unified school

As promised during a recent Lake Tahoe Unified School Board meeting, the bleachers at South Tahoe High started to be dismantled the day after graduation.

Its been a four year project getting the design, bids and approval to build new bleachers to replace the 49 year old ones.

The new bleachers will have 917 seats, 12 wheelchair areas and a three-room coach/press box area.

The planned completion date is August 8.

The Lake Tahoe Unified School District unveiled their new website which will provide schools, staff and the public with more information than has ever been made available on line before.

One can now navigate through the district site and land on each school's web page, visit departments, school programs, accountability report cards as well as community news and resources.

The site can also be translated into ten languages. Users simple select the arrow on the top right side.

Enjoying a nice, quiet and boring life is what Dennis Sarosik is looking forward to after wrapping up his 34 year career with the Lake Tahoe Unified School District next month. "I'm going to make every day a Saturday and a Sunday," Sarosik said.

When asked what he'd like to be remembered for, Sarosik quickly answered. "My signature experience was working with Yvonne Larson on bringing Sports Medicine to the school." He said that seeing the new department function as it is today is "beyond cool."

After working a total of 637 1/2 years for the Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD), 25 teachers, staff members and administrators were recognized in a ceremony Tuesday evening.

LTUSD and the Lake Tahoe Educational Foundation hosted the reception.

Certified Retirees:

Betsy Benavidez, Teacher - 24 years
Karen Boyer, Speech Therapist - 20 years
Howard Coleman, Teacher - 32 years
Beth Delacour, Principal - 32 years
Madeline Fernald, Teacher - 16 years
Joann Hernandez, School Counselor - 15 years
Deborah Kushner - 31 years

The Barton Foundation board and staff have approved to up the ante and will give $50,000 in grants and donations to improve community health.

Every year, Barton Health provides funds for programs and organizations that will positively impact the health of the South Lake Tahoe community, particularly those that benefit underserved populations. In this grant cycle, Barton Health will award up to $30,000 in grants and $20,000 will fund special community projects throughout the year as determined by the Community Health Action Committee (CHAC).

Barton Health, Tahoe Center for Orthopedics, and Lake Tahoe Unified School District are offering free sports physicals for student athletes.

South Shore students can receive medical and orthopedic screenings from Barton Health’s Tahoe Center for Orthopedics on Monday, June 1 at the South Tahoe High School Blue Gym.

The sports physicals start at 5:30 p.m. with the schedule as follows:

5:30 p.m.: South Tahoe High & Middle School athletes
6:00 p.m.: Pop Warner athletes
6:30 p.m.: Whittell High & Middle School athletes

Up until the 1970s and 80s, people with severe mental illness were housed in institutions by the hundreds of thousands. Replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services became the norm, and it created a whole new set of issues.

Maple Creek Elementary students learned the value of a dime Friday.

For collecting $4,402 — the equivalent of 44,020 dimes —for the Leon S. Peters Burn Center, they got a wave and a smile from Pete Dern, the Fresno fire captain who is recovering from severe burns he got while battling a blaze.

“It made his day,” said Dern’s wife, Kelly Dern, who accepted a check from the students for the burn center.

“His face lit up,” said Dern’s daughter, McKenzie Dern.

"This is astounding and I have not seen anything to this degree in the years I've lived here." Those were South Lake Tahoe City Councilwoman JoAnn Conner's words after hearing how several agencies will work together to make the Middle School Connectivity Plan a reality.

Her sentiments were echoed by her fellow council members and the mayor after seeing how multiple agencies can leverage their funds and plan together for a network of connecting trails through South Lake Tahoe that will keep pedestrians and bikers off unsafe roadways.

An Opening Day celebration is planned at the South Tahoe Little League Complex this Saturday, April 25th. A parade and ribbon cutting ceremony are planned prior to the start of scheduled games. The parade will start on the street next to the South Tahoe Middle School tennis courts at 9:00 a.m. with a planned parade path to follow Lyons Avenue to Rufus Allen, and into the major’s field by way of the snack shack entrance. Parking will not be available at South Tahoe Middle School due to the eWaste collection event. Parking is available along Rufus Allen Blvd.

Tokay High School (Lodi) football coach and athletic director Louis Franklin announced Monday he will be stepping down at the end of the school year after being offered “an opportunity to join Lake Tahoe Unified School District.”

Franklin, a 2000 Tokay graduate, has been the school’s head football coach since 2007 and the athletic director since 2010, when he replaced Jeff Johnston.
Franklin was 38-46 as Tokay’s head coach, including an 0-4 record in the playoffs, but finished with three winning seasons.

In 1981, Dr. Gregory Bergner opened Tahoe Family Physicians along with Dr. Brooks Martin and Dr. Paul Rork. The popular physicians delivered hundreds of South Lake Tahoe babies and kept many in the community healthy in a family friendly atmosphere.

Bergner is set to retire on April 14 after 34 years of helping the South Shore, not only as a doctor but as someone who actively sponsored, volunteered, and participated in many local organizations.

The Lake Tahoe Community College and Lake Tahoe Unified School District Boards of Trustees will hold a joint meeting on Tuesday, March 24.

During the meeting, two people from the Los Rios Community College will provide an overview of "Get Focused, Stay Focused!" a career and educational course that LTUSD officials hope to bring to South Tahoe High next year.

The 3rd annual Dancing With the Tahoe Stars is quickly becoming a community favorite. A capacity crowd filled MontBleu Casino Resort to watch ten local celebrities paired with professional dancers vie for the mirror ball trophy.

South Lake Tahoe teacher Lisa McDaniel and Lake Tahoe Unified School Board Member Ginger Nicolay-Davis each ended up with the top honors in the first ever tie. The tiebreaker combined judge's scores, ticket donations and crowd noise.

When Sue Novasel won November's El Dorado County Supervisorial race it left a vacant seat on the Lake Tahoe Untiifed School Board (LTUSD). A Notice of Vacancy was filed, encouraging locals to apply to fill the trustee position for the remaining 22 months of Novasel's term. At Tuesday's LTUSD School Board meeting, the opening was filled.

The Lake Tahoe Unified School Board has been without their fifth board member this year, ever since the resignation of Sue Novasel, who is the new County Supervisor. The district has been gathering applications from interested residents from Trustee Area #1 over the past month and five candidates are now up for the position.

Lake Tahoe Unified School District has been chosen to be one of 12 school districts in the state to be featured in the Larry King hosted show on FOX Business Network. In View.

Superintendent Dr. Tarwater was contacted by the show's Senior Producer about the opportunity to be part of the educational television program. The show will be a special edition, half-hour program focusing on the state of education.

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced a dramatic 20 percent drop in the number of students expelled in 2013-14 and a 15.2 decline in the number of students suspended. This marks the second year in a row of declines in both areas.

Numbers at Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) follow the same trend.

After several years of declining enrollment, Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) has seen more students sitting the seats of local schools over the past two years.

The lowest enrollment figures were for the school year 2012-2013. When school ended in June of 2013 there were 3,793 students in South Lake Tahoe's eight schools.

When school started back up in the Fall of 2013 there were 3,855 students enrolled. An additional 26 students started off this school year.

High winds kept emergency personnel busy throughout the day on Thursday. Downed power lines and trees wrecked havoc on the South Shore where many residents were without power for much of the day and evening.

A 200 ft tall tree fell at St. Theresa's Catholic Church just before noon. A photo of the tree barely missing the statue of St. Theresa in front of the church made it to the national news via Associated Press according to Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District Marshall Eric Guevin. Most of the damage was to the tree.

Like many visitors to South Lake Tahoe, Steve and Janet Wozniak love visiting our mountain paradise and come to town as often as possible. It was on one of their frequent trips to the Hard Rock Cafe inside Harvey's Lake Tahoe that they met Kimberly Templeton, Lake Tahoe Sales Manager for the chain and a friendship formed.

Wozniak, co-found of Apple Computer, and his wife Janet were in town Wednesday night to help raise funds for Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD).

Page & Sage has been serving students in the Lake Tahoe Unified School District for three years, giving children in need a backpack of food and a book to take home over the weekends when they don't receive free lunches and breakfasts at school.

When Liberty Utilities in South Lake Tahoe found out about the program they began a food and donation drive in order to help fill the program's shelves. They gathered boxes and cans of food and almost $300 in cash.

The Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) was awarded over $150,000 to look into providing safer, more walkable and bikeable off highway routes around South Tahoe Middle School (STMS), Bijou Park and Lake Tahoe Community College. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) awarded the grant as part of their $500,000 "On Our Way" program grants.

Another public workshop to get feedback from the community will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 19, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the STMS Multi-purpose room.

Almost 2,000 elementary students from South Lake Tahoe completed the WeCan! fitness and nutritional program on Friday, October 10.

Students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade at Bijou, Lake Tahoe Environmental Magnet, Sierra House and Tahoe Valley Elementary Schools participated in the four week program.

The students participated in weekly challenges that focused on fitness and nutrition goals. Challenges included eating fruits and vegetables of a particular color, drinking more water, stretching, exercising and trying new healthy foods.