Topline:
Arcadia resident David Arvizu has turned his front yard into a haunted house for about 25 years.
The backstory: It started off as something fun to do with his kids, but turned into something bigger, better, and more imaginative every year since.
This year's iteration: Arvizu's DIY haunted house this year takes up about 10,000 sq. ft. of his front yard and centers around the disppearance of a young girl in an old forest.
Some people build model toy trains in their garages, Arcadia resident David Arvizu built a haunted house.
That was about 25 years ago, after his 9-year-old daughter launched the idea the day of Halloween.
"It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon and I said, 'Okay, let's see what we can do,'" said Arvizu.
For the next couple of hours, he and the kids strung up black plastic around the garage and built a maze inside.
At show time, everyone got in position. His daughter stood at the entrance greeting visitors. Arvizu, decked out in a scary costume, was in the garage.
"My son was at the gate, hiding behind a pair of trashcans, dressed up with a chainsaw," he said. "He would pop up and fire off the chainsaw, and that would be our little topper at the end."
Arvizu says about a dozen neighbors showed up that night. One of them came back the following day to tell him just how much she'd loved the experience.
"She said, 'my friend and I went through it, and at the end when your son popped up, she peed her pants,'" Arvizu said. "And I said, 'that's it, we're doing this every year.'"
And every year Arvizu ups the ante — to the point where his passion project now spills over to about 10,000 sq. ft. of the front yard.
He started work on this year's iteration in late September, doing most of everything himself — now that the kids have moved out of the house.
"The lighting, the costumes, and all of the props and stuff like that. It takes a while," said Arvizu, who is a technical director at the TV station, FOX 11 Los Angeles, adding that he imposes a budget of under $1,000 for the project, most of which go towards construction materials that are reusable.
And there's always some kind of tinkering along the way. For example, he landed on this year's storyline only about a week ago — around a young girl named Bella, who got lost in a forest and was never seen again.
"We take the visitors on a journey to retrace her final steps. We take them through the old forests, through the old graveyard," Arvizu said. "And we take them through several different rooms to show the nightmares that she was experiencing."
The haunted house is split into two parts. The preamble is tonight, which sets up Bella's story. The finale happens on Tuesday — Halloween night — where the mystery of the girl's disappearance is resolved.
The haunted house opens at 7 p.m. and ends at around 9:30 p.m. on both nights, free of charge.
Arvizu expects about 300 to 400 people to visit his latest creation on the 1300 block of Highland Oaks Drive in Arcadia.
One word of advice, though — he recommends leaving younger kids at home.
"I would just say that it is very scary, people have had meltdowns inside," Arvizu said. "It's not for the faint of heart."
Topline:
California schools are hiring hundreds of educators to teach the state’s new universal preschool program, transitional kindergarten. Veteran educators say teaching 4-year-olds is reenergizing their careers.
The joy of TK: LAist interviewed TK teachers and assistants throughout Los Angeles County. Here are a few factors that made the grade enjoyable to teach:
Why it matters: We know from education research that teachers who like their jobs are more likely to stay, and that stability can be good for long-term learning outcomes.
Why now: California created transitional kindergarten in 2012, but this is the first year the program is open to every child who turns 4 by September 1.
Marguerita Elementary School teacher Claudia Ralston spends most of her day on the floor, guiding her transitional kindergarten students through play. She said if it weren’t for TK, the Alhambra educator would be considering retirement.
“Yes, I am exhausted,” Ralston said. “But just being here for the children and doing all the different activities … their curiosity, them wanting to learn just gives you that extra energy.”
This school year is the first where every 4-year-old in the state can enroll in the universal preschool program, also called TK, at their local public school. Schools need to hire an estimated 12,000 teachers to staff the program. Some may come from child care settings and preschool programs, but others are veteran educators who’ve gone back to school to get the credential required to teach TK.
And once they get into the TK classroom, many educators told us, they’ve found new joy in the work.
Lauren Bush started teaching transitional kindergarten three years ago after more than two decades coaching other educators and teaching every grade from kindergarten through sixth.
Her classroom at Lucille J. Smith Elementary in Lawndale is broken into different “centers,” where students can play with colorful magnetic tiles, practice painting their name or construct a ramp to roll a ball from one end of the room to the other.
“It was just so joyful to be with the kids again,” Bush said. “That's when I just, like, got back to myself as an educator, and now I'm gonna die here. That's my plan. I love it here.”
Education research shows that teachers who like their jobs are more likely to stay, and that stability can be good for long-term learning outcomes.
So we wanted to understand what makes TK so joyful for educators and how that can shape how and what students learn.
Broadly, the goal of transitional kindergarten is to prepare students for kindergarten and beyond.
“I wanna make sure that their first experience in a public school setting is one that is joyful, where they feel loved, where they feel welcomed, where they get to really transition nicely into like the rigor of the school,” Bush said.
California’s learning foundations for preschool and transitional kindergarten include academic concepts, like the alphabet and writing, but also learning about emotions and developing kids’ muscles.
“The progress in academics in the lower grades is so satisfying because it's such a huge, huge jump,” Bush said. “You don't necessarily see that in the upper grades. It's so gradual… They come into me not knowing how to hold a pencil, and they leave writing their name and drawing.”
That’s why Bush has her students tear paper, to hone the fine motor skills that will be useful to one day using a pencil.
“Yes, they're playing all day, but it's very intentional play,” Bush said.
Teachers also told us without the pressure of standardized testing, there was flexibility to tailor their instruction to students’ interests.
“I can take something that they're curious about and go from there and do little mini lessons with that,” said Alhambra TK teacher Claudia Ralston.
For example, when she noticed a group of students was ready to practice writing, she set up the materials for them to make signs. The subject of the signs, pumpkin pies and pumpkin drinks, was a topic they’d previously expressed interest in.
And while every school is different, she said in her experience, there are also fewer worksheets used in TK than other grades.
“Before, we used to have to run off a lot of copies,” Ralston said. “We're not doing that. It's all hands on.”
Pacific Oaks College professor Jorge Ramirez said this approach is a key part of effective early childhood education.
“ We're not dictating what they should learn, how they should learn in or in the manner that they should learn it,” Ramirez said. “It's more of us really understanding what the child wants and what they need.”
At Price Elementary in Downey, Samantha Elliot’s TK classroom features “wiggle breaks” between lessons, and students learn a physical action with each letter of the alphabet.
“It's incorporating instruction and kind of the movement to help bridge the gap a little bit and get them moving, but also still learning,” Elliot said.
And classes are also smaller. Kindergarten classes can have up to 33 students, but California requires that a school’s average TK class have no more than 24 students, and there must be one adult for every 10, which means teachers also have help from aides.
In Bush’s class, teacher assistant Maria Estrada often sets up activities and works 1-on-1 with students, including those learning English.
“ My goal is to help those students that need that extra support, so they can catch up at the end of the day,” Estrada said.
Susan Moore Johnson has studied teaching for decades and leads the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project on the Next Generation of Teachers.
One frequently cited study she led found that teachers’ satisfaction with their working conditions predicted how long they’d stay in the classroom and their students’ performance on standardized tests.
Three main factors teachers mentioned were the opportunity to collaborate with skilled colleagues, a safe and orderly school and a supportive principal who understands teaching.
“ The idea of working with kids who really need good teachers is very attractive to people,” Johnson said. “But they can't do it in a place that's disjointed and chaotic and doesn't have curriculum materials.”
Marissa Mateo started teaching TK in the 2010s in the San Fernando Valley. Early on, her principal supported her participation in an L.A. County program where a substitute covered her class about once a month so that she could attend in-person training, meetings and observe educators in other districts.
”I still talk to several of the teachers that were in my group,” Mateo said.
She’s continued to refine her craft. This year, for example, she’s incorporating more “loose parts” into her classroom. The idea is to let students create with random odds-and-ends like corks, gems and wooden shapes rather than instructing them to build a specific object.
While Mateo’s instruction at Noble Avenue Elementary may evolve, she says her students’ enthusiasm is a constant.
“For the most part, nobody's coming in with a negative experience in school because they're just starting,” Mateo said. “They may be having a negative feeling like crying because they miss their parents. But other than that, they haven't developed any kind of bad feelings about school.”
That’s why every year, she has the same message on her classroom bulletin board: “Welcome to TK, the happiest place to learn.”
Topline:
An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another death.
What happened? The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period despite evidence that the patient had been bleeding internally.
Why it matters: It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. These kinds of citations are rare. State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months. Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.
What's next? The state Public Health Department said Brier Oak submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again. Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department whether it intends to appeal the state citation.
An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another person died.
The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period in violation of clinical guidelines.
It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. The facility faces a $120,000 fine.
These kinds of citations are rare. The department has recently issued, on average, fewer than 20 AA citations yearly across more than 1,200 skilled nursing facilities in California.
Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.
State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months.
The state Public Health Department began that process with Brier Oak in May based on resident deaths in 2022 and 2024. But officials dropped that effort later because they say they determined the two patient deaths had occurred 26 months apart — just outside of the two-year window.
A spokesperson for the company that owns Brier Oak told LAist it has appealed the first two citations and is considering whether to appeal the third.
Advocates for nursing home residents say the recent death could have been avoided if the state had taken action.
“There were red flags, and a lot of these red flags existed prior to the death of this poor resident,” said Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.
The state said Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department if it intends to appeal.
In the recent death at Brier Oak cited by the state, multiple communication and technical failures by nursing staff led to the patient bleeding out over a period of 40 hours, according to the citation.
The 92-year-old patient was immobile and had been prescribed a blood thinner called heparin to help prevent blood clots from forming. But once a patient is bleeding, those injections make bleeding worse, and potentially fatal.
When nursing staff found bright red blood in the resident’s diaper the day before she died, Brier Oak failed to follow established processes for documenting the bleeding or communicating it to a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, according to the citation.
Nurses told state authorities they delayed informing physicians because they “get mad” when contacted in the middle of the night.
The facility’s staff also failed to fully assess the patient to determine the possible causes of the bleeding and or to properly monitor the issue during crucial periods, according to the citation.
She suffered four internal bleeding episodes over 40 hours and continued to receive blood thinner injections.
The citation says a nurse practitioner at Brier Oak told state licensing authorities later that if she’d been informed about the patient’s ongoing bleeding, she would have stopped the blood thinner and sent her to a hospital.
In 2022, Brier Oak received a AA citation after a 62-year-old woman died from respiratory failure in part because nurses hadn’t been trained to operate her breathing machine.
In 2024, the nursing home got another AA citation. This time, a 63-year-old woman with paraplegia and severe obesity fell from her bed and died while a nursing assistant was changing her. The assistant was alone, even though the woman’s care plan required two staff members.
Brier Oak on Sunset is primarily owned by Genesis Healthcare, a publicly-traded nursing home operator that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.
Once the largest nursing home operator in the U.S., Genesis was facing billions in debt when it declared bankruptcy, according to court filings. That includes millions in potential damages from lawsuits related to patient care failures.
In a brief statement to LAist, a company spokesperson said it's still considering whether or not to appeal the recent citation at Brier Oak.
The citation should trigger a suspension or revocation of the facility's license, according to state regulations. The latter means it would have to close its doors. The two most recent deaths and citations at the facility occurred within the two-year window.
The California Department of Public Health confirmed it cited Brier Oak on Nov. 26.
The department said the facility submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again..
The department determined Brier Oak was back in compliance during an onsite visit last week, a representative told LAist.
Brier Oak on Sunset currently houses about 150 patients, according to state records.
A bankruptcy judge has stalled the proposed sale of Genesis Healthcare to an affiliate of one of its investors.
Experts say it’s unclear whether the state would revoke the license of an owner who is actively trying to sell and turn over operations to someone else.
Topline
It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff.
Hmmm. Didn’t we just have a record storm? Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.
Read on ... for more about the conditions at Big Bear Mountain resort, and whether we'll have more snow in time for Christmas vacations.
It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff. Here's where things stand:
Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.
California’s snowpack is about 20% of normal for this time of the year, according to the state’s snow-tracking website. Southern California isn’t quite as bad off — we’ve gotten about half our normal snowfall so far.
As for the resorts, only about 20% of the terrain at Bear Mountain in Big Bear is open. About 35% of Mammoth Mountain is open.
They are, but the unusually warm temperatures have curbed resorts’ ability to make enough snow to open more terrain. “If you're blowing water into 40-degrees, it's going to stay water,” said Justin Kanton, a spokesperson for Big Bear Mountain Resort. “ So as much as people probably would want us to just crank the snow guns all day, every day up here and just get things moving, that's not really possible.”
The dry weather has allowed Caltrans to make good progress toward opening Highway 38, said Evan Engle, who chairs the board of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The road typically handles up to 40% of traffic up to the mountain town, Engle said. But it’s been closed since September when it got washed out by Tropical Storm Mario.
Getting it open as soon as possible is key to keeping visitor traffic manageable, and getting supplies to Big Bear.
SoCal mountains are likely to see some precipitation around Christmas, said Kyle Wheeler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But with temperatures not expected to drop much, it’s uncertain how much of it will be white, Wheeler said.
If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is @jillrep.79.
Topline:
The Los Angeles Police Department used 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas from June 6 through 14, according to newly released documents. The department reported causing 12 injuries with those weapons.
Why now? The LAPD released a new document last week after LAist found the department did not publish state-mandated reports for four days when officers used crowd control weapons over that period. The department said on Dec. 10 the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.
This report is different: Unlike most of the LAPD’s reports after using crowd control weapons, this one covers multiple days and protests. The report includes the first “No Kings” protest on June 14, but lacks detailed descriptions of specific dates or incidents.
Read on… for more about the newly-released report.
The Los Angeles Police Department used more than 2,400 crowd control munitions in response to protests from June 6 to 14, according to a new report.
Officers used a total of 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas over the nine days, according to LAPD reports. The department recorded 12 injuries officers caused with those weapons.
The LAPD released the missing report last week after LAist identified the use of crowd control weapons on four different days in June that had not been reported according to state law. Assembly Bill 48, which went into effect in 2022, limits when and how crowd control weapons can be used, and requires law enforcement agencies to publicly release reports on their use within 60 days.
A 30-day extension for these reports can be granted in some cases, but the LAPD released this report about three months late even if an extension was justified.
Officials acknowledged they were out of compliance on Dec. 10 before releasing the report, saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.
It is unusual for a crowd control report to include more than one day, and the report for June 9 through 14 covered six days and “45 sepearte [sic] non categorical use of force incidents.”
It does not describe any of those use of force incidents specifically, and the LAPD has not yet responded to LAist’s request for more detailed descriptions of those incidents.
If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is jrynning.56.
The report also considered the entire six days to have been one continuous protest, though it included several anti-ICE protests over the week and the national “No Kings” protest on June 14.
Two reports released earlier this year for June 6 and 8 covered single days and provided more detailed descriptions of incidents where the LAPD used less-lethal munitions against protesters.
