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0 Comments | Northern Echo, Jul 30, 2010 | by Joe Willis

ONLY a handful of the region’s top schools have applied to become academies – despite more than 30 expressing an interest.

Six schools in the NorthEast and North Yorkshire have submitted applications to the Department for Education to opt out of town hall control.

The schools have all been judged to be outstanding by Ofsted inspectors.

This means they could be fast-tracked to academy status by September.

The schools are Dyke House Sports and Technology College, in Hartlepool; Shotton Hall School, in Peterlee, County Durham; Meadowdale Middle School, in Bedlington, Northumberland; Whitburn School, in Whitburn, Sunderland; and Archbishop Holgate’s School and Manor School, both in York.

Last month, the Government revealed that 33 outstanding schools in the region were among more than 1,700 nationally which had expressed an interest in becoming an academy.

A further 26 schools not regarded as outstanding also asked for more information.

In Darlington, four of the town’s secondary schools had expressed an interest – Carmel College, Hurworth Comprehensive, Darlington Education Village and Longfield School.

However, none has so far applied to become academies.

Ian Mowbray, who retired as headteacher of Shotton Hall at the end of the summer term, said last month that while the school had been well-supported by the local authority, becoming an academy would lead to more money to take it forward.

Nationally, only 153 schools have applied to become academies, despite the Government earlier claiming more than 1,000 had submitted applications.

Last night, Labour’s shadow children and education secretary, Ed Balls, criticised Education Minister Michael Gove for using emergency procedures to push through the Academies Bill.

He said: “Michael Gove must explain why he rushed this Bill and misleadingly claimed that more than one thousand schools had applied.

“It seems tome that the real reason for the rush was to avoid proper scrutiny for a deeply flawed piece of legislation.”

Outstanding schools which have applied to become academies are pre-approved in all but the most exceptional circumstances, a spokesman for the Department for Education said last night.

It would then be down to the schools when they wished to transfer out of local authority control, he added.

0 Comments | Pasadena Star – News, May 21, 2010 | by Nathan McIntire

PASADENA – A jury on Friday convicted an unemployed ex-convict of second-degree murder for stabbing a man to death outside the Hill Avenue Branch library last year.

Steven Sumner, 46, will be sentenced June 22 for stabbing James Calvin “Caveman” Hall Jr. to death after a confrontation near Pasadena City College on Apr. 20, 2009. Sumner told police that he committed the stabbing but claimed he acted in self defense.

Prosecutor Alice Kurs said the verdict returned by the jury of eight women and four men was “a just result.”

“He approached an unsuspecting victim with a weapon and took his life,” Kurs said. “Mr. Hall did not deserve to die that day in front of the library where he was sitting with a friend, unsuspecting.”

Prosecutors said Sumner and his 43-year-old “drinking buddy” Patrick Mason searched out Hall after an altercation between Hall and Mason at a 99 Cent store earlier that day.

Hall was known to hang out near the Hill Avenue library and Sumner and Mason rode their bikes there to find him. After a brief verbal confrontation, Sumner pulled out a knife and stabbed Hall twice in the abdomen.

The two then rode off on their bikes as Hall stumbled and tried to find help
self defense weapons