Altadena Year in Education

It was in many ways a tough year for education in Altadena, with two schools shutting down at the end of the last school year, and a budget process that has resulted in millions of dollars in cuts at the Pasadena Unified School District.

, with kids being moved to other Altadena and Pasadena elementary schools.

Following the closures, there was something of a controversy after the without initially consulting residents, though shortly after a failed board vote on the plan, they called several public meetings to get input on the plans.

Last April a , was seated after defeating another Altadena resident Gene Stevenson in the election.  Two other incumbents were reelected, despite one, Tom Selinske, .

In June, the PUSD board Jon Gundry, a top official at the Los Angeles County Office of Education.  The hiring process eventually led to some infighting at the board, when the members of the board accused each other of behaving improperly during the process. 

The board ultimately for writing comments on Facebook about one candidate, while declining to pursue a discussing the details of a closed interview session with the Pasadena Weekly.

The district is also that started during 2011 that could result in the district moving from at-large electoral seats to each geographic sub-districts where each board member would be accountable to a smaller group of constituents.

On the site we also had some interesting discussions: first one about PUSD and .  There was also one about , one about , and one about the .