News

The West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) set conditions at its March 10 board meeting to start small cohorts for prioritized student groups on March 29 and pursue an overall shift to a hybrid model of distance and on-campus education for the week of April 12-19.

A 0.2-mile extension of the West County Trail was completed, Sonoma County Regional Parks announced on March 17. The addition connects a gap in the Forestville section of the trail along Highway 116.

At its meeting on March 24, the Cloverdale City Council is bringing the city’s discussion about water and sewer rates back to the table with a presentation from the city’s rate study consultant, is discussing updating the city’s governance manual and directing the mayor to support appointments made by the Sonoma County Mayors’ and Councilmembers’ Association City Selection Committee and Board of Directors. The meeting will begin its public session at 6 p.m. and the full agenda can be found here.

A return to partial in-person learning is nearly upon us, and the Cloverdale Unified School District Board of Trustees’ special meeting on Wednesday, March 24, finalizes some of the details for reopening. The board will also review reports about both the district and Measure H audits and hold a public hearing from contract negotiations between the district and the Teachers Association of Cloverdale for the 2020-21 school year. The school board will be meeting at 4:30 p.m. — a departure from its regular meeting time — and the meeting will be held via Zoom. For the full agenda, including the Zoom link, click here. 

At the start of the pandemic, Brandon McCall’s two tenants ran into financial trouble. One had surgery, and went on disability, which tightened his purse strings. The other, who works in entertainment, was laid off almost immediately, and wasn’t eligible for unemployment as a contract worker. With a limited amount of cash coming in, McCall said the two of them stopped paying rent on his Van Nuys condo in Los Angeles. 

As school districts across the county prepare to open their schools for in-person and hybrid learning, the county’s weekly COVID-19 discussion brought together a panel of health officials and teachers and school administrators to discuss school reopenings and the importance of keeping up with health guidelines.

In a year with a lot of bad financial news, the budget picture for the Windsor Unified School District has only gotten better, with the district moving from significant losses in earlier budget incarnations, to now a healthy reserve and budget surplus.

A majority of California’s largest school districts plan on bringing students and teachers back on campuses by early April, even as local officials grapple with state social distancing requirements they say are unclear and limit kids’ in-person options. 

Of all the existential threats California parks face — dwindling budgets, more visitors and costly, long-deferred maintenance — now comes a climate-driven conundrum: When is a park no longer a park? When its namesake trees disappear in a barrage of lightning strikes? When its very land is washed away by ever-rising seas?

The West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) has yet to determine the new name, mascot and colors of the consolidated high school launching this fall, but the school may have its principal by April 14, according to Director of Human Resources Mia Del Prete at the March 16 special board meeting.