A hypothesis about corrosion had a golden outcome for Stockdale High School students Nicholas Okita and Edith Teng who became the school’s first-ever Science Fair state champions and the only two from Kern County to earn gold medals at the annual event held at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on May 20. It was quite an achievement for Okita and Teng as 953 of the best science students from 359 schools throughout the State met in competition for awards totaling over $50,000. Okita, who will be a senior in the fall, had a lot to smile about as he received his medal. "This was my fifth year making it to the state finals, and I was really, really shocked to win," Okita said. "You have no idea what it takes to get this far." Equally shocked was Teng because this was and will be her only entry in the competition. Teng moves onto Rice University in the fall where she plans to carry a Biology and Pre-Med double major. "What got me interested was the idea of exploring something I had never been exposed to," Teng said. "We discovered some really unexpected conclusions that even kind of shocked the experts. That made it as much fun as winning." What scientific adventure did the two embark on that resulted in winning the gold — a project called, "The Effect of Steel Exposure on Corrosion Rates in the Oil Field Environment." Their research was doubly satisfying. It earned the $500 first place cash award in the Chemistry Division, plus, the two split another $300 for being recipients of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (Los Angeles Basin) Superior Technical Achievement Award. More

Court and Community Schools, operated by the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, received a six year accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) on May 20 in effect until June 30, 2014. WASC’s Accrediting Commission for Schools granted the accreditation after studying the report written by its visiting committee which studied the various school sites and noted the stellar aspects of the schools’ programs. All schools will be asked to submit a written progress report on implementing a school wide action plan at the end of the third year of accreditation. In its accreditation report WASC said of the KCSOS Court and Community Schools programs that they "brought unity to court and community." Kern County Superintendent of Schools Larry E. Reider said of the accreditation, "Please extend my congratulations, and deep gratitude, to our staff. This is a huge, monumental step for our office, and for alternative education programs around the state. I know that our programs will be the standard by which all others around the state will be measured." KCSOS Court and Community Schools offer options that improve student safety, encourage learning, reduce classroom disruption and help reduce Kern County’s dropout rate. Campuses are located on 16 sites in Bakersfield, Delano, Kernville, Lake Isabella, Mojave, Ridgecrest and Taft. During the 2006-07 school year (the most recent figures), KCSOS provided education to 9,112 students who were incarcerated, in juvenile court programs, expelled, on probation or at serious risk of dropping out of school. More