Twenty-three Laguna Beach High School Art Students, were given the incredible opportunity to display 46 unique art pieces at this year's Sawdust Festival. The installation includes a variety of stunning art types, from sculpture to photography.

Ms. Somer L. Selway, beginning, intermediate, and AP ceramics teacher, helped curate the collection and installation and arranged for families and students to gather for a short reception on Saturday, June 25. Families arrived at the booth with bright smiles and shared their absolute amazement as they carefully examined each piece during the Saturday evening event. Student Riley Gapp proudly showed his sculptures titled “3 Layer Marble Sandwich” and “3 Arch Coast” to his family and friends.

Laguna Beach High School (LBHS) implemented a brand new program titled LBHS FLOW for the 2021-2022 academic year. The mission of the FLOW program at LBHS is to allow all students to experience powerful connections with academic content, with each other, and with the community.

The Laguna Beach Unified School District is honored to have earned two awards from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) in the category of Publications and Digital Media Excellence. The entries that were awarded this honor include the LBUSD Mental Health Awareness Video, created by Andy Crisp, and Renew, Recharge, Reimagine: LBUSD's Annual Community Report 2020-2021, created by the Communications Department.

Brave Day: Life Lessons From a Kindergartner

Entering kindergarten for the very first time is hard enough, but as LBUSD’s Class of 2034 crossed the threshold into Room 19 for the first time this fall, little was known about the impact COVID-19 would have on their impressionable hearts and minds. While some students had a small taste of school with distance learning, some never experienced transitional kindergarten or preschool, marking kindergarten as their first time in an in-person school environment. They had to push through the first-day butterflies without a parent or guardian by their side and had to meet their teacher and peers while only being able to recognize them through their eyes above a mask. Students also had to learn to navigate relationship building and how to read and express emotions with eye contact alone until the mandatory mask mandates were lifted in March 2022.

The FOA Foundation recently awarded Laguna Beach High School and Thurston Middle School with grants totaling $10,000 toward ceramics, art, and theatre. In 1989, the Festival of Arts, with a $1.5 million donation, established the FOA Foundation, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, in order to guarantee annual financial support, preserve, and promote the fine arts and all other artistic endeavors in Laguna Beach.