Although a final decision won’t be made until January, efforts are being made to retain the program at Lynbrook, Homestead and Fremont high schools, and phase it out at Cupertino and Monta Vista. Chinese — whose projected cut at Homestead was also contested by the community — will continue to be offered at that school, while French would be phased out at Fremont High.

Since 2019, enrollment in Fremont Union’s world language offerings have dropped by 18%, while total enrollment has dropped by 12%, according to the district. Fremont Union also anticipates its student population will drop by more than 2,000 students in the next five years.

“As we face declining enrollment, it gives us all an opportunity to think about what our values are vis-à-vis education. What are our resources, and what are our priorities?” said Jeremy Kitchen, the Japanese teacher at Lynbrook High School. “I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, as declining enrollment looks like it’s going to continue. Districts all around this area are going to continue to be faced with difficult decisions.”

Fremont Union is far from alone. Across the Bay Area, schools are grappling with declining enrollment, along with the funding, resourcing and staffing implications of that trend. Over the last six years, the district has spent more than $2.4 million overstaffing dwindling classrooms, and has been forced to combine courses once enrollment dipped too low.

That was why initially, the district had proposed cutting one language from each of its five high schools, a change that would have culled the number of campuses offering Japanese programs from all five campuses to just two. After reviewing enrollment data this fall, however, the district said Lynbrook had “sufficient student sign ups” in all four language offerings for the programs to be maintained — and students like 12th grader Maya Swaminathan have been able to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Japanese is really what makes Lynbrook strong,” said Swaminathan. “Of course, we have the computer science and STEM departments. But what really makes Lynbrook stand out is Japanese.”

For years, Lynbrook and other high schools in the district have competed at the Japan Bowl, a national competition where students battle over Japanese language, culture and history. Since 2013, there have only been two years that a Fremont Union High School district team hasn’t won first prize in at least one of the competition’s three levels. And even in those missing years, Cupertino or Lynbrook high schools took every second prize except for one.

Last spring, students at Cupertino High took home first place in two of three of the Japan Bowl’s levels. Lynbrook earned second place in all three.

“Without a Japanese program at Cupertino, those students will be hard-pressed to participate in the Japan Bowl in the future,” said Andy Tsai, a former Japanese student at Lynbrook. “In an increasingly competitive admissions environment, it’s removing one avenue by which students can differentiate themselves and demonstrate academic and extracurricular excellence.”

Still, that decision isn’t final. The proposed, secondary plan is “tentative,” district spokesperson Rachel Zlotziver said, and pending verification of next year’s enrollment projections in December. The following month, the district will then inform schools of their course offerings for the next academic year.

Despite the letdown of losing Japanese at Cupertino and Monta Vista, Ann Jordan, a retired Japanese language teacher in Los Gatos, said she felt like the district had taken the concerns of the community seriously.

“I don’t think they were expecting the level of scrutiny that came upon them (after the phase-out was first announced in April),” said Jordan. “But I do think they listened to the public and tried to come up with a less drastic solution.”

Over the course of the evening, students and teachers shouted down board president Peter Oshinski, threatened to go on a hunger strike, and reduced Superintendent Michael McLaughin to bargaining–and even begging–for the crowd to allow the meeting to continue.

It was a striking scene, as primarily Black and Brown students excoriated a mostly white board for dismissing a Black principal who they say served as a role model, made them feel safe, and turned San Leandro High School around.

According to parents at San Leandro High School, Richardson, affectionately known by the community as “R.O.,” was put on leave without explanation a few weeks ago. Then on Sunday night, parents were informed by email that Richardson “would not be returning to SLHS”.

About 200 people gathered at San Leandro City Hall Wednesday night for the board meeting to protest the decision.

Prior to the meeting, the school board made available a five-page summary of their investigation into complaints against Richardson. The report, which was completed by an outside investigator, stated that the district received complaints about Richardson at the end of September that included “inappropriate communications with a subordinate regarding their personal life”, “failing to respond appropriately to student safety and disciplinary situations”, and possible deletion of student disciplinary records.

The report also detailed an incident in which Richardson allegedly made a threatening comment to a subordinate after they had submitted a formal complaint against him, and then tried to cover it up.

But students and teachers at the school board meeting on Tuesday expressed outrage that they had not been canvassed during the course of the investigation, framing it as a smear campaign by an aggrieved individual.

“We have a completely different narrative than what you heard,” said Jenna Hewitt King, a teacher at San Leandro High School.

At the outset, the meeting was relatively tame. Students sat holding signs in support of Richardson as the board read its mission statement. During public comment, dozens of students rose to share what their principal had meant to them, and to the school.

A longtime employee said Richardson had been the best administrator the school has had in 20 years. One student said Richardson had helped them when they were considering suicide. Another said he served as a father figure at the school.

As the board president struggled to pronounce the names of students called up to public comment, each praised Richardson as a man who took the time to get to know them personally.

Speakers were expected to have three minutes, but board president Oshinski said he would limit that to one minute due to the number of speakers. The meeting began to devolve when Oshinksi tried to enforce that time limit.

Students shouted down the board president when he tried to cut off one student, a sophomore. Soon after, when the room had broken out into chants of ‘No R.O., No Peace’, the superintendent left the room, and board president Oshinski called a 15-minute recess.

By the end of that recess, three San Leandro police officers had entered the building, and stood between the students and the board members. That did little to diminish the tension, as students booed their arrival and shouted through megaphones.

In one notable moment, Erica Viray Santos, a former teacher of the year, said she would also be going on a hunger strike until Dr. Richardson was reinstated.

“This right here is the investigation you should have done,” Viray Santos said, pointing to the crowd.

By the end of the evening, the superintendent was negotiating directly with the crowd, promising a statement about next steps by Friday, and a future meeting to discuss Dr. Richardson’s status.

“There’s a reason we go through our steps, it’s not just to protect the school district, it’s to protect people,” superintendent McLaughin said.

Students eventually left the building around 9:30 p.m.

Prior to the meeting, Aaleya Gaphoor, a parent at the school, said Richardson was an extremely well-regarded figure on campus. According to Gaphoor, Richardson had changed the culture of the school along with his twin brother, a co-principal. Together they established a zero tolerance policy for racism and policies founded in restorative justice that emphasized growth rather than punishment.

“They’ve worked so hard turning the school around over the course of 9 years,” Gaphoor said. “It would be a huge loss at San Leandro High if we lose him.”

According to June Everett of Colorado, campaign director for the clubs, the Satan Club was requested by a parent from Lebanon Elementary School as an alternative to the Good News Club that meets there. It’s sponsored by the Satanic Temple, an atheist group.

Everett said it’s the first Satan Club in Connecticut.

“This particular parent was aware of the Good News Club and did not feel comfortable sending her children to the Good News Club and was more closely aligned with our seven tenets and our beliefs,” she said.

“So she reached out and asked if we can start an After School Satan Club at her kid’s elementary school, and so we went through the process and we lined up our volunteers to help with the club. And of course, the school district understands constitutional law and the First Amendment, so they approved us without any issues.”

There’s nothing evil about the club, Everett said.

“We identify with the statement that is in John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ where Satan stands up to the adversary and is essentially the ultimate rebel standing up for the rights of the other angels and the other people,” she said.

“I always have to explain to the Christians that you don’t have a monopoly on Satan,” Everett said. “We understand that he is a triggering evil, terrible being in your biblical world. But in our world, we look to him differently. And we consider him the embodiment of standing up to radical authority.”

Satan represents the freedom of equal access for minorities and the marginalized, including LGBTQ people, “because a lot of those people have been kicked out of their church or abandoned by family,” Everett said.

The club “focuses on science, critical thinking, creative arts, and good works for the community,” according to its website. “While engaged in all of these activities, we want clubgoers to have a good time.”

Everett said the Satan Clubs only go where there are religious clubs operating.

“What we do is we wait for the Good News Club to return and then we can return, but we don’t want to be the only religious club operating on campus,” she said. “So we have to wait for basically their permission slips or their fliers to start coming out before we take action.”

Both the Bible-based Good News Clubs and the Satan Clubs are allowed in the schools because of a Supreme Court ruling, and the Lebanon superintendent has followed that ruling.

Superintendent Andrew Gonzalez issued a statement saying, “The Lebanon Public Schools … must allow community organizations to access school facilities, without regard to the religious, political, or philosophical ideas they express, as long as such organizations comply with the viewpoint-neutral criteria set forth in the (school board’s) policy. 

“Not everyone will agree with, or attend meetings of, every group that is approved to use school facilities,” the superintendent continued.

“However, prohibiting particular organizations from accessing our school buildings based on the perspectives they offer or express could violate our obligations under the First Amendment and other applicable law and would not align with our commitment to non-discrimination, equal protection, and respect for diverse viewpoints.” 

Everett said the Satanic Temple has a cybersecurity team that monitors the many threats that come in whenever they start a Satan Club, and there have been a number stemming from the Lebanon club, but none have ever been carried out.

“It gets interesting because the school’s first inclination is to shut us down after they receive a threat like that,” she said. “But what we learned when we won our case with a federal Trump-appointed judge in Pennsylvania this past year was that the First Amendment doesn’t cave to violence or threats.”

“They hate the fact that we teach the Bible to children in public schools,” he said. “They cannot remove us legally because we won a United States Supreme Court ruling in June 2001 that we have the right to be in public schools. … We cannot be discriminated against because of our viewpoint. And so they come at us in a variety of ways, creatively trying to shut us down. This is their latest strategy.”

That strategy has worked a couple of times, when a school district closed down all outside groups, which it has a right to do.

Esteves said the Satanic Temple has been operating the Satan Clubs since 2016, with little success.

“Their strategy has proven to fail, but they still continue to pursue the schools where we have Good News Clubs,” he said. “They’ve had very few clubs, they don’t get a lot of kids, they don’t last very long.”

Esteves said the Good News Clubs teach a better lesson to children. “They reject authority, right? And they kind of admire Satan as this supreme rebellious guy that rebelled against the authority, because he rebelled against God, is basically the point they’re trying to make,” he said. 

“We believe in authority,” he said. “We believe that God is the originator of authority and God establishes authority. For example, God gives mom and dad authority to raise their children and children need to be taught to honor authority. Honor the teacher in school, honor the parent, honor the police officer.” 

Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com. 

The proposal, by an organization called Californians for Financial Education, is the latest of several efforts to make personal finance a required subject.

“California has lagged behind the rest of the nation when it comes to personal finance education,” Tim Ranzetta, a financial executive in Palo Alto and founder of the organization, said in a statement. “Only 1% of California students are required to take a personal finance course as a condition for graduation compared to 48% nationally.”

Ranzetta’s proposal is also the latest of many efforts to add specific topics to California’s school curricula. Scarcely a year passes without new proposals to expand required coursework, either as standalone classes or woven into other required classes.

A new state law, dealing with media literacy exemplifies the latter. Beginning next year, the state’s schools must modify existing curricula to include skills in differentiating legitimate journalism from fake news meant to sway opinion, prompted by the proliferation of social media with dubious validity.

“I’ve seen the impact that misinformation has had in the real world — how it affects the way people vote, whether they accept the outcomes of elections, try to overthrow our democracy,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Menlo Park Democrat and the bill’s author, told CalMatters. “This is about making sure our young people have the skills they need to navigate this landscape.”

Another new requirement, this one for high school graduation, is ethnic studies, which the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom decreed after years of often heated debate over what should be taught and how.

The first draft of a model curriculum basically suggested that high school students be indoctrinated into believing that anyone in America not a white male is oppressed.

“At its core,” the draft initially declared, “the field of ethnic studies is the interdisciplinary study of race, ethnicity, and indigeneity with an emphasis on experiences of people of color in the United States,” adding, “The field critically grapples with the various power structures and forms of oppression, including, but not limited to, white supremacy, race and racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia, that continue to impact the social, emotional, cultural, economic, and political experiences of Native People(s) and people of color.”

In response to criticism, particularly from Jewish legislators who said the draft was antisemitic, it underwent two revisions before being adopted as a graduation requirement beginning in 2030. It still contains tinges of left-wing dogma.

New curriculum mandates might seem justified on a standalone basis. Conceptually, it’s laudable that students become more aware of California’s ethnic diversity, more adept at separating legitimate journalism from fake news, and better able to manage their personal finances.

California’s high school students are already required to pass the equivalent of 13 year-long classes in specific subjects for graduation, and a number of additional courses if they want to attend four-year colleges.

Adding new mandates takes class time away from basics that too many students are not already mastering. Financial or media literacy classes are pointless for kids who can’t do math or read at their grade level.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Smith, during the Nov. 14 school board meeting, addressed the suspension of a Corona del Mar Middle and High School student, allegedly for saying remarks deemed to be threatening, such as “Free Palestine,” to a classmate, according to social media posts circulating last week.

“We want to make sure people understand this district does not consider ‘Free Palestine’ hate speech,” Smith said. “We absolutely are committed to free speech; we’re committed to making sure every single square inch of this district is safe for our students.”

Smith did not go into details about what led to the student’s suspension, noting that district officials cannot disclose personal details about students and their disciplinary actions.

“People get upset, and I understand why. It’s because they don’t get all of the story. They read the media, and at best, that’s half right because we’re not able to comment,” said Smith. “We’re not able to share what’s happening, and it’s further frustrating for people.”

“We can only talk in generalities and hope that people understand and trust that we are doing our jobs,” he said.

Social media posts began circulating last week from multiple accounts, including one that purports to be the student’s aunt, that included a photo of a letter from Principal Jacob Haley saying the student had been suspended for three days.

“(The student) said threatening remarks to a young lady in class. He said ‘Free Palestine,’” the letter read. Those social media posts also detailed previous tensions that occurred between the student and others at school.

During Tuesday evening’s school board meeting, multiple parents and community members raised questions and concerns about what led to the suspension. Some commended the district’s actions; others questioned why a student would be suspended for voicing support for Palestine. One parent said she kept her child home from school on Monday, the day a protest had been planned but was ultimately canceled.

Those who spoke agreed, however, that children need to feel safe at school.

In an email to parents over the weekend, Newport-Mesa Unified said “information on social media and news media is an inaccurate and incomplete picture of what occurred.”

“We do not discipline students for solely exercising their right to free speech,” the district said. “However, to adhere to laws that protect student privacy, we are unable to share the full details of the incident.”

Board President Ashley Anderson read the statement in full at the start of Tuesday’s meeting.

The Southern California chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations, in a statement, condemned the suspension.

“This one-sided approach perpetuates Islamaphobia and anti-Palestinian sentiment, creating an adverse climate for American Muslims,” CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said.

The Jewish Federation of Orange County was also monitoring the situation, president and CEO Erik Ludwig said earlier this week.

“We appreciate the proactive measures taken to maintain a safe environment on campus for all students and staff,” said Ludwig.

Corona del Mar, a public middle and high school in Newport Beach, was the site of vandalism last month after swastikas were drawn on a locker. Then, school officials said they alerted police who were investigating the incident. There was no indication from either district employees or the social media posts Friday that the suspended student was involved in the vandalism.

For years, Macky told the judge, Shaw’s abuse — along with the crushing reality that university officials didn’t believe her and allowed him to continue treating female athletes despite complaints from dozens of women — damaged her health, her career and her relationships.

Then, in the courtroom Tuesday, she looked up from her notes and faced Shaw directly.

“Scott, you are and have always been a coward,” she said, recounting the moment to the Bay Area News Group on Wednesday. “Your job was to heal people, not betray their
trust.”

Macky, 34, said she was the last of five former athletes from the swimming, water polo, softball and soccer teams who appeared in person to tell the judge the impact of Shaw’s abuse, which included inappropriately touching her under her bra and underwear. Some choked back tears. A sixth spoke by phone. Dozens of others submitted letters to the court.

When they were finished, federal district Judge Beth Labson Freeman sentenced Shaw to the maximum penalty on the federal civil rights charges — two years in federal prison. From the bench, the judge also admonished the university for not properly handling the complaints when they first surfaced, Macky said.

Shaw’s sentencing ends a university scandal that erupted in 2020 and led to the resignation of school President Mary Papazian and Athletic Director Marie Tuite and forced the university to pay more than $5 million to more than two dozen former athletes Shaw treated. After the U.S. Department of Justice conducted its own investigation and issued a scathing report in 2021, the university also pledged to overhaul its Title IX office and put more protections in place to keep students safe.

In addition to the prison term, Shaw, 56, was ordered to serve one year of supervised release after he leaves prison and pay a $15,000 fine, prosecutors said in a news release. He must also pay restitution in an amount to be determined at a later date.

Shaw previously pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the women’s constitutional rights to bodily integrity when he sexually abused them under the guise of treatment.

As part of a plea agreement, Shaw admitted to violating the civil rights of four students who played on teams by touching their breasts and buttocks without their consent and without a legitimate medical purpose. Although the complaints against Shaw first surfaced among 17 swimmers in 2009, the five-year statute of limitations only allowed crimes to be charged that occurred after 2017.

The most recent abuse occurred in 2020 — more than a decade after SJSU swim coach Sage Hopkins first took his swimmers’ allegations to university officials. At the time, a cursory investigation was conducted by a campus human resources employee who sided with Shaw, believing his treatment was legitimate “trigger point therapy” and the women were overreacting.

The plea deal struck in August came nearly two weeks after a federal jury deadlocked in tense deliberations, leading a judge to declare a mistrial. All but one or two jurors believed he was guilty on the original six charges he faced.

“This sentence should send a clear message that public school officials who exploit their positions of authority to sexually abuse and harass students will face serious consequences for their actions,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate violations of civil rights committed under the guise of legitimate medical treatment by those in positions of power and trust,” she said.

Shaw, who served as the university’s director of sports medicine and head athletic trainer since 2008, voluntarily left the university in 2020 while a renewed investigation was under way and yet another young athlete came forward. He is collecting a state pensionof $2,371 a month.

It was only after the swim coach took his years-long crusade to oust Shaw to the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2019 that the scandal surfaced and a second investigation was launched.

After the six former athletes addressed the court, Shaw turned to the women in the courtroom and apologized, Macky said. He also explained himself in a letter to the court, saying he took “full responsibility” for his actions but said he never touched the women for sexual gratification.

“It took seeing the effect of my actions on the women who testified to make me truly realize that I did a terrible job explaining myself to student-athletes, respecting them and their boundaries, asking them for consent, or offering chaperones to help them be more comfortable with the treatment I was providing them,” Shaw wrote.

Shaw’s apology landed flat with the women in the courtroom, Macky said in an interview Wednesday.

“Accountability would be admitting to all the wrongdoings you did to every single student athlete, including those outside of the statute,” Macky said.

Facing Shaw in the courtroom 14 years after she was first abused, she said, was therapeutic.

Although “I’m certainly never going to forgive him for what he’s done,” she said, “in a way, I feel I’m getting some closure.”

Still, so much of the pain and trauma could have been avoided — especially for Shaw’s most recent victims, she said.

“These things shouldn’t have happened to them,” Macky said, “if the school would have taken us more seriously back in 2009 or 2010.”

Robert Patrick Raines, who used to administer the Shoreline Unified School District, could face a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for the misdemeanor conviction. The state penal code defines the crime as annoying or molesting a child.

Raines, 69, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 13.

Marin County sheriff’s deputies arrested Raines in June 2021 on suspicion of committing a felony offense, but that charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor. The 40-year education veteran, who was arrested just a few weeks before his scheduled retirement, was released on bail and said the allegations against him were “absolutely false.”

On Monday, the jurors reached their verdict about two hours after the three–day trial, which was presided by Judge Beth Jordan. Raines did not testify.

“The defendant was caught red–handed and he could not keep his hands to himself,” prosecutor Katie Panzer declared in her closing argument on Monday.

The trial centered on a 2021 incident when a district employee claimed she entered Raines’ office and saw him inappropriately touch her child. She had brought the child to work while classes were being conducted online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said Raines befriended the child, and they bonded over comic books and drawing cartoons in his office.

The woman testified that she believed that she saw Raines place his hand into her child’s shorts pocket. She recalled that he immediately stood up when she announced she was picking up the child.

“I felt completely blindsided,” she said.

The mother later asked the child about Raines’ conduct. The child said Raines placed his hand into the child’s pocket and rubbed the child’s upper leg. She contacted authorities after notifying a few coworkers and the incoming district superintendent, Adam Jennings.

Lauren Patton, a former Marin sheriff’s detective who investigated the case, testified that the child told her similar information about the pocket incident in a recorded interview.

On the day after the incident, the child’s mother confronted Raines in a recorded telephone call and repeatedly accused him of putting his hand in her child’s pocket.

“I feel like I trusted you,” she told Raines in the phone call, which was played in court.

Raines replied that he did not recall placing his hand into the child’s pocket.

The child testified on Thursday, saying Raines reached into a pocket and touched a buttock.

Following his arrest, Raines was placed on administrative leave by the Shoreline school board.

On Thursday, jurors heard about allegations of lewd conduct against Raines when he was principal of Wilson Elementary School in Petaluma during the 2006–2007 school year.

Ellen Lesher, a retired Wilson Elementary teacher, testified that she confronted Raines about having students sit on his lap in his office, and she stated that he broke his promise to stop the practice. She also spoke about an incident where he was accused of applying an ointment to a poison oak rash on a student’s genital area.

“He found it to be humorous, he thought it was funny,” Lesher said about the defendant’s reaction when she addressed the poison oak allegation.

The former Wilson student, now 27, testified on Monday that Raines seemed to be a friend. The witness reported spending time with Raines in his office as a fourth-grader and sitting on the principal’s lap when invited to do so.

The witness said Raines applied calamine lotion to a genital rash. The student came to school with the medication and had it applied at the school office.

“I didn’t think it was a problem, I was just a little kid,” the witness said.

No criminal charges were filed against Raines for the allegations at Wilson Elementary School, but the prosecution used the case to argue there was a pattern to how Raines treated children he showed an unusual interest in.

During his closing argument, defense attorney Charles Dresow said the prosecution failed to prove that Raines was motivated by an abnormal or sexual interest in a child. He said there was no presented evidence to show his client’s mental state.

In her rebuttal, Panzer concluded that a “normal person” like the Marin victim’s mother was troubled by Raines’ conduct, and that the child testified in court about the buttocks contact.

After the verdict was read in court, Panzer complimented the accusers for their bravery in testifying.

“The jury weighed the overwhelming evidence that led to the right conclusion,” Panzer said outside the courtroom.

Dresow declined to comment about the verdict after the hearing.

The Shoreline Unified School District is a K-12 school district that serves about 500 students and operates six campuses in western Marin and Bodega Bay. Raines was a Petaluma resident at the time of his arrest.

Pink will give away 2,000 banned books at her South Florida shows this week in partnership with the literary and free expression advocacy group PEN America.

Fans who attend the Miami and Sunrise, Florida, stops of the singer-songwriter’s “Trustfall Tour” Tuesday and Wednesday will receive a copy of some of the books that have appeared on PEN America’s Index of Banned Books.

“I’m a voracious reader, and I’m a mom of two kids who are also voracious readers,” Pink said during a livestream on Instagram on Sunday.  “And I can’t imagine my own parents telling me what my kids can and cannot read, let alone someone else’s parents, let alone someone else that doesn’t even have children that are deciding what my children can read.”

Fans will receive copies of “The Family Book” by Todd Parr, “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman, “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, or one of the books from the “Girls Who Code” series by the nonprofit that shares the same name.

The singer said she decided to join PEN America and local bookstore, Books & Books, to give away books because she wanted to highlight the rising wave of book bans in Florida.

“It’s especially hateful to see authorities take aim at books about race and racism and against LGBTQ authors and those of color. We have made so many strides toward equality in this country and no one should want to see this progress reversed,” Pink said in a statement shared by PEN America.

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, said she was thankful the singer decided to join the cause during the livestream Sunday.

PEN America says its data showed that Florida had the highest number of book ban cases, more than 1,400, and the largest number of school districts, 33, removing books in the last school year.

The 24,000 square foot-library, which has been out of commission since 2021 when operations moved into the Campbell Community Center, will be torn down to its steel frames and rebuilt on the same footprint into a new, modernized space that is estimated to cost $22.3 million.

In September, the Campbell City Council awarded the project to Benicia-based company, Lathrop Construction Associates, Inc., and last week, city and library officials held a ground breaking ceremony. The new facility is expected to open summer 2025.

City Manager Brian Loventhal said the need for a new library was identified in 2013 as city officials examined what facilities needed a facelift. Those costs ballooned to upward of $180 million, but the library, he said is the “focus of our community.”

“It is a place of education, it’s a place for children to learn and feel welcome, it’s a place for seniors to go and it’s a place for people to meet and socialize,” he said. “The programs and the functions within that space are different in a new library than they ever were in the past. In the past, it was focused on stacks and stacks of books, it’s now more focused on interactions and people spaces.”

The new library is being funded by Measure O — a $50 million bond measure approved by nearly 70% of Campbell voters in 2018. The city has also received outside grant funding to aid in renovation costs. Measure O will also help fund the construction of a new police building that will house 9-1-1 dispatch and an emergency operation center that is up to the latest fire and earthquake codes.

“We look forward to welcoming the residents of Campbell to the bright, open and fully renovated library they deserve,” she said in a statement.

Susan Gore, the president of the Friends of Campbell Library, a nonprofit that started in 1975 to support the library, said a few attendees were “almost in tears of happiness” during last week’s ground breaking ceremony.

“This is such an important community asset,” she said. “There will a lot of people from the community eager to see this library being built.”

The Friends of Campbell Library is currently raising money for new equipment and to help enhance library services when it opens in a few years.

Newport-Mesa Unified Assistant Superintendent Kerrie Torres confirmed the student was suspended for three days from classroom instruction starting on Nov. 13.

Torres and other district employees reached Friday evening said they could not go into further details about what caused the suspension.

But a social media post that purports to be from the student’s aunt included a photo of a letter signed by Principal Jacob Haley that said: “(The student) said threatening remarks to a young lady in class. He said ‘Free Palestine.’” Those social media posts also detailed previous tensions that occurred between the student and others at school.

Corona del Mar High was the site of vandalism last month after swastikas were drawn on a locker.

Newport-Mesa Unified supports students’ free speech, but it “will not tolerate hateful speech in our schools, especially not hate speech that incites others to engage in negative behavior,” said Annette Franco, a district spokesperson, in an emailed statement Friday evening.

“We have an obligation to maintain a safe learning environment while respecting students’ rights to speak on issues,” the statement said. “We take our obligations to students seriously, and because of this, there is an expectation for students to engage in respectful dialogue for change, not hateful speech that is directed toward a specific student population.”

The suspended student’s family could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

In the case of the reported vandalism last month, school officials said they alerted police who were investigating the incident. There was no indication from either district employees or the social media posts Friday that the suspended student was involved in the vandalism.

Franco said last month that the vandalism and an increase in digital hate speech prompted the school to form an interfaith council made up of students, parents, community members and local religious leaders to discuss the incident and encourage positive dialogue around culturally sensitive issues going forward.

Corona del Mar is a public middle and high school in Newport Beach.