In their last official act of community service as the Class of 2020, dozens of Novato High School seniors agreed to give blood — some for the first time in their lives. “It’s been a hard time for our senior class,” said senior Miles Elkins, 18, organizer of the six-hour blood drive at the high school cafeteria on Tuesday.

In the era of coronavirus and social distancing, many Marin high school seniors will attend their upcoming graduation ceremonies from the seat of their families’ cars. The schools planning drive-up graduation events include Redwood High School, which has booked the Marin County Civic Center’s Lagoon Park for its ceremony.

Marin’s 18 public school districts and its private schools have formed a task force to share ideas on coronavirus protocols for the fall. Dozens of school administrators, maintenance directors and facilities specialists — among others — are conducting teleconference meetings at least twice weekly, said Mary Jane Burke, Marin County superintendent of schools.

Marin County officials are developing alternative plans to celebrate the county’s graduating seniors this spring. An area at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael will be made available to high schools for drive-up graduation ceremonies. The option allows some type of event for Marin’s 10,500 high school seniors who are not able to gather at the traditional in-person ceremonies because of the coronavirus.

Marin County has launched the first in a series of emergency “pop-up” child care centers for children of hospital workers. The center, at Vallecito Elementary School next to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Terra Linda, opened Thursday with about eight kids ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Marin kids who are squeamish about slicing into frog cadavers or who hate the smell of chemical preservatives used in real-frog dissection in their science classes may find inspiration from Indigo Prasad of San Anselmo. Indigo, 13, a seventh-grader at Mar

Amid much criticism and complaint, the Kentfield School District toughed out five and a half hours of debate this week to identify just over $1 million in cuts to the 2020-21 budget. Layoffs or reductions in hours and pay are tentatively slated for positions from administration down to classroom teachers, clerical staff and some specialty programs, according to trustees’ deliberations Tuesday before about 250 parents, staff and teachers at Kent Middle School.

The Ross post office, already an unofficial town gathering spot, has become a paper battleground between two sides in the Branson School measure on the March 3 ballot. Opponents of Measure F, which seeks voters’ permission for the private high school to expand its enrollment beyond the 320-student cap, have sent out two mailers in recent weeks: “Vote No on Measure F,” sent in mid-January; and “Five Reasons to Vote No on Measure F,” sent about a week ago.

For the first time, Marin government agencies, schools, hospitals and law enforcement have joined in a countywide effort to prevent suicide by area youth and adults. On Tuesday, officials from the Marin County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services division will unveil an 124-page “Marin County Suicide Prevention Strategic Plan” to the county Board of Supervisors.

Marin school and health officials released new, stronger guidelines on Wednesday to limit the risk of any spread of coronavirus to local residents. No cases of the virus have been confirmed in Marin, but there are six confirmed cases elsewhere in California, Dr. Matt Willis, Marin County public health officer, said in a letter emailed at noon Wednesday to school administrators, teachers, staff and parents.

A San Francisco judge has ruled that a Sausalito public charter school does not have the right to an official seat at the table in a desegregation plan underway in the Sausalito Marin City School District. Academy in Marin City. The desegregation, to be accomplished within five years, was ordered as part of an Aug. 8 settlement with the district and a simultaneous judgment issued by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Voters in the Tamalpais Union High School District will need to decide which way to go in a tough and passionately fought battle over Measure B, a parcel tax renewal and increase plan on the March 3 ballot. If approved by two-thirds of voters, the measure would renew the existing $455 per parcel tax and add $190 — totaling $645 per parcel — for the next 10 years, effective July 1.

College of Marin did not meet generally accepted legal guidelines when it granted an exemption from full environmental review to its new maintenance building next to Kent Middle School, Kentfield parents told COM trustees this week. “They didn’t do the right kind of environmental assessment that they needed to,” Kent Middle School parent Ina Gotlieb said after Tuesday’s COM board of trustees meeting.

Before his death on Jan. 10, 1960, renowned German sculptor Benno Elkan ran out of time to cast in bronze a clay sculpture of his final masterpiece, “Memorial to the Victims of War.”. a stark depiction of agonized men, women and children embodying human suffering caused by war — turned to dust in storage.

This week, 400 Marin seniors and their supporters will receive the official Whistlestop holiday card bedecked with more than 50 hearts — most drawn on a sturdy tree trunk and on envelopes hanging from its branches. “They’ll feel happy because there’s so many hearts on it,” said the card’s artist, Asher Abedin, 9, of Mill Valley.

Twelve hours after Lia Porcano entered the world on March 14, 2018, the doctors gave her a routine hearing test. But, in a departure from the routine, the tiny girl had no reaction. Probably just water in the ears; it will go away, the medical staff told