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the Lawson's Landing camp- ground in Dillon Beach until Thursday, when his 19-year- old boyfriend, Stachaun Tyking Jackson, was shot to death there. Sheriff 's investigators detained Gillispie and his housemate, 56-year-old Ken Patrick Neville, for ques - tioning. Neville was eventu- ally booked on suspicion of murder, and Gillipsie was re- leased. According to court docu- ments, Jackson had been ro- mantically involved with Gil- lispie for more than a year. The trailer was the scene of numerous domestic distur- bances, and in recent weeks Neville had asked the sher- iff's department to tell Jack- son to stay away. On T hu rsd ay mor n- ing — according to state- ments Neville and Gillispie gave investigators — Jack- son broke into the trailer after they told him to leave the premises. An argument ensued and one of the men called 911. Jackson allegedly bran - dished a knife and told the men to cancel the 911 re- sponse. At some point dur- ing the argument, Gillispie handed Neville a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Then, outside the trailer, Neville said he pointed the gun at Jackson, who was unarmed at that point, and ordered him to leave. Nev - ille said he fired the fatal shot when Jackson lunged at him. On Monday, the district attorney's office charged Neville with murder by fire - arm, which carries a poten- tial life sentence. Neville, who is being held without bail, might enter a plea when he returns to court April 9. Contact Gary Klien via email at gklien@marinij. com or https://twitter.com/ GaryKlien Bowman From Page 1 Orner: Melbourne "Pinky" Earle Orner, 87, died Wednesday March 26 at his Red Bluff residence. Arrangements are under the direction of Red Bluff Simple Cremations & Burial Service. Published Thurs- day, March 27, 2014 in the Daily News, Red Bluff, Calif. Heath: Johnna Heath, 46, of Red Bluff, died Friday March 21, at her residence. Arrangements are under the direction of Blair's Crema- tion & Burial. Published Thursday, March 27, 2014 in the Daily News, Red Bluff, Calif. Death notices must be provided by mortuaries to the news department, are published at no charge, and feature only specific basic information about the deceased. Paid obituaries are placed through the Clas - sified advertising depart- ment. Paid obituaries may be placed by mortuaries or by families of the deceased and include online publication linked to the newspaper's website. Paid obituaries may be of any length, may run multiple days and offer wide latitude of content, including photos. Death notices wouldn't grow. With the incoming rain there will be enough of a grass crop that it will grow to the point that it could spread fires to the already dry brush firefighters are concerned about. That doesn't mean fire - fighters don't want to see more rain, a situation Sch- ori said is being monitored. "The longer we get rain into the late spring and early summer is good for us," he said. Schori said increasing soil moisture can have posi - tive effects when it comes to fighting fires in the summer. Schori said ever yone wants to predict the most devastating fire season is ahead, but most of the time those predictions are false. Whether a fire turns dev - astating or not has more to do with the combination of temperature, wind and even firefighter staffing levels the day it breaks out, Sch - ori said. That is impossible to pre- dict. Sports Forecasting the weather this time of year becomes part of the job description for area athletic directors and coaches. Red Bluff High School Athletic Director Brad Wag - ner said on days like Tues- day, when the rain first moved through, he spends a lot of time on the phone and checking the weather on the Internet. Outside of lightning, fall and winter sports in the area are rarely cancelled or postponed due to weather. Spring sports such as baseball, softball, tennis, golf and track and field are often at the mercy of rain showers and playing condi - tions. Wagner said there is a balancing act between not cancelling a game too early and letting parents know what the plan is. On Tuesday the Spartans varsity baseball team was scheduled to play a double - header at West Valley High School at 1 p.m., while Red Bluff was to host the junior varsity game. Wagner said the final call to postpone the games was made by 10:30 a.m. While it can cause some headaches f ig uring out where and when games can be played, Wagner said one aspect that makes it easier in the Northern Section is how adaptable local refer - ees, officials and umpires have been over the years. Rain From Page 1 sure of Manton School. District off icials and trustees adamantly said that there have been no dis - cussions of closing Manton School, which educates kin- dergarten through eighth grade students and had a to- tal enrollment of 37 during the 2012-13 academic year. Officials said Tuesday night's forum was meant to be an inclusive discussion about the possible scenar - ios available to the district when it will have more con- trol over how money is spent and where. In the coming school year, when what's known as the Local Control Funding Formula continues to ramp up, school districts through - out the state will have more local control over spending. School boards by July 1, ac- cording to edsource.org, must adopt a three-year Local Control and Account- ability Plan that outlines their goals and priorities, which will then be consid- ered by county offices of ed- ucation for approval. The Local Control Fund- ing Formula, Antelope Ele- mentary School District Su- perintendent Todd Brose said during the meeting, will allow his district to find innovative ways to struc - ture the five-school system to provide a high-quality ed- ucation to all of its students. Ideas floated Tuesday in- cluded transporting Man- ton School's sixth-, sev- enth- and eighth-graders to Berrendos Middle School, transporting only seventh- and eighth-graders to Ber - rendos, and transporting students with disabilities to Antelope Elementary School and Berrendos. In his presentation Brose noted that as the Common Core State Standards Ini - tiative continues to be im- plemented, Manton School's middle-school aged stu- dents could enjoy fewer grade levels per teacher to better prepare for high school and participate in more extra-curricular ac - tivities. The two teachers em- ployed at Manton School are tasked with educating kin- dergarten through fourth- graders, and fifth- through eighth-graders. During the 2012-13 school year, accord - ing to the school's 2013 ac- countability report card, one student was enrolled in sixth grade, five students were enrolled in seventh grade and six were eighth- graders. " The Com mon Core Standards is more in-depth, critical thinking, takes a lot of time," Brose said. "With four grade levels that is very difficult. Very difficult." He added: "Manton El - ementary School is a bed- rock in the community, and there's no closure in sight. That's not what we're talk- ing about. We're talking about trying to allocate our resources to the needs of our school district." But when Brose opened the f loor to public com - ments, which were sub- sequently condensed into short notes written by Te- resa Cottier, the district's director of curriculum, and Rich Hassay, Antelope Ele- mentary School's principal, on tall pieces of white paper stuck to a nearby wall, many in attendance lamented to officials that the move would cut into the culture of rais - ing a child in a rural envi- ronment. "The reason why peo- ple move up to the hills is because we don't want our children going to the cities," said Diana Barton, who has grandchildren who go to Manton School. "We like our small school and there has been no legitimate rea - son for saying that you're going to help better prepare them for high school." Pat Johnston, a Tehama County supervisor candi - date for District 3 and past Manton resident, asked the board of trustees whether it would take a vote to swear that if it decided to trans - port sixth through eighth grade students from Man- ton to Red Bluff that it would not in the future transport any students in kindergar- ten through fifth grade. "Because I think this is a slippery slope," Johnston said. "I think as soon as you've got control of those sixth- to eighth-graders then it's going to be no time at all and they're going to lose the rest of the school. And I look at this beautiful building right here that our tax dollars invested into this area and I wonder who's go - ing to use it when they're all gone. And why do we keep spending our tax dollars on buildings and then emp - tying the students out of them?" At least one of Johnston's two District 3 opponents on the ballot, incumbent Den - nis Garton, was present at the meeting. He did not speak during the public comment period. The board of trustees also did not take any votes at the meeting. No action items were scheduled on the agenda. Brose said recommenda - tions would be presented to the board in April or May, and a decision would most likely be made in May as well. Board President Dan Boone during closing state - ments said that the board will review the concerns brought forth by those in attendance who came out on the rainy night. "I have students that have gone to Antelope and Berrendos for 25 years, so I know what it's like to be a vested parent in a school," Boone said. "And I under - stand that 1,000 percent." Manton From Page 1 NeW YorK » New York state has the most segregated public schools in the na- tion, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no white classmates, accord - ing to a report released Wednesday. The report by the Civil Rights Project at the Uni - versity of California at Los Angeles looks at enrollment trends from 1989 to 2010. In New York City, the largest school system in the U.S. with 1.1 million pupils, the study notes that many of the charter schools cre - ated over the last dozen years are among the least diverse of all, with less than 1 percent white enrollment at 73 percent of charter schools. "To create a whole new system that's even worse than what you've got re - ally takes some effort," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and an author of the report. He and his fellow re - searchers say segregation has the effect of concentrat- ing black and Latino stu- dents in schools with high ratios of poor students com- pared with the statewide av- erage. Black and Latino stu- dents who attend schools that are integrated by race and income level perform significantly better than their peers in segregated schools, the authors note. The study suggests that New York's segregation is largely due to housing pat - terns, because housing and school segregation are cor- related, but that it could be mitigated through policies intended to promote diver- sity. "In the 30 years I have been researching schools, New York state has consis - tently been one of the most segregated states in the na- tion — no Southern state comes close to New York," Orfield said. Other states with highly segregated schools include Illinois, Michigan and Cali - fornia, according to the Civil Rights Project. One way to measure seg- regation is the exposure of students to classmates from other racial groups. About half of New York state's public school students are white, but during the 2009- 10 school year the average black student in New York went to a school where 17.7 percent of the students are white. The corresponding num - ber for Illinois was 18.8 per- cent, and for California it was 18.9 percent. Orf ield said the Civil Rights Project is prepar - ing reports on several other states, including an in-depth look at California. A report on nationwide trends in segregation is planned to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education ruling on May 17. The court ruled in that landmark case that establishing separate public schools for black and white students was unconstitu - tional. The repor t relea sed Wednesday noted that about half of New York state's pub - lic school students were from low-income fa mi- lies in 2010 but the typical black or Latino student at- tended a school where close to 70 percent of classmates were low-income. The typ- ical white student went to a school where just 30 per- cent of classmates were low- income. "For New York to have a favorable multiracial future both socially and economi - cally, it is absolutely urgent that its leaders and citizens understand both the values of diversity and the harms of inequality," the study's authors say. New York City Depart - ment of Education spokes- man Devon Puglia did not address the findings of the report, but said, "We be- lieve in diverse classrooms in which students interact and grow through personal relationships with those of different backg rounds." The district is roughly 40 percent Hispanic, 30 per - cent black, 15 percent white and 15 percent Asian. State Education Commissioner John King called the find - ings troubling and added, "The department has sup- ported over the years vari- ous initiatives aimed at im- proving school integration and school socioeconomic integ ration, but there's clearly a lot of work that needs to be done — not just in New York but around the country." The report, which used U.S. Department of Edu - cation statistics, also noted increasing segregation in upstate cities including Buffalo, Rochester and Syr - acuse. In the Syracuse metropol- itan area, the report says, the number of black stu- dents increased by 4 per- cent between 1989 and 2010, but black isolation increased dramatically. In 1989 the typical black student went to a school that was one-third black, but in 2010 the typi - cal black student went to a school that was nearly half black. Pedro Noguera, a New York University education professor, said it's disturb - ing that policy makers have focused so little on racial in- tegration in recent years. "We've been talking about reforming schools in New York and elsewhere. This issue was never addressed," Noguera said. He added, "When you concentrate the neediest kids together in under-re - sourced schools they tend not to do very well." The UCLA report recom- mends that state and local education agencies develop policies aimed at reducing racial isolation and promot - ing diverse schools. The report suggests vol- untary desegregation pro- grams in upstate cities like Rochester, where low-in- come populations are sur- rounded by more affluent communities. In New York City, Or- field said, a system of un- screened "choice" schools would foster more diversity than the current New York City high school choice sys - tem, which sees entrance tests at top schools exclud- ing most black and Latino students. "If you just offer choice, the people with the best in - formation will get into the best schools," he said. Requel Russell-George, the mother of two students at Public School 169 in the Bronx, which has about 75 percent black and 19 per - cent Latino students, said she feels the school is "ex- cellent" but she would like to see more diversity. "I do feel that it would be great for our children and other children to be exposed to other cultures," Russell- George said. "You're more knowledgeable and things are not mysterious to you as you get older." MARk LENNiHAN — THE ASSOCiATED PRESS in this April. 1, 2011 photo, New York City fih graders enter PS321, a public elementary school in the Brooklyn Borough of New York. New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no white classmates, according to a report released Wednesday, March 26, 2014, by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles. eDucatioN Re po rt : NY s ch oo ls a re m os t ra ci al ly s eg reg at ed ANNETTA FERN MORRIS (BALL) Annetta ⁄Fern Morris (Ball) former resident of Corning, CA and a graduate of Corning High School '42, joined her beloved husband U. Glen Morris in heaven on March 16, 2014. Fern was born in Cheraw, CO on August 13, 1924; she passed away on March 16, 2014, in Sacramento, CA where she lived for the past 61 years. Fern and Glen were married in 1943 at the Naval Air Staion in Alameda, CA and remained devoted to each other for 51 years. Fern loved to square dance and folk dance with her hus- band. They were active in the Kaleidoscope Folk Dance Club for many years, she was a master at fine thread cro- chet work until she lost sight in one eye. Even with par- tial loss of vision she remained an avid reader until her last days on earth. Fern is survived by three children; Richard Morris, Hel- ena Hurst and Donna Eldridge; two grandchildren; Chris- tine and spouse Daryl Lee and Deborah Hurst and spouse Bill Helms, two great grandchildren; Trent and Tyler Lee, and two sisters; Eva Lester, Oceanside, OR and Mildred Williams, Corning, CA. She will missed by all of us. May she rest in peace. Obituaries THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2014 REDBLUFFDAiLYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 7 a