150 ESL Students Get Chance to Learn at Summer Camp

A NEW ENVIRONMENT: About 150 children, from kindergartners to fifth-graders, are participating this month in Torrance Elementary’s Summer Camp program. Funded by a federal grant, the camp is designed to help students for whom English is a second language.

Teacher Yvonne Maginnis said the program is available to children from throughout Torrance Unified School District. In session from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, the camp is centered each week on a theme.

This week is “pet animal week,” Maginnis said, and the 4-H Club from Rancho Palos Verdes

is bringing an assortment of animals ranging from chickens to a llama. Next week, “ocean environment week” will feature a visit to the Cabrillo Marine Museum.

The program’s library, computer lab, sports, games, and arts and crafts are supervised in part by 31 youth leaders paid by the Southern California Regional Occupational Center in Torrance. Ranging in age from 14 to 21, the assistants come from lower-income families. They received a week of training before camp started June 28.

Maginnis said the children are having a great time. At the same time, she added, the youth leaders are gaining valuable experience.

“They are showing a lot of responsibility,” she said. “They realize the children are looking up to them, and they are beginning to see how they can make a difference.”

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IRVIN ELECTED: Inglewood Unified School District board members last week elected Loystene Irvin as the board’s president for the 1993-94 school year. Irvin, elected to the board in 1991, said her biggest challenge will be keeping an eye on the “fiscal solvency” of the district.

Lois Hill-Hale was elected vice president of the board. Former president Thomasina Reed will remain as a board member.

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MARINE GRANT: Students from Wilmington Park Elementary and Banning High will learn about marine life from experts at the Cabrillo Marine Museum, thanks to a $12,000 grant from the Texaco Foundation.

In the past, the two schools have been unable to participate in the museum’s three-hour “Sea Search” classes because they couldn’t pay the fee, $200 for 35 students. In the classes, students go on a seashore expedition and collect specimens, which they bring back to the Cabrillo lab for examination.

“Some schools would have their PTA pay for these trips, but other schools don’t come because they can’t afford it,” said John Eels, a spokesman for the museum.

The fee isn’t the only cost facing schools that send students to the classes. Renting a bus for the three-hour class, even for the Wilmington students who live only five miles away, usually costs $250, Eels said. Texaco has agreed to foot the bus bill for Wilmington Park and Banning.

The Texaco grant will also pay for periodic visits to the two schools by the Octobus, a marine biology class on wheels. One of the museum’s six teachers will drive the bus to the schools and conduct a special marine biology class. The cost of an Octobus visit is $110.

“If Texaco had not provided this ‘scholarship’ for the Wilmington schools, a lot of these kids would not have been able to have these (educational) experiences,” Eels said.

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HEALTHY STUDENTS: A total of $400,000 has been awarded to 12 elementary schools in Carson to help each school start community health programs.

The California Department of Education’s “Healthy Start” grant, to be released over three years, will allow the schools to launch primary health care services for students and their families, officials say.

The Carson schools receiving the grant are: Ambler Avenue, Annalee Avenue, Bonita Street, Broadacres Avenue, Caroldale Avenue, Carson Street, Catskill Avenue, Del Amo, Delores Street, Leapwood Avenue, Towne Avenue and 232nd Place School.

“Healthy Start” was implemented because many families with school-age children find it difficult to use public health care services, primarily because of inconvenient hours and a lack of transportation, said Susan Lordi, a consultant for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Items for the weekly Class Notes column can be mailed to The Times South Bay office, 23133 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 200, Torrance 90505, or faxed to (310) 373-5753 to the attention of staff reporter Carol Chastang.