Farewell, summer. We hardly knew ye.

An arraignment was held Wednesday morning for the suspect who allegedly set a number of arson fires and drafted emails outlining plans to harm staff members and students at University High School.

A pair of distinguished -- and distinct -- musicians who graduated from IUSD high schools will share a stage on Aug. 14 for a rare benefit concert to support music education in Irvine.

IUSD’s Information Technology team has been hard at work over the summer making a number of changes to the district’s email system. Some of the more technical stuff made our eyes glaze over, but we’re told the improvements will save money, increase email storage capacity for employees and make usernames and email addresses more intuitive.

In the fall of 1971, Richard Nixon was in his first term as president, Disney was getting ready to open a new theme park in Florida, Led Zeppelin was putting the finishing touches on its fourth album, and Karen Reaves was a rookie teacher at the old El Toro Marine School.

Calling for a greater effort to notify neighboring communities, the IUSD Board of Education continued a proposal to add canopies topped with solar panels to the parking lots of 11 Irvine schools.

A veteran administrator whose name has become nearly synonymous with energy, enthusiasm and collaboration has been tapped to serve as principal of Irvine’s next middle school, IUSD Superintendent Terry L. Walker announced today.

A second-year University High School teacher has been awarded an Ocean Science Leadership Award by Quiksilver, USC and other sponsors of the annual QuikSCience Challenge.