Page 12 August 23, 2012 State On Verge of Approving Inglewood Loan, Takeover Courtesy of the Office of Senator history and allow staff to get back to the Roderick D. Wright business of educating the next generation Smile, you are on candid camera! My In the final weeks of the legislative session, of community leaders.” 11-month-old Aidan showing off his cute teeth! Provided by Becky Cheng. a measure by Senator Roderick D. Wright After fighting for years to keep the district (D-Inglewood) to aid the ailing Inglewood afloat, board members voted in July to seek Unified School District has made its way an emergency loan from the state. While the through all of the necessary committee votes County’s analysis points to several factors and is awaiting a final vote of the California of financial mismanagement, the district State Assembly. was also besieged by a range of factors Senate Bill 533 will provide the financially including declining enrollment combined While on Gibraltar in April 2012, we were treated to closeups struggling IUSD with an emergency loan of with a reduction in per-pupil funding, as well of the Barbary Apes (actually they are Macaques).This one up to $55 million, while triggering a state as the need to tap reserve funds to maintain was appearing to casually ignore me, while still looking out for a thrown peanut. Photo taken by Jon Olson with takeover of district administration. A budget programs for which state funding is deferred. a Panasonic DMC-FZ35. analysis conducted by the Los Angeles County A plan for recovery will be devised in Office of Education indicates IUSD is deficit coordination with the County Office Fiscal spending and will be out of cash for routine Crisis and Management Assistance Team operations by March of 2013, while some (FCMAT). board members have suggested they will run The recovery plan will not focus solely on out by December of 2012. the financial health of the district, but on its Based on the principle that providing a overall health. The appointed administrator Gerald Saiz checking out the corn quality education is a fundamental goal will also work with staff and the governing for dinner! Provided by Nancy Saiz. that should not be jeopardized, SB 533 will board to improve student achievement, provide IUSD the funds needed to continue attendance and parental involvement, while operations, while causing the district to be lowering the drop-out rate and attracting and taken over by the State Superintendent of retaining quality teachers. Public Instruction.The Superintendent will – The district is not getting a “blank check.” Readers send us your photos! Do you have a favorite photo? in consultation with the Los Angeles County Funds will only be disbursed as deemed An old yearbook photo? Glamour Shot? Baby photo? We want them. Superintendent – appoint a state administrator necessary by FCMAT and the appointed state we will pick a “Staff Favorite” and the winner will get a $25.00 gift certificate to exercise the powers and authorities of the administrator. The administrator will remainWe will accept only one photo, per person, every month. Once a month, from one of our advertisers. district’s governing board for a minimum in place until performance under the recovery of one year. plan has demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Email your photos to: Management@heraldpublications.com. “The students of Inglewood deserve to State Superintendent that future compliance We will only accept emailed photos and they must be in jpg form. receive the same quality education afforded with the plan can be expected. every student in this state, one that is not IUSD will have twenty years to repay the Picking the Right Hospital failings not of their making,” said Wright. of state administration of the District. Augustloan and will also be responsible for the costsinterrupted or marginalized by financial for You Inglewood Unified School District’s recent both houses of the Legislature. •31 is the final day for passage of bills in“This loan will close a painful chapter in the By David Sayen how often a hospital uses imaging procedures If you’re having a medical emergency, the best such as CT scans or MRIs on patients with thing you can do is get to the nearest hospital. Medicare. That’s important because some But if you need non-emergency treatment, imaging tests carry potential health risks, • Diabetes Care and you have time to plan, how do you find including unnecessary exposure to radiation. a hospital that best fits your needs? Hospital Compare also lets you read the A good place to start is the Medicare responses of patients to a detailed questionnaire •Women’s Health website, www.Medicare.gov. There you’ll that asks about their experiences and level find an easy-to-use tool that has quality-of- of satisfaction. • Prenatal Care care and patient- satisfaction information on The questions include how well doctors more than 4,000 hospitals around the country and nurses communicated with patients, and that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. whether patients’ pain was well controlled. underserved communities throughout Los • Pediatricsin medicallyBuilding Healthy Lives The tool is called Hospital Compare. We Patients also are asked if the hospital kept Angeles County for over 40 years have a similar, user-friendly tool – Nursing their room clean, and whether they received • Dental Care Home Compare – to find skilled nursing information in writing about what symptoms homes. More than 17,000 skilled nursing or health problems to look out for after they facilities in the United States are listed. were discharged. Appointments: •General Adult information to both tools. overall hospital experience on a scale of (310) 802-6170 MedicineFinally, patients are asked to rate their We recently redesigned and added more Compare have two purposes. One is to help hospital to a relative or friend. www.sbfhc.org • And morezero to 10 – and if they’d recommend thatHospital Compare and Nursing Home people make good decisions about where they Nursing Home Compare shows the get health care. By making quality-of-care results of health inspections and provides information easily accessible to the public, we information on staffing, including the also hope to encourage hospitals and skilled number of nurses, physical therapists, nursing homes to improve their performance. and nursing assistants at each facility. You don’t have to be enrolled in Medicare It also has a variety of measures that describe to use Hospital Compare or Nursing Home the quality of care in skilled nursing homes, Compare – anyone can access them. such as the frequency of pressure sores and Both tools give you a good snapshot of urinary incontinence. the overall quality of care at various local And we’re now posting the full text of hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. our inspection reports, so you can read in Hospital Compare shows, for example, detail about any problems that were found how often and how quickly hospitals give at a specific nursing facility. recommended treatments for heart attack, heart To find Hospital Compare and Nursing failure, pneumonia, and children’s asthma. Home Compare, go to www.Medicare.gov It also shows the percentage of patients and scroll to the bottom of the page, under who developed serious conditions such as “Resource Locator.” We also have compare bloodstream infections and bed sores while tools for home health agencies and dialysis in the hospital. Such conditions are often centers. preventable, if the hospital follows best If you don’t have a computer, you can call practices. us, toll free, at 1-800-MEDICARE. We’ll help You can find out how often patients returned you get the information you need. to the hospital with the same condition, and David Sayen is Medicare’s regional how that rate compares with the national administrator for Arizona, California, average. Hawaii, and Nevada. Get answers by calling We recently began posting information on 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227). •
Lawndale 8.23.12
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