For a visiting group of educators from Ukraine, seeing American school classrooms in action was a learning experience.

  To read about the mission and design for the Open World Leadership Center, click here .

The Open World exchange program was established to increase partnership and sharing of economic and democratic practices between the two nations.  Sonoma County is one participant in the education program of having Ukraine educators visit for two weeks.

 To find out more about the US-Ukraine non profit organization, click here .

The Solar Sonoma County program, which got its official kick-off last night, may make our area a model for other rural regions that want to expand their use of solar power.

Click here to see a detailed 2-page fact sheet on Solar Sonoma County. (pdf)

John Lushetsky from the federal Department of Energy, where he is the manager of the Solar Energy Technologies Program. As more and more solar panels collect electricity, there will be increasing demand for batteries to store and save that power. John Lushetshy says his agency will soon turn its attention to that aspect of energy independence as well.

Ives Pool in Sebastopol is an example of a local public facility that has installed solar panels to hold down energy costs.

As gang-related activities increase in the Sonoma Valley, new prevention efforts are being launched to help parents redirect affected kids.

For details about the upcoming seminar series, click here . You can hear Jill Royce describe the full series in this audio clip:

To view the services provided by LifeWorks, click here .

  David Sanchez, a Kindergarten teacher from Santa Maria  is president of the 340,000 member California Teachers Association.