.