Awareness was the key word organizers stressed at the Child Abuse Prevention Summit held on April 9 at the Holiday Inn Select in Bakersfield. The free to the public event, sponsored by Kern County Network for Children (KCNC), Kern Child Abuse Prevention Council and Kern County Department of Human Services, attracted approximately 550 local citizens in the fields of child abuse/neglect prevention seeking to enhance their skills and knowledge. One of the most anticipated documents released each year at the Summit is the "Kern County Network for Children Conditions of Children Report Card," an annual "barometer of where the county is in terms of health and well-being of children." KCNC Director Tom Corson said of this year’s report card, "It is a mixed message showing for instance a decline in substantiated reports of child abuse, but there were still approximately 1,700 children needing foster care. The report also shows that poverty, education, health and social development are areas we have to move to the forefront." KCNC Research Analyst Kim Silva, who compiled and wrote the report from information gathered by dozens of government, public and private agencies dealing with children, agreed there were many areas of optimism in the report and areas where work still needs to be done. More

Four Kern County schools that applied for California’s ''Distinguished Schools'' awards were honored in results released April 9by the California Department of Education (CDE). The schools designated "distinguished" are: Downtown Elementary School and Dr. Juliet Thorner School — Bakersfield City School District, Columbia Elementary School — Fruitvale School District, and Stockdale Elementary School — Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. They are four of the 343 California public elementary schools to be honored as ''Distinguished Schools'' May 16 at an awards ceremony at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. "These four schools are great examples of what can happen when dedicated, hardworking teachers and administrators take the extra steps to make sure their students have the best possible education," said Kern County Superintendent of Schools Larry E. Reider. "We know even more schools in the county will follow the excellent examples Downtown, Thorner, Columbia and Stockdale have set today to join that distinguished list in the years to come." More