Teachers

A Huntington Beach resident and Oxford Academy teacher has been acquitted of sexual acts with a teenage girl. The jury delivered its verdict Monday on Christopher John Ontiveros, who taught history at the Cypress campus in the Anaheim Union High School District. Ontiveros, 44, was accused of sending a 17-year-old student sexual text messages, making unsolicited sexual advances and sexually assaulting the girl in his classroom and car. The jury acquitted Ontiveros due to a lack of evidence that the sexual relationship took place, defense attorney David Cohn said.

Two teachers from Huntington Beach pleaded not guilty Thursday to multiple felony counts stemming from an alleged sexual relationship with a minor. A pretrial hearing for Daniel Shepard and Gay Davidson-Shepard is set for July 7 at the West Justice Center in Westminster. Shepard declined to give a statement to the media after the arraignment. Charges against the couple include oral copulation of a minor, sodomy of a person younger than 18 and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The arraignment for a Mesa View Middle School teacher and her husband facing charges of having sexual relations with a 17-year-old boy has been postponed to June 2. Attorney John Drummond Barnett, who represents Gay Davidson-Shepard, asked for the delay so that Daniel Alma Shepard can find his own counsel. Barnett was representing both only for the May 19 hearing. Davidson-Shepard, who has been put on administrative leave, and Daniel Alma Shepard, a former teacher at Westminster High School, were arrested at their Huntington Beach home April 20. Shepard and Davidson-Shepard were both charged with multiple felony counts, including oral copulation of a minor, sodomy of a person younger than 18 and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

A Mesa View Middle School teacher and former Westminster High School teacher charged with having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy are set to be arraigned Thursday. The arraignment is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. in courtroom W14 at the West Justice Center in Westminster. Daniel Shepard and his wife, Gay Davidson-Shepard, were arrested in April and charged with multiple felony counts, including oral copulation of a minor, sodomy of a person younger than 18 and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

COSTA MESA — The Coast Community College District may eliminate supplemental pay that helped bring pay rates for part-time instructors to levels closer to their full-time counterparts. The reduction is so-called "parity pay" is aimed at helping the district overcome a $24-million budget shortfall. The Board of Trustees plans to vote Wednesday on whether to cut the funds, which are given to part-timers at the end of each academic year to bring their salaries closer to the amount full-time teachers make for teaching the same classes.

A Mesa View Middle School teacher charged with having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy has been placed on administrative leave, the district's superintendent said Friday. William V. Loose of the Ocean View School District said in a prepared statement that Gay Davidson-Shepard, who was arrested Wednesday in Huntington Beach, will not return to class when school resumes Monday after spring break. "The district has cooperated fully with the police agency involved in the criminal investigation and will continue to do so," the statement read.

Students and teachers from Ocean View School District are sharing a new teaching method with schools throughout the country. College View, Sun View and Westmont elementary schools, as well as a team of teachers from Mesa View and Vista View middle schools, recently began using differentiated instruction, which allows teacher to do less lecturing and more hands-on teaching. Textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Education decided to feature College View and Mesa View students and the teachers in their classrooms in an online professional development program that will provide teachers with the tools to implement the program.

IRVINE — Traveling into space was always a dream for Anousheh Ansari, co-founder and chairwoman of the Internet company Prodea Systems. In 2006, she went to the International Space Station, making her the first woman to travel into space as a private citizen. The Texas resident was among the Iranian American women Coastline Community College honored Sunday for professional and societal accomplishments. "The most important thing is to inspire women to go after their dreams," she said.

Students grabbed wire and filled clear-plastic Petri dishes with tiny blue, white, red, yellow, green and pink beads. Settling in at one of six brown lunch tables, science teacher Gloria Treece began explaining to the almost entirely female audience how to string, twist and assemble the materials into DNA earrings or a keychain. The after-school, extra-credit activity was a jump start to the Spring View Middle School seventh-graders' next three chapters on DNA where they will learn about genetic traits, family inheritance and genetically changed plants and read about current events like the genetic engineering of plants.