U.S. Secretary of Education Visits East L.B. School Today

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is currently meeting with elementary  students and teachers in East Long Beach in a roundtable discussion at Tincher Preparatory, near Atherton and Bellflower. He had met with teachers, education leaders and union officials earlier Tuesday morning at a Los Angeles event that also featured Long Beach Unified Superintendent Christopher J. Steinhauser.

Duncan is on a two-day trip to California visit schools and community leaders involved with them to people involved with them to Duncan’s trip to California, during which he will visit schools and engage in conversations with community leaders from Los Angeles south to San Diego. He is also sharing President Obama’s call to Congress to move quickly and fix what is broken in No Child Left Behind.

At 5 p.m. today, Duncan will engage in a town-hall forum at Fremont High School in Los Angeles to discuss reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in a bipartisan way. At this event, Duncan will talk with parents and students about the parts of No Child Left Behind that they believe need to be changed and how the education system as a whole can be improved. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines and incoming Superintendent John Deasy will join Duncan at the forum.

At Tincher, Duncan was to take questions from the media following the conversation.

Long Beach Courthouse: Gun in Boy's Backpack Case

A Long Beach judge today has ruled that a Gardena High School student accused of bringing a gun that discharged while in his backpack, injuring two fellow students on Jan. 18, will stand trial as a juvenile. The finding was made at a hearing to determine whether the 17-year-old boy would be tried in juvenile or adult court. He's due back in Long Beach Juvenile Court for a pretrial hearing April 7.

The prosecution sought to have the teenager tried as an adult, but Long Beach Juvenile Court Judge John Lawson disagreed, according to Jane Robison of the District Attorney's Office.

-City News Service contributed to this item.