Spaghetti Fundraiser:

Dinner for Christian's family will be held Saturday from 5 p.m. to 8 at the San Pedro United Methodist Church, 580 6th Street, San Pedro. Adult tickets are $10; children from ages four to six are $6. Children under three are free. Each ticket is accompanied with a raffle ticket. Winners do not need to be present. Tickets will be sold at the door. Additional raffle tickets will be sold as well.

Christian, 14, fighting neuroblastoma

Another San Pedro Child Has Cancer; How Can You Help? Let Me Count the Ways


Diana L. Chapman

The skies dazzled a brilliant blue. The clouds lingered in a hazy mist atop the towering, sheer-faced cliffs. And six students were sick with the flu – and staying behind from the grandiose adventures other middle school students were about to undertake -- to scour the glacially carved walls of Yosemite.

One of the stay-behinds was Christian Shelik, 14, a curly, long haired boy who had captured my heart on this February journey. As his science teacher, Alyssa Widmark, pointed out to me repeatedly: “He’s an old soul in a young body,” she said. “I bet you will connect.”

Never could anyone be so right. Having been a writer for as long as I can remember, when I met Christian the first thing I asked him to do for me was write. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had a disability when it came to writing. His page would pour out a purity of words and then suddenly take a nose-dive where it looked like bird scribble – scratching out a different scrawl that made no sense. We didn’t know it at the time, but that disability would be the least of Christian’s problems. His teachers said they were concerned he was losing weight, but to me, he looked fine.

When I got done reading his prose, I knew this kid could write.

The day we left him behind in his cabin when his stomach hurt confirmed that for me. I asked if he could detail on paper whatever came to mind while he sat in his cabin mending. When I came back, he politely handed me several pages of beautiful gems. I could kick myself now, as somewhere along our travel destiny, I lost his pages to the wind and never found them. But I do remember how he wrote these beautiful words as he lingered in his cabin, peering out at the thick forests and the ground floor spotted with emerald moss. Squirrels skittered by and then there were the most seemingly interesting and poignant conversations taking place among the crows. How he wished, he wrote, that he could be privy to those discussions, because he believed the crows might have something profound to teach him.

When I sat down later to read what he wrote, my interest in his potential writing abilities was ignited even more. How beautiful this child could write if we could just take him beyond and away from the disability -- an arena that appeared to be holding him back despite his extreme intelligence and maturity. Meeting Christian and his friend, Felipe, were one of the highlights of my great adventure to Yosemite with Dana Middle School’s Ecology Club – and one I knew I’d never forget. Christian had a profound way of figuring things out; and Felipe – when several us were crawling through a blackened cave and he knew I was panicking –said: “Ms. Chapman. Ms. Chapman. Don’t worry. I’m right here.”

I was flooded with relief.

My husband and I left Yosemite (we were support chaperones) and agreed we had a fantastic journey with some incredible kids (including our own); Some of those kids I would never forget – especially Christian.

A few weeks after arriving home, I was shaking. Christian, I learned through an email from his teacher, has just been diagnosed with neouroblastoma, a rare cancer that often forms as a tumor in the stomach along the spinal cord and typically strikes children at much younger ages. It’s, without a doubt, an extremely grim illness that rarely attacks children over the age of 10 and in two-thirds of the cases starts in the stomach area. It heavily impacts the autonomic nervous system.

Having some familiarity with this disease, I immediately told his teacher my family would help the family in anyway we could. His father, Pete, basically raised his son and daughter, Rhea, 11, in San Pedro and I knew that the family would need as much help as possible – especially because Pete wanted to stay overnight with Christian at Millers Children Hospital in Long Beach as his son underwent went long bouts of chemotherapy.

Money, in all these cases, becomes an issue. And that’s why I believe its important for all of San Pedro to help out in some way or another – even when you don’t know the child. Fundraising for cancer research, joining the Cancer Relay For Life, helping family members, whatever it takes -- whatever you are able to give or do. In this case, two of Christian’s teacher, Alyssa and Michelle DeBilzan and an Ecology Club parent, Sandy Sampson, arranged for a large spaghetti fundraiser for the family. It will be held this Saturday June 23 at the San Pedro United Methodist Church at 580 Sixth Street. (Christian will not be able to attend due to his weakened immune system.).

I will be there. And I hope so will you.

But there are other ways people have stepped up to the plate. Sometimes these are small things, but often they mean more than money. For example, one mother, Megan McElRoy, took Christian’s sister shopping for her fifth grade culmination outfit, which I’m sure helped her Dad out quite a bit and helped take her to school.

Rhea stayed with us for two days when Pete and Christian were in the hospital over night. And because of Christian’s intensive therapy, his immune system is out so out of whack, and he can’t be near any crowds – it looked like he would entirely miss his 8th grade culmination.

Sadly, that was Christian’s biggest wish. He didn’t care if he was in it. He just wanted to watch it. For that reason alone, science teacher Ash Rahmonou has been scrambling to set up a direct video feed so he can watch it from a private room at the school.

When it became clear that both should celebrate their culminations (Rhea’s graduating from fifth grade) I called the owners at the Omelette and Waffle Shop and they’ve allowed us the entire back patio for this family on Monday morning – again because Christian can’t be with crowds.

In all these cases, it makes you just feel better if you can do something --anything -- even if its small – and it helps a precious soul feel that much more loved and wanted. And if we do it right, maybe we will get lucky, and Christian will once again be able to write those beautiful prose.

Don't Forget to Visit the Warner; Many movies for Kids All Summer Long

Remember the days you could walk around town, buy pretzels, baseball caps, fresh flowers, tie-dye dresses and other knicks knacks, all without leaving town and with the extra pleasure of running into friends? Those
days are here again, in downtown San Pedro! The Warner Grand Theatre is
partnering film presentations to Sunday Grower's Market and street fairs, so bring the family, neighbors and friends for a stroll down pedestrian-only 6th Street and use the [Sunday-only] free parking meters. Here are a few of the days you can enjoy family films in our downtown:

Sun Jul 1 Shrek 11 a.m. and Shrek 2 1 p.m. $5/$2
Sun Jul 8 Grease - 2 p.m. $5/$2 [come in costume!]
Sun Jul 22 Little Rascals (1994) 11:30 a.m. and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1965) at 1 p.m. $5/$2
Sun Jul 29 Edward Scissorhands - 2 p.m. $5/$2
Sun Aug 5 The Outsiders (1983) 2 p.m. $5/$2
Sun Aug 12 Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) 2 p.m. $5/$2
Sun Aug 19 The Beatles at Shea Stadium (1965) and LIVE performance by The
Backbeats 2 p.m. $20 ($10 for those in period costume!) Sun Aug 26 Stand And Deliver (1988)

To add yourself to the mailingn list, visit http://warnergrand.org and click on "mailing list" or buy tickets online by clicking "tickets."

San Pedro High School Culinary Teacher, Sandy Wood, Trying to Decide Whether She will Stay at San Pedro High School After the District Ordered the Student-Run Pirate's Cafe to Close Its Doors Because it Competes With District Cafeteria Food....OH Isn't That TOO BAD???

Closing the Student-Run Pirate's Cafe where Nutritious Is Delicious...
Does that make any sense to anyone except for a bureaucrat?

By Diana L. Chapman

A food fight was inevitable when the Los Angeles Unified School District opted to battle this one.
Some things border on stupidity. Others are just simply ridiculous. But this -- in the case of the district’s recent decision to close down San Pedro High School’s student run Pirate’s Café – made the food fly. I’m ready to throw a few tomatoes myself at the arrogance of it all.
Here’s how it all started.
After an entrepreneurial group of students brainstormed a brilliant effort to offer students healthy food by opening the café doors -- and won an award for their efforts -- a school board official showed up at the school declaring the café was in direct competition with the school cafeteria. He forced the small eatery on May 30 – which only planned to serve food three times a week – to close its doors. The student run operation only made it in business for a total of five days.
The move has infuriated long time culinary teacher, Sandy Wood, who oversaw the cafe.
This punitive action – and to me its punitive – has left her contemplating quitting because it was “unconscionable and only hurting the students. Students who ate at the café and were running it were miserably disappointed.
And School Board Member Mike Lansing, who leaves the board at the end of June, received a call on his way to Palm Springs, fumed over by what appears to be another frivolous action by some mid level manager. It’s hard to believe that a café, which only sold about 40 sandwiches a day, was ever in a true completion with the school’s cafeteria food that serves hundreds.
“Believe me,” Mike told me on the phone line, “if there aren’t health issues it will be reinstated. He immediately directed his staff to investigate and a meeting is scheduled for Monday. He added he told his staff: “I do not want to hear why this “won’t” work, but rather how we “will” reinstate this positive program by September – nothing less.”
It’s the same old story ever since I can remember, forever and a day, about bureaucrats getting too arrogant who begin going around flexing their muscles like bullies – picking on small delicacies rather than seeing the bigger fruit on the tree. All four of the students who planned the café are looking at future food services careers and this experience only enhances what the schools are supposed to do – teach. Now we will have to watch the outcome as higher ups spend a lot of time discussing the issue and wasting precious time. And the school year is almost over!
What started out as a fantastic idea now sits spoiling like rotting food on a shelf. The way it began was like this. A group of students decided to run for a contest, called Echo Project, which is connected to a UCLA mentor program.
Students were asked to design a new business, write a business plan, determine how they would act that plan out and -- if they won – would be provided $500 for start up costs.
The four students were awarded the first place winners on Feb. 24 for an inspiring “new business category” to feed students healthy, notorious food. Their motto: “Pirate’s Café; Delicious and Nutritious.” For three days a week and less than a month, they got off to a resounding start, selling turkey and veggie sandwiches during lunch hours for $3 and fruit salad for $2. Only 100 percent juice was sold and everything prepared was sold out immediately.
It was impossible to compete with the cafeteria, the teacher said, because they café only prepared 40 sandwiches a day and thousands of students eat in the cafeteria. They opened in late April and were shut down by the end of June.
“It was such a big hit,” Sandy told me during a cooking class where students bustled around making salads, paring vegetables, boiling pasta and whipping up lunch for themselves like Fettuccine Alfredo (which I tasted and its was scrumptious.)
Her regular class of students were having so much fun – and actually learning to cook and take care of themselves – I wondered just how ludicrous it would be to lose obviously such a special teacher who students seemed to adore. But why continue with a district, she argued he “hurts its own students.”
When the four students won, she said, she was so proud of them “because we didn’t know anything about a business plan and we just decided we’re going to learn. They went to UCLA for the competition and they won. They were really thrilled.”
The students – Ainsley Sanchez, Lidia Pedroza, Anthony Hernandez, all 17, and Dennis Veliz, 18, immediately used the money to buy supplies and opened up the café under Sandy’s guidance. With the small amount of profits, the students decided they would invest back into the business and then perhaps give one student a scholarship to culinary school.
“I was really bummed and sad,” when the doors closed, explained Ainsley while cooking hamburgers in class. “We had been working on this project since October and we barely lasted a month.”
Even students who enjoyed Pirate’s Café said they cannot understand food service’s decision.
“They did a good job and the sandwiches were really good,” said 10th grader Monique Maestro, 16. “I was just so mad, because that was my lunch. The cafeteria food isn’t healthy at all.”
“It was really good and they were so organized,” said Jeanine Vargas, 16, an 11th grader. “I feel so bad because they worked so hard to put this together. It was like why?”
Why is a good question Jeanine.
The way it all went down, the teacher explained, was she received a call to come to the principal’s office on the afternoon where she met David Copleland, a food supervisor for the district. He was holding an article about the Café in the More San Pedro newspaper and demanded café be closed, Wood said. The reasons, he told her, were that the district did not allow direct competition with school cafeterias and that she didn’t have the proper permits.
. The teacher was stunned. No one had ever told her she had to have permits. She didn’t need any for a cooking class and the café was running out of the same classroom.
The doors were closed that day and remain that way.
Monday’s meeting should reveal the outcome, but this all sounds like the big bully came to town to me. Maybe perhaps the real fear Mr. Copleland has – and he should fear it – is that the student café will become so successful and popular that these students will have successful cafés pop at schools all over Los Angeles.
Now that’s now such a bad idea, Mr. Copeland, is it? If the district can’t provide healthy food – what’s so wrong with a bit of competition? In America, last I heard, that’s a good thing.

IF YOU’RE A TAGGING TEEN, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHO IS WATCHING YOU! IT JUST MIGHT BE A JUDGE…AND NOT JUST ANY JUDGE

By Diana L. Chapman

This is one of those wonderful stories where you wished all tagging incidents ended up this way.
Take the two teenagers, around 17, who decided on a Saturday night this month to start penning their street jargon on electrical boxes around 13th Street and Pacific Avenue.
Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, a local Superior Court Judge Peter Mirich, who serves both the San Pedro and Catalina court houses, was ambling along the road in a car on his way to get something to eat.
When he spotted the teens with their pens marking the boxes, stop signs and park benches, he followed them watching diligently as they continued tagging one spot after another. That’s when the judge began calling the police.
If you think the judge has much more pull then we do, he still found himself going through the frustrating web of black hole phone calls. He started out first calling Los Angeles Police Department’s main line and asking to be connected to the Harbor Division.
The staff person on the line refused to connect him, he said, calling a tagging incident, a “low priority, and that if I contacted (the taggers) it was at my own risk.” But if you know the judge – nothing like this could be a low priority. Having been born and raised around San Pedro, he – like most of us – find tagging and graffiti a major drain on our urban lives as a constant, needling reminder of needless destruction continuously injected into our psyches.
As all of us have sadly and angrily watched the bombardment of graffiti over the years, the judge, decided despite the rebuff on the phone, he would not give up.
“I was then placed on hold and followed the taggers to 9th Street,” the judge e-mailed me. “Finally, (while still on hold), I spotted a patrol car and flagged it down.”
The judge never stopped his quest to nab the taggers. The officers agreed to follow him and together they looked for the taggers – which later led to both of their arrests. Once the police were on hand, he said, he was extremely impressed with their professionalism.
This lesson taught me that even a judge can run into problems with the law cooperating! And the judge’s advice to all of us is to think about carrying the Harbor Division phone number so witnesses can call directly to the area, instead of the regional lines, to get much more likely action on those so low, priority calls.
And to all those taggers out there, all I can say is: “Here come the judge!” AWESOME.

Another lost treasure
By Ron Galosic, Eastview Little League Board Member

As we approach our last day of Eastview Little League at it’s current location on the corner of Gaffey and Capitol in San Pedro, I look back and reflect upon another mistake our city has made that has let this wonderful complex for kids, that has been open 24 hours a days, seven days per week, for the entire community to enjoy for over forty years, just disappear.

I recently watched the tryouts take place for the next incoming class for the San Pedro High School baseball team freshman class., and after watching the two days with the kids from Dodson Junior High tryout, and then the two days with the kids from Dana Junior High tryout, I along with others there, were amazed with what we saw. Fourteen kids from Dodson, who all come from Eastview, are fully prepared to play high school baseball, and will make the team, while maybe 2-3 from Dana, none of whom even play currently in San Pedro, are prepared to play. What conclusion can you draw from this? There are simply no quality fields left on the south side of our town for the kids that go to Dana to learn this game of baseball and stay out of trouble, and that the one great place that this town does have, and has had for over forty years, Eastview, we all are watching disappear.

Since 1970, the South side of our town has lost the South Shores fields, the Upper reservation fields, the original Bogdonovich fields, Trona fields, Dillon Fields the Boys Club fields, and the fields at Liberty Hill. I ask you a question that I believe is also a responsibility of our elected officials, where do the kids on the south side of town go to play ball and stay out of trouble, and why did we not act fast enough to save the best fields this town has ever seen on the north side of town, Eastview, any sooner?

Did our elected officials ever have a chance to save the fields at Eastview you ask? Well the answer is yes they did. When this whole process began three years ago, one of the first things we suggested to our Councilwoman was to take the property for community park space, a thing this town needs, via eminent domain. The mistake we made was that we trusted Councilwoman Hahn, when she told us that it could not be done. Well, I sat in on a meeting a little over a month ago, and Janice invited a City Attorney to sit in on our meeting. At this meeting, the city attorney was grilled as to the possibilities of eminent domain, which in the end, she also agreed that yes eminent domain can be done now, and that it could have easily been done three years ago, and that the fields could have been saved.

Along with the sadness of the loss of the fields, special thanks does need to go out to The Port Of Los Angeles, and their wonderful leadership, as they did what needed to be done to help temporarily save us from extinction. With the Port’s engineers on site and working daily, it does look like a temporary home on Knoll Hill has began, and should be ready for the first pitch in 2008.

In conclusion, the people of our city need to take a stand and save the places that serve our youth and keep them out of trouble. We need to understand the distinction between the new phrase, “Open Space”, which is a fancy word for space for a place for adults go to sit and enjoy a view, and “Park Space Facilities” which is a place that the kids can go and exercise, run around, kick or throw a ball, and stay out of trouble. This past season I helped coach 8-9 year olds, and one of the coach’s I coach with has a great phrase he uses with the kids to help them to understand that every at bat you only get to see one or two great pitches, and you have to swing the bat and hit those pitches. Those pitches he calls “Treasures”, and tells them that when one comes, you need to swing at them, and you can't let them go. Well, coach, as we close the book on the final season here for Eastview and the corner of Capitol and Gaffey, unfortunately, our city let another good one go by, and we have lost another treasure, Eastview Little League.

AQUATIC CLASSES FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO KEEP IN SHAPE IN A LESS STRESSFUL WAY FOR THE BODY!

AQUATIC FITNESS CLASS
TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS
8:30-10:00AM
PECK PARK POOL
ONLY $55.00
JULY 3rd - AUGUST 24th
CONTACT: YVONNE 310-619-5305
AQUAFITCHICK@YAHOO.COM

FINAL EFFORT FOR HONORARY MAYOR CANDIDATE TO BUILD SPORTS COMPLEX : LET's DO IT! WE OBVIOUSLY NEED THIS IN THIS TOWN:

Dear Readers: I support the efforts you'll read below. We need everything we can get our hands on for kids in this town.

Sincerely, Diana

To all,

This is my Final effort asking for your donation to
help win the 2007 Honorary Mayors race and continue
our advocacy for a San Pedro Sports Complex!

Whether it is $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, or any other
amount, every dollar puts us one step closer to
winning.

Why do I want to win you may ask yourself and why
should you send in a donation? Winning opens the
door to those who can help our Mission of building a San
Pedro Sports Complex. It provides opportunities to
speak at events continuing this advocacy and much
more!

San Pedro is a Sports Town and we owe it to our kids
to provide them a Permanent, not Temporary, location
to participate in Sports.

All donations are due by June 21st. The 2007
Honorary Mayor will be announced June 27th at the Crowne
Plaza in San Pedro at 5:30pm!

Please send your tax deductible donation TODAY to
P.O.
Box 78, San Pedro, Ca 90733. Please make checks payable to: SPYC-Pirozzi for Honorary Mayor.
Please forward this to your email distribution list.
Thank You So Much!!!

Anthony Pirozzi
Candidate for Honorary Mayor of San Pedro 2007



____________________________________________________________________________________

GIRL POWER! GIRLS POWER! GIRL POWER!

Attention Supporters of San Pedro Youth: If you have work with middle school age girls or have a daughter of this age feel free and call me with questions. This is great opportunity for girls to get information, support and prizes. The workshop is FREE and the schedule does not interfere with Summer School!

YWCA of the Harbor Area and South Bay Presents:


“GIRL POWER” A 3-Day workshop for girls ages 11-14
June 26-28
10:30am-2:00pm
@ 437 W. 9th Street
San Pedro

Over the course of three days we’ll talk, play games, and learn about…

· Changes your body is going through and what they mean

· Peer Pressure

· Getting along with others

· Communication Skills

· What is abstinence

· Feeling Good about Yourself

· Making Healthy Decisions

· Body Image

· And much more!

TALK!
ASK QUESTIONS!HAVE FUN!


Breakfast and Lunch will be provided each day

Prizes for attendance!!!
Day 1: Registration Goodie bag!
Day 2: Movie Ticket!
Attend ALL 3 Days:
Gift Card to Old Navy
***If you would like to attend this workshop, bring the attached consent form to Gaby Medina at the YWCA on or before June 26th. ****

QUESTIONS?
Contact: Gaby Medina @
(310) 547-0831 or
Mena Hughes @
(310) 780-0477

Mena Hughes

SAN PEDRO HIGH TO RECEIVE $12.9 Million Gym

By Diana L.Chapman
Parents, teachers, administrators and particularly San Pedro High School students this week applauded a heavily festooned groundbreaking ceremony for a brand new 1,000 seat, state-of-the-art,22,000 square foot building.
The tab for the new gym is $12.9 million because of increases in construction cost, district officials said.
Hawaiian Dancers, the Pirate Dancers and the school band charmed the audience with peppy performances and traditional band songs while many students beamed proudly that they would at last have a new gym -- to expand upon an existing, much smaller antiquated facility – even if they won’t be around when the project is completed in August 2008.
Most performing arts students said they were squished. Cramped. And competing for space in the old gym, which will remain on site to make way for a new weight room and to expand the school’s dance center.
Charisma Jones, 18, the school’s drill team captain and a Pirate dancer, said she doesn’t even care if she never has a chance to use the new facility.
“I’m just so excited for the future pep squads and know they are going to experience a new gym,” she said beaming. “That’s just going to help everybody. We can hold pep rallies. More people can come. Nobody could really fit into it before. It was just too small.”
Mike Lansing, a Los Angeles Unified School Board member who will step down from his post at the end of June, said the public should begin looking at schools as the new “oasis” in urban areas – as the city of Los Angeles has heavily “ratcheted back” their after school programs and other recreational activities for more than the past decade. Schools across the city, he said, have become the answer to care for children after school -- and for communities recreational options on the weekend.
Having grown up in the area and using the gym as a teenager, Lansing, said he knew from his own experiences how badly a new gym was needed. The gym will be opened for public use on the weekends and for organizations that require permits, he explained.
The board member repeatedly thanked voters for passing bond measures that passed to improve schools.
“The sad truth ,my friends, is that we continue to build more and more housing and watch our population continue to grow, but the city of Los Angeles does not match that growth with the adequate infrastructures we need and deserved including ball fields, gymnasiums and other facilities in which both the school and greater community can exercise.
Under a revolutionary modernization plan – and according to the district one of the “most comprehensive in the country,” the school district began upgrading and modernizing dozens of schools throughout Los Angeles with air conditioning, facility repair and improvements. The funds came from a variety of funds, but mostly from the 1997 passage of Proposition BB and scores of other voters measures that brought the district more than $2 billion to fix dozens of schools.
In the Harbor area recently, Banning High School received a new football stadium with manufactured grass and Narbonne High School received a night lighting system.

XX, in charge of the modernization, said he's proud to be part of such a revitalization program and the said the schools were "indebted" to the voters.

"These things change lives," he said. "These types of things, athletic facilities, are part of building a well rounded person."

Most students that day were delighted by the prospect of a new gymnasium, especially Pirate Dancers who never had mirrors or bars to help them improve their technical dancing skills and overcrowding could dampen even the best school spirits.

Said 15-year-old 10th grader, Lanice Renfroe: "I'm so happy about it. I think it will better our students. ..and help our school spirit."

Tiffany Lytle, 16, and the school's Miss Dance San Pedro, said: "It's going to soar our spirits so high. Our sports are going to excel. Right now, in dance we have to look at ourselves because we don't have mirrors to improve. We have to depend on each other. This is going to be really beneficial."

Only one student said he didn't believe a new gym was the near necessity that a high swim pool was. The high school's swim team, he complained, has to leave campus to compete and has no where to practice.

"I personally would have preferred a swimming pool," said Chase Gallarza, a 15-year-0ld 9th grader. "I didn't 'think we really needed it."

TOPSAIL: A MUST FOR ALL SAN PEDRO KIDS WHO LIVE, BREATH AND HAVE A CHANCE AT PROFESSIONS AROUND LOS ANGELES HARBOR: IT'S WHERE STUDENTS SHOULD LEARN TO FIND THE SEA

Dana Middle School students join for the first time in years. Some have never seen a sea lion in the wild.

Capt. Mike McLauglin, and his first mate, Elaine (above)

Other students had never been on a vessel before and are out on the ocean for the first time in their lives.

Dana students (above) enjoy the experience. The consistent thread in their comments is that they can't wait to go again.

TOPSAIL: A MUST FOR SAN PEDRO KIDS TO EXPLORE THEIR OWN BACKYARD -- THE SEA

TopSail is Tops for Kids – Poor, Rich or in the Middle
It’s the best Team Teacher that every school in the Los Angeles Harbor Area Should Join – including San Pedro High School

“I felt free like a bird when it flies,”-- Jazmine Galindo, a sixth grader, about her adventure aboard the tall ship Exy Johnson

By Diana L. Chapman

I listened to the kids grilling Capt. Mike McLaughlin as he steered the Exy Johnson toward open seas with a bunch of Dana Middle School students aboard.

The students--mind you, between the ages of 12 to 14--wanted to know: What kind of job in the harbor can they get that pays well? How did Mike become a captain? Which jobs are not only lucrative but prestigious? What are the best jobs to take care of their families? Do they have to go to college? What was that yellow boat over there – a taxi? Why is that black vessel have people getting ready to board that freighter?

My thought: When was the last time you were in a school where students sharply question their teacher with pointed interest?

The captain answered patiently, explaining they could spend years gaining the experience to become a captain, as he did, or they could take a shortcut and go to school at a maritime academy.

Ironically, these students, who live in and around Los Angeles Harbor, the second largest port in existence, hugged by the giant Pacific Ocean, had never seen marine mammals in the wild before. That was just some of the experiences unfolding before my eyes aboard the Exy -- and one that impressed upon me more than how our children in San Pedro and throughout the harbor area should be studying and exploring the endless number of career possibilities for them in their own backyard.

The students gathered around Exy's rail excitedlby spotting sea lions roll and glide around the ship, waiting for cannery employees to throw out handfuls of fish. Later they were treated to seeing a school of dolphin!

This is exactly what the founder of TopSail, Capt. Jim Gladson, had in mind when he created the program– an adventure aboard sailing vessels that would teach students alternative ways to learn ranging from geography, science, math, teamwork, resourcefulness to one overarching lesson – how to sail.

That’s how we came aboard for two seperate days with students who are considered potential candidates and may join the school’s after school sailing club once it takes form this fall at Dana. But it's sad that had it not been for Rachel Fischer Gladson, Gladson’s daughter-in-law, these junior high students would never boarded for a single lesson.

Because she knew of my advocacy for children, she called to ask if I could help connect Dana with the program. Thousands of dollars provided through LA Bridges has been wasted by our local schools. Essentially, the story is this: Both Dodson and Dana middle schools could use Top Sail virtually for free with grants through LA Bridges, a prevention-based program for Los Angeles middle schools.

I cringed when I learned this and so did Dana's principal, Terry Ball. While both schools had dabbled some time or another to take advantage of this program, it also needs the right people in the right place at the right time -- meaning a top administrator who believes in it and teachers who want to run the program.

In our case, we were blessed that two teachers volunteered -- English teacher Michelle DeBilzan and science teacher Greg Bartleson. For the first time in years, Dana set sail last week on two different journeys aboard the 90-foot brigantine where kids learned everything from “belaying” or winding lines to how deep the water is just beyond the Angel's Gate Lighthouse.

I loved listening to the kids grill the captain – and believe me, they did -- as well as climb out on the pulpit, head up the mast, raise and later fold the sails and become a big part of the detail running the Exy, one of the twin ships used in TopSail.

So many students begged to come back that the teachers realized how difficult it would be to select students who will be able to join. Each junior high school in Los Angeles that falls under the LA Bridges program – which means most of them – qualifies for this adventure, which includes five different day sails and one final five-day adventure to Catalina Island.

When we returned after a day that began with morning under a misty pearl -gray sky but was transformed into a bright, sunny afternoon, I asked the students to write about their adventures becoming part of the crew and learning a multitude of tasks, including how to use the “head”--the bathroom--and learn lingo they’d never heard before.

“The experience on the ocean is a whole different way to listen and learn,” wrote 13-year-old Bradley Washington. “Smelling the ocean and what smells came out were wet and damp. I would love to go back and relive the experience.”

Wrote 7th grader Bradley Fernandez: “This trip left me speechless. I liked the climbing the best because I got to use my courage and I let go of my fear. This was the best trip of my whole life!”

The teaching experience started when founder Gladson discovered taking his students at an alternative school in Eagle Rock aboard a vessel taught them much more than they could learn in a classroom. They learned how to steer, chart, read maps, understand ocean tides and currents; it was an educational maverick that worked.

He began TopSail under the Los Angeles Maritime Institute at Ports of Call and has four ships in the program, including Exy’s twin, Irving Johnson and the 70-foot Swift of Ipswich.

I can go on and on, but nothing can tell you more than going out on the adventure yourself as a volunteer and watching the kids learn in ways none of us could have imagined. Students coiled lines, hoisted sails, quizzed the captain on how deep it was right outside the harbor (not quite enough to swallow the boat, which is 87 feet high and we were at a depth of 82 feet, the captain explained) and most of all watching the kids become a team.

No one can tell you better than the kids themselves.

“Today, we went sailing and it was crazy. I learned about how you go through winds,” wrote Richard Q., a 13-year-old sixth grader. I really, really, really, 5X really, want to go on a five-day trip. Please pick me. Please pick me. Please pick me. I will behave and learn stuff. New stuff.”

That you will Richard Q. That you will.

HOLDING A HOMERUN GOODBYE FOR EASTVIEW's HISTORIC FIELDS

Visit June celebrations to honor the Farewell's

Diana L. Chapman

Extending peace offerings to the community – and a thank you to many residents for rallying to their support –Eastview Little League officials launched a series of community events to say goodbye to its historic ball fields that have operated in San Pedro for more than four decades.
As a good bye and thank you, the league – which will be moved temporarily to Knoll Hill while a permanent spot becomes established – will host several events in June for residents including a movie “under the stars.” Each will be free.
“It is just our way to say thank you to San Pedro, and thank you for every family that has been involved with Eastview in the past 45 years.” said Ron Galosic, an East View board member. “We would love for everyone to attend, because it is going to be a whole lot of fun!”
This Saturday (June 9th), Sand Lot III – Heading Home – will be aired under the stars at the ballfields which hosted thousands of games for the little league since 1964.
Beginning at 8 p.m., the movie will air on a 14 X 25 screen. Popcorn will be free. Those attending will need to bring their own chairs and some funds for other refreshments that will be available for a short time at the league’s Snack Bar.
Located at the corner of North Gaffey and Westmont Avenue at the former DiCarlo Bakery site, the league was told they would be evicted by the end of July to make way for an incoming Target store to the area. While league officials fought hard to remain at the site, it became clear that neither Target officials or Councilwoman Janice Hahn would support that effort.
While many other sites were explored as temporary possibilities, including 22 Street’s vacant lot, Hahn’s office settled on Knoll Hill and told East View there would be no other negotiations, East view officials said.
Instead, the league will be moved to Knoll Hill for next baseball season, which will force the Peninsula Dog Park, Inc. to move down the hill to a flatter location at the bottom on Harbor Boulevard. Los Angeles Port executives have promised to make both the fields and the dog park beatific locations -- and pay some funds for each, including the grading.
League officials will hold a “closing day ceremony” to “the end of an era.” Visitors should plan to bring their own barbeques, tarps, tables and chairs.
Double “AA” Division finals will also be held at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 15, and two finals will be played out on Friday, June 16. The Single “A” Division final will be held at 5:30 and the major division finals at 8:30.
Goodbye to Eastview’s old site and good luck to finding a future and permanent location.

Seventh Street Elementary Mural to be Unveiled this Friday...

7th Street Elementary School Unveils A Masterpiece of Literary Art Friday:

It's a Must-See-Creation-of-an-Only Kind; The public is invited to Attend

Where the Seuss of Things Can Be Found in a Wall
By Diana L. Chapman

Using scores of students and dozens of volunteers to painstakingly piece together a snaking 100 feet long mosaic wall, a masterpiece – at least in my book especially because its all about children’s books – will be officially unveiled Friday – ending a project that nearly two years long in the making.
With 12 children’s books depicted in the mosaic mural – pieces done through a combination of children’s work and parent volunteers – stories like Dr. Seuss' Cat and the Hat, Charlotte’s Web and Harry Potter seem to come to life along the curving wall doused in a myriad of colors, from whites to rosy pinks and blues.
The ceremony will be held Friday at 1:15 and is open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. And all the photographs in the world can’t speak for seeing this artistic work: it’s a-must- see-in-person creation.
Megan McElroy, who spent most of her time the past two years working on the wall for generations of school children to come, said the school is happy to complete the giant venture that was done through a $10,000 Neighborhood grant from the city of Los Angeles. Another grant helped pay for beautifully wispy landscape – that accents the beds of the mosaic wall – which includes plants such as Australian willows and the flowering plants alstromeria, salvia, penstemmon and mustard colored yarrow.
Landscape architect Rick Dykzeul, designed the garden and in particular picked that vegetation to attract butterflies and hummingbirds and “we have many,” Megan said.
Artist Melinda Moore created the wall, but the project could not have been completed without parents like Megan and the hundreds of students who participated as well.
“I love creating ceramic pieces with the kids,” Megan said. “It is a
magical process for them because you are transforming
such a raw substance into a beautiful object. But my
favorite part of doing a mural of any kind at a school
is that the kids live with the creative process every
day. They understand that art can be done by anyone,
and they take such pride in our school's accomplishment.”
What makes me so happy, however, is when such projects are completed, it tends to bring the community back to the campus and spark a dying interest in our schools. The beautification is just one piece of this puzzle as it takes over the typical drab ugly colors that douse the creative spirit at most schools.
A mosaic mural like this not only makes the kids want to come to school – it makes the teachers want to come. They frequently sit and have their lunches next to the mosaic mural. And for the kids, every day it gives them something to talk about since the mural is positioned strategically right across from the library – like reading.

For more information, call the school at: (310) 832-1538. The campus is located at 1570 W. 7th Street, San Pedro.

OK I'm Not in the Dog Business...., but I need a good home anyway. Check out my stats below and if you are interested look me up. You can find my San Pedro foster family by emailing at: ITalentHound@cox.net

Katrina Puppy Brindle White Socks Female
Pit Bull Staffordshire 5mos (San Pedro Los Angeles) Female, Brindle with white socks, the only puppy from a Katrina litter whose new owners are unable to keep her due to a situation which evolved from within their family (unexpected domestic violence created by the stepfather). The human mother is living in a shelter, the teenager got pregnant, lost her job, and she is living with her boyfriend’s parents, who will not allow her to keep the dog. This puppy stuck by her family through thick & thin, but she does not deserve to be in a domestically violent situation after surviving Katrina! She is safe from harm, and I will keep her safe until finding the "right" home who will love her and keep her away from danger and harm. She loves to play, she is still a puppy, she's been living with a cat, and she was put in a boarding facility for a week before I could get her out and make her feel at home while searching for someone special to make her a part of their family. The kennel staff loved her and ranted/raved about what a great puppy she is. Right now she needs love because she fell in love with her family and was moreless desserted... Please inquire if you know of anyone who can adopt this special female canine friend. Her bro went to a LA firefighter, and we can all stay in touch and get 2gether for playtime, so don't let it be an excuse if you feel you might not know where to walk her or how to socialize, we are here to help, we just want a loving home for this sweetheart. She will need to live inside, not outside in the doghouse, for she will be on the large side of the breed, and she seems to be a jumper and athlete, very strong, not for the weak or novice. Shots are current, will try and get a more recent photo- she resembles a striped tiger, she has grown since this photo, very muscular & lean

Does Your Child Have Art You'd Like to Submit to the Underdog For Kids?





Does your child have some art you'd like displayed? Please e-mail to hartchap@earthlink.net with a photo of the art. I nclude your child's age, school and location where you live and a way to contact you for postings.

ARTIST CORNER FOR KIDS OF ANY AGE:

Introducing Artist Maya Pavic:

Hello my name is Maya Pavic I am 13 years old I attend Dana Middle School and I am in seventh grade and I love to draw and I love looking at art. This drawing that is drawn by me is a wolf, I made this character up in my head. So basically I was just bored and I was thinking of what to draw for Diana's blog. I hope everyone likes this drawing of mine. I think I am a very good drawer and I love to draw no matter what I and feeling like. Well enjoy this drawing everyone.

A Successful Boys and Girls Club Girl Comes Back to Run the College Bound Program for Kids Who Truly Believed Upper Education Was Not in Their "Atmosphere; Now Going to College Becomes More of A Norm at the Clubs with Signifigant Increases Each Year

Story By: Mike Lansing, Executive of the Los Angeles Harbor Area Boys and Girls Clubs

(Photo above of Yesenia Aguilar, who runs College Bound, and Justin Johnson, who received acceptances to three University of California campuses: Santa Barbara, San Diego and Riverside. Justin opted to go to San Diego.

The Student, the Teacher and St. Jude


I first met Yesenia Aguilar in 1994 when I was volunteering in the Learning Center at the San Pedro Boys & Girls Club. Yesenia was a very personable high school junior who exhibited noticeable leadership traits, excelled in sports especially basketball, but put forth the minimum amount of effort in her school work just to stay “eligible”. She faced numerous challenges which didn’t support making her education a priority. Her family was poor, her immigrant parents were loving but divorced and her two brothers were heavily involved in gangs. In fact, one had been almost fatally stabbed a block from the Boys & Girls Club when she was growing up. One thing she did have going for her was that she didn’t follow in her brothers’ footsteps – there was no way she was going to be a gang member. Her “gang” was the kids who played ball at the Club.

I became Executive Director a year later and in June of that year Yesenia visited me to share a major decision she had made. “I need to get out of town Mike and go to college” she stated. Yesenia proceeded to tell me that she didn’t want to travel down that same dead-end path that her brothers and too many of her friends had taken. To be honest, I was most surprised when she told me that San Jose State had accepted her with a 2.3 G.P.A., but she assured me this was true. She said that she knew she had wasted her high school opportunity and now wanted to make a commitment to her education and future. I told her the Club would help out any way we could.

Besides her limited academic progress to date, Yesenia also faced the fact that due to her family’s limited resources, she would basically have to finance both her education and living expenses by herself. We stayed in touch throughout her college years and though the Club helped her out with some limited funding each year, the reality is that Yesenia had to work multiple jobs while going to school so that she could afford her room, board, tuition and books. This would be difficult enough for a top notch student - for someone who had yet to exhibit any academic success, this hurdle seemed almost impossible to scale in my estimation. But she promised to put forth the effort necessary so we supported her in that endeavor.

The reality was that Yesenia was a very bright young woman and exhibited the dedication necessary to both meet her work and school responsibilities. In 2001 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science as well as a multiple subject Teacher Preparation waiver to provide her direct entry into graduate school. Given her lack of support and effort prior to going to college, being the first person in her family to earn a college degree and enter graduate school was nothing short of remarkable.

The Teacher

One of Yesenia’s numerous jobs during her undergraduate years was working with disadvantaged elementary students to provide tutorial assistance and guidance. This experience convinced her that becoming a teacher was her calling, so she enrolled in the teacher certification program at San Jose State upon graduation.

As previously noted, I had been in contact with Yesenia throughout her college years and I had been biding my time hoping to get her to come back and work with “other Yesenia’s” back here at the Club. In 2003 I called and made her an offer: come back to San Pedro, finish off your teacher certification program at Cal State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) and become the director of the fledgling “College Bound” program we had just started a year before. I knew she was capable of balancing both a full time position and going to graduate school – she had exhibited the same as an undergrad. Yesenia was the model for why we started the College Bound program in the first place – a teen with lots of potential, little support at home/school who just needed someone to care, support and motivate them each and every day. Yesenia had obviously “walked in the shoes” of those coming to our Teen Center which would both provide her credibility with her young charges and assist her in meeting their needs. This is why I wanted Yesenia to return so badly and she agreed.

Yesenia has thrived as our College Bound director and was the catalyst for its tremendous growth. The first year she headed the program there were “4” seniors enrolled who would go on to college. This year she has “54” seniors in the program and 44 have already committed to a two or four year college! She expanded the program to include besides daily tutorial support - case management, college application assistance, Writer’s Workshops, SAT & PSAT preparedness workshops, F.A.F.S.A. and other funding assistance application support, college visits, and SAT exam fee waiver support. She has grown the program to include well over 200 participants this year (including 80 “juniors”). Next year she will be working to expand this important College Bound program to both our Wilmington and Port of Los Angeles sites. Last but not least, that student who barely graduated high school with a 2.3 G.P.A. - she had “straight A’s” in her graduate classes while earning her teaching credential at CSUDH.

St. Jude

St. Jude is the patron saint of “lost causes”. Too often the teens we serve at the Boys & Girls Club are labeled as “lost causes” by far too many adults in our community. We developed our College Bound program to support all levels of students, but in actuality we target those who for the time being are average to below average achievers – many of whom are labeled as “lost causes”. This is so very important because due to lack of college counseling resources at our high schools, usually only the high achieving students receive the full attention they need – the “lost causes” who make up a large percentage of high school students are way down the list. This is why our College Bound program is so very different than any other college pathway program I have researched – for we give the teens who truly need our help the most the same services and support provided the highest achieving students. We have developed a program so that the late blooming Yesenia’s of today are given a real chance to reach their full potential.

Next week I will be attending Yesenia’s graduation from the Teacher Credentialing program at CSUDH and have the distinct pleasure to be one of the guest speakers. In reality though the ceremony is a bit anti-climactic, for Yesenia has already been a “teacher” for many years – guiding, cajoling and motivating young people just like her to believe in themselves and become in most cases the first in their family to attend college. She has dedicated herself to the teens who are anything but the “lost causes” too many others see. She knows first hand that the “Yesenia’s” of our world are many and they only need an advocate, a mentor, a taskmaster, a friend - a “teacher” who will believe in them each and every day.

Congratulations Yesenia on earning your teaching credential, but more importantly, for bringing hope and opportunity to many who are facing the same limitations you had growing up. Without you and College Bound, they would have little or no chance. Thank you for continuing on next year as our College Bound director – for you are both the original model and the engine for this most important program. Like St. Jude, you too firmly believe in what some see as “lost causes”. You too believe in the Yesenia’s of today who will become like you – the leaders of tomorrow.

DANA TALENT SHOW: DON’T MISS THIS FUN!

Last year, I attended the Dana Middle School Talent Show and had so much fun I’m going to go again this Friday.
I know what you are thinking: a talent show is a talent show is a talent show.
But somehow, because the students hadn’t done a talent show in years, the enthusiasm deliciously spilled over into the crowd and when one vocalist had a tough time singing, the students in the audience chimed in to help her over the blip in her chart. The show is free.
“We now have approximately 30 student acts: singers, dancers, comedy skit, monologue, student band, school band and cheerleaders,” said Kim Blanks, the event organizer.
Some school staff members are daringly brave and are expected to sing too.
The show begins at 6:00 p.m. The PTO will be selling hotdogs, sodas, chips, prior to the show beginning at 5:00. Raffle tickets will be sold to for $1 each or 6 for $5. Some of the prizes are: handmade rugs, Disneyland tickets for two plus parking pass, two Six Flags Magic Mountain tickets, gift certificates to Babouch, Chicago for Ribs and two Spirit Cruise tickets.
PTO members will also sell DVD's of the production for $5. So this Friday – if you want to see it all from humor to dancing, take a jog over to one of your local school’s. Dana is located at 1501 S. Cabrillo Avenue. For more information, call Kim Blanks at the school: (310) 241-1100 and leave a message with the Main Office

HOW ABOUT FEASTING WITH A BUNCH OF THOUSAND POUND BEHEMOTHS...

Why Should You and Your Kids Attend Dinner with the Killer Whales?
It’s an Experience None of You Will Forget

Every time the photos of the killer whales pop up on my computer screen, it reminds me of the exact reasons we went to dine with Sea World’s orcas in San Diego.
It’s expensive– especially when you have to pay the entrance fee first. But in my book and all the children that went with us, it was one of those cherished waves of lifetime experiences that’s hard to flip.
After all, how often can you say that you dined right next door – and side by side with killer whales. ?
This isn’t really worth writing about. Photos tell the tale of the tail more than I ever could. And that’s no fluking.
Go dine with the beasts.
For dinner, tickets are $35 for ages ten and up and $19 for ages three to nine. Breakfasting with the whales costs $24 for ages 10 and up and $10 for ages three to nine.
Under three for either outing is free.
Entrance fees to a day in the park are $57 for ten and up and $47 for ages 3-nine.

Retired Veteran LAUSD Adminstrator Kleiner Booted the Day Before Arriving To Begin As Interim Principal at Locke High:

Only Politics Can Answer the Mystery

By Diana L. Chapman


As quickly as former Los Angeles School Board candidate, Neal Kleiner, was tapped to become interim principal at the contentious and controversial Locke High School, he was told he had been removed from the position before he had a chance to start today.

Kleiner said he arrived at the school Wednesday to check out the campus, and the superintendent of that district, Carol Truscott, apologized and commiserated with him, but added: "I was not wanted," Kleiner said.

Arriving one day sooner to stroll the Locke campus – a school under fire after the entire staff from the principal on down petitioned to leave the district and become a charter school – Kleiner wanted to talk with the staff to start paving the way for the LAUSD school the following year.
Kleiner was to temporarily fill the vacancy of Principal Frank Wells, who was escorted from the campus a week earlier apparently for allowing teachers to sign petitions during school hours.
But upon his arrival, Kleiner said he was greeted by the district’s superintendent of Region 8, Trescott, told him he was no longer wanted for the post.
“It hurt,” said Neal, a former Locke High School teacher and counselor, over a cup coffee at a local diner, the Omelette & Waffle Shop. He has lived in San Pedro for 27 years.” I really wanted to be there. I wanted to try to stabilize the school and fill teacher positions before the fall.
“I’m not a miracle worker. I just wanted to help the school moved forward.”
In an odd last minute decision, Kleiner, who was beaten by mayoral-backed candidate Richard Vladovic in this month’s race for the school board, said he was unsure why the ropes were pulled out from underneath him when he arrived at the school Wednesday.
However, Neal, 60, a district veteran whose career spanned nearly four decades with LAUSD who began campaigning vehemently against Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's attempts to takeover the school district, said he believed his opponent had nothing to do with it.

Instead, he believes the effort to remove him from the post was driven by the mayor. He believes possibly LAUSD Superitendent Richard Brewer the III received complaints from the mayor and then the edict to fire him was ordered.
The educational spokeswoman for the mayor's office had not returned calls for this story..


If so, School Board Member Mike Lansing, currently in charge of that district until he steps down in June, said he would be extremely angry. He added that he'd learn more today when meeting with the Superitendent this afternoon.
"I don't know what happened," Lansing said. "I just hope it's not intervention by the mayor or anyone else who would for personal reasons hurt an opportunity for our kids. I'd be most upset if the students were paying for adult issues."
Asking Kleiner whether Vladovic might have fought to have him booted after the recent race elections, Kleiner contended that both men were professionals and would put the past behind them. They both know, he said, that the district has much bigger issues to cope with.

“I just don’t think Vladovic would care," Kleiner siad. "I lost in the long run and we had a hard fight. But I felt good. And I wish Mr. Vladovic all the best. I took yesterday a lot harder than I did losing election.”
A top-level source says it’s his understanding, however, that the incident had nothing to do with the mayor but rather with Vladovic. The incoming board member called and complained there would be trouble if Kleiner was hired, according to the source.
Because school districts often hire retired administrators to fill in personnel gaps, it would be unusual for Vladovic to complain, especially since he himself is a career district administrator.

Reached late Friday afternoon, Vladovic said he knew nothing about Kleiner being removed from the post, that he hadn't even joined the board officially yet and had no reason to shake up attempts to hire Kleiner as the interim principal.
In fact, he said, he received an interim administrative position with the district after he retired. The night before he was slated to start, the district called and told him he was not needed. It was a position, he said, involving salaries.
"Let's just get settled down and focus on the kids," Vladovic said. "It's unfortunate that everything is so personal. It was an absolutely terrible campaign. Neal is a nice guy. I like his family. I like him. I'm so sorry this has occurred."

Others say there is no question politics played a key role in this last minute decision to remove Kleiner. The former candidate began to wonder openly if he would be continually punished for running for the school board “in a democratic society” and whether it would dampen his interest in helping schools–especially in LAUSD, where his roots lie.

He started with the district in the fifth grade and, except for his college years, spent his entire life either being educated or working as an educator in LAUSD. Now retired, Kleiner wanted to fill in as a teacher, substitute principal or in another administrative post.



The mayor had hobbled together a piece of state legislation and attempted to muscle it through to take control of LAUSD, but the district challenged him on legal grounds – and the courts’ agreed with the district.
Finally dropping his legal fight after the recent elections, Villaraigosa was able to forge ahead with a new angle by placing four of hi his proponents in seven of the school board seats, which introduces a new wedge about who will run the district – the school board or the mayor.
While Kleiner’s opponent, Vladovic, accepted more than $250,000 from the mayor, Neal said he refused to believe that Vladovic, also a career LAUSD administrator, had anything to do with the decision to bar him from the post.
The mayor, however, he believes did.
“I was just going to be there for a short time to stop the bleeding,” Neal explained. “I think the mayor took it as an affront since it was part of the battleground. All I was going to do was hold down the fort until the end of the year and they found a replacement. The moral was low. I had a history at this site. The thought was that people would feel better because I had a history.”
Kleiner began his educational career at Locke in 1968 and taught social studies there until 1982. At that point, he became a counselor and the school’s athletic coordinator. Later, he became an administrator at other LAUSD schools, including Dana Middle School and retiring as the principal last year from Muir Middle School.

Despite his loss, Kleiner said he believed both men battled evenly for the post, and each had a lot to offer. He was not nearly as devastated by the election loss as he was by the firing before he even got the chance to jump start Locke for the upcoming school year.


Whether the school should become a charter school, with the sometimes successful campuses run by Green Dot Charter Schools, is not his battle, Kleiner said.
He would not take positions for either Green Dot or LAUSD, because he believed both could do the job of taking one of the worst school’s in the district and bring it up the ladder.

Susan Cox, a spokeswoman for the district, said a last minute change was made in regards to Kleiner obtaining the post.
“A last minute decision was made regarding Mr. Kleiner’s services as the interim principal at Locke High School and unfortunately he learned about this decision upon his arrive at the school on Wednesday, but that they (school officials) appreciate his willingness to serve the school during this difficult time.”

Cox added because that it was a "personnel matter" she was not privy to who hired or fired Kleiner or what dynamics took place. The district would not discuss those issues, she said.

It was unclear who made this decision, but Neal said he understood that it came directly from LAUSD School Superintendent Richard Brewer Jr. the III. Truscott had officially hired him.
District officials have found themselves grappling with one battle after another from where to build new schools, to the direct challenge from the Locke staff, an extremely under performing school in South Los Angeles.
Wells was escorted off campus after publicly announcing his preference for Green Dot, who has paved some successes in running district school’s as a charter.

COME WALK WITH ME...
SAN PEDRO AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: A $130,000 SOOTHING SUCCESS




Blake Marquez, 6, sits next to her sister's photos at the relay. Her sister, Paige, 4, died last year of a radical brain tumor.





Below: Vickie Guglielmo, Kim Blanks and Aurora Rojas raised thousands of dollars for Dana Middle School's team. Vickielost her mother recently to lung cancer.

The Relay Starts Again Next Year...

By Diana L. Chapman

It was the oddest feeling, as though I’d come home. Or perhaps it was a sense that I belonged.
My son and I were walking along San Pedro High School’s track about 9 p.m. last Saturday night holding “luminaries” to honor those who’ve died from cancer and those who have survived, a fundraiser called the “Cancer Relay.”
A damp mist trickled our faces as we walked quietly in the cool sea air and looked at some 800 bags glowing with lit candles inside. We’d hear people murmur as they saw a bag with a name on it: “I remember her.” Or…I remember him.”
Sitting on the bleachers, a set of golden luminaries bathed out the words: Hope & Faith.
It was so poignant. But for some reason, I didn’t feel sad at all. Later, I believed that my sense of peace was exactly what Mary Hamlin, the co-chair of this American Cancer Society relay, told me she felt during the event -- that her loved ones she lost to cancer were somehow with her.
I sensed that too. I sensed that all of those who had died from this dreaded illness had settled in along side me. Side by side, it seemed I was walking with my friend, Matt, 16, who died from neuroblastoma, my adopted father, Papa, who died from lung cancer and though I never met her, the loss of a tiny sprite, Paige Marquez, who died at the age of four, from a brain tumor.
As a columnist for More San Pedro, I covered Paige’s story and never could get her to quit whirling around in my mind. That evening, I was hoping to spot her family to reconnect. But so far, I had not received that blessing.
Ryan and I shuffled along with the rest, hundreds of those honoring friends and family deceased to cancer or to those battking with it now. Some giggled as life should be happy; other walkers were lost deep in thought. But but we were all pulled together, threaded by a bond, of loss and caring and perhaps even of love. This year’s relay made $130,000 toward cancer research – which ended last Sunday, May 17. Twenty-seven teams from all over San Pedro responded – schools, businesses, youth organizations to join the fight to raise money. All day long, and for a continuous chunk of the night, the teams walked the track to memorialize those who had died and to respect cancer survivors.
As far as the co-chair, Mary, is concerned, we need to stop cancer in its tracks. She described the horrible pain of losing family and friends to some form of cancer or another, in the past five years -- including her mother, her best friend, her father-in-law
and lastly, her sister, Lenora Mecham, 62, who died of lung cancer.
Her depression deepend after that, but when she heard about such relays, she jumped aboard.
“The relay gave me back my life,” Mary explained, after saying she became tired of being a victim. “I feel I’m doing something constructive. I feel like my sister is sitting on my shoulder.”
The relay, in its 7th year in San Pedro, and continuously gains steam as more people find this as a solid way to heal their losses – and forge ahead to help others.
After Paige died last year, her parents, Cheryl and Tim, began holding fundraising dinners, started a foundation and raised thousands of dollars for brain tumor research and try to help other parents who’ve found themselves in this ugly chasm of a bitter loss.
The Marquez’s learned Paige had an A-Typical Rhabdoid Terratoid brain tumor that is so radical and violent that while her symptoms began in February 2005 and she was diagnosed in June, she died by July 30.
“Fund raising is what we can do for her memory and to help other kiddies,” her father told me. “She is the reason.”
So far that evening, I had not spotted Paige’s family, but then I rounded a bend and there sat a little girl reading something off a poster board with an impish face smiling back. I recognized Paige’s photo instantly, and saw her father, Tim, brushing tears from his eyes, as Paige’s sister, Blake, 6, proudly read memories from Paige’s board.
“What I would like people to remember about cancer is that it does not discriminate with regard to age, religion, ethnicity, or financial status,” Paige’s father e-mailed me later. “It takes the ones you love and tries to destroy their life and yours, but through fund raising for research and family assistance we can make a difference and fight cancer. We must fight for the families who are afflicted now and the families who are to come in the future.”
Last year, the family had their own team for the relay. This year, due to another family illness, they attended, but did not form a team. That, however, will not stop this family.
Their Paige L. Marquez Pediatric Brian Tumor Foundation has raised nearly $26,000 to help those other children afflicted by cancer, he said, donating $8,200 to Miller Children’s Hospital/Children’s Cancer Center, $4,100 to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation and $4,100 to the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation.
This year, the family will do another big fundraiser – with the goal of earning $35,000 – on July 28 at the San Pedro’s Elk Lodge. (More will be posted on the blog about this event.)
Cancer impacts everyone sometime in their lives. People like you and me. People like
Kim Blanks, responsible this year for lighting and putting together the hundreds of luminaries that graced the track.
She formed the Dana Middle School Team last year, and realized that it was part of her calling to continue the relay efforts.
“I guess I do this because of those I have lost and for those who have had to suffer from cancer. I think I always need some cause to help schools or the community,” she told me.
Dana’s adult relay team raised nearly $6,000 this year, but perhaps more interesting is the way the students responded when Kim asked for their help to provide funds for cancer victims.
The students brought in coins by the hundreds and raised about $1,581 in four days. That

me back to this: all of our lives will be touched by cancer, somehow, somewhere, sometime. Even the kids realize this.
So in the end if we keep working hard enough, we won’t have to look for angels sitting on our shoulders They will be sitting right next to us, instead.

My Apologies…

Dear Readers:

Many of you sent me Happenings around town that unfortunately – due to an internet glitch – I could not post for you for this past week. I apologize for missing many great adventures that were happening here in San Pedro.

The best way to get your calendar item posted at:
theunderdogforkids.blogspot.com site is simply to put everything into three to four paragraphs, with the time, event, address, contact information, phone number – and a headline. Explain what the event is about and what the cost involved are. If the event is a fundraiser, please make sure to say for what!

Ship all Happenings events – especially anything that caters to children -- to hartchap@earthlink.net. Thanks for your patience this past week.

Diana

ALL THE FENCES IN THE WORLD WON'T KEEP PEOPLE OUT OR OFF OF THE STUNNING GEMS OF SAN PEDRO ....


By Diana L. Chapman

Razor-wire fences fail abysmally in capturing public support.
Citations for crisscrossing the cliffs of Point Fermin Park doom local residents’ freedom because of other people’s actions – even if visiting residents remain far back from the cliff walls.
The newly posted signs detailing the dangers haven’t stopped anyone. It just seems that nothing short of building another Berlin Wall along the jutting, bony cliffs off Paseo del Mar stands a chance of keeping people out of the spectacular area spliced by expansive ocean views that draws people like bees to sweet nectar.
The truth is, these kinds of measures won’t ever keep folks off the spectacular cliffs or out of Sunken City, the jumble of broken pavement that was once a stunning residential area at the east end of Point Fermin Park. Victimized by a landslide, the former community began a slow-motion plunge down the cliffs.
The only answer I can think of for this entire sad mess is vigilance. Vigilance for all of us who are regulars. Vigilance for us local parents who need to reinforce again and again the dangers of the cliffs and unfortunately, accepting our own accountability when tragedy occurs.
After the 19th death from falls from our sheer rock walls, including two very young, up-and-coming members of our community, Councilwoman Janice Hahn began to discuss such measures. If they take place, I believe residents will lose – and we will lose big time. We will lose views. We will lose freedom for those who use the area safely. And we will lose – I believe – more children who will consider this even more challenging than before, an even bigger and badder “taboo.”
I don’t know if vigilance is the total answer, but it’s certainly a piece of the puzzle, especially in the case of the frequent suicides that happen there. At first, I liked the signs the council office recently had posted along Point Fermin Park in both Spanish and English that clearly describe the cliff’s dangers of slipping and falling. Even still, there hasn’t been a single day that’s gone by where I haven’t seen parents carrying their babies down the cliff sides, an older woman strolling along in thong-shoes, who was clearly uncomfortable and unstable, despite a middle-aged man guiding her down the rocky edges and people sitting on the very edge of the cliffs.
Other than having the police out in force, I don’t know what else can be done except perhaps for using our own vigilance. Vigilance worked, for instance, in three cases I remember.
One day I was strolling along Point Fermin Park and spotted a teenage boy who had walked out on a storm drain pipe jutting out of the cliff. He crawled out on the drain and began to bounce.
A man in his 50s came around the bend, jogged over to the teenager and immediately told him that if he fell, he would probably die. While not all teenagers would act like this, the youth looked at the man and said: “Oh,” and scaled back over the fence.
Thank you to the man, for that day, he was a hero.
This story is a bit more embarrassing for me.
I once went over the wall in broad daylight – with no intention of killing myself. I watched a sea lion pup trying to climb a rock to hang to get out of the burly, sweeping seas. But each time, the pup was lifted away by powerful waves. I was so overwhelmed by the pup’s plight and wanted to urge him on. “Come on!” I yelped. “You can make it!”
The next thing I knew, a man had launched himself over the wall and was talking to me, murmuring in soothing tones.” Why don’t you step back over the wall with me?” he cajoled. I did.
It didn’t occur to me until months later that he thought I was trying to kill myself. After all, I’m sure this man had read all the many times paramedics have gathered bodies from the bottom of those cliffs – an area plagued by suicides. It wasn’t until months later that I realized he was a hero. I applaud the fact that he took a risk to make sure no one was injured – even if he was wrong. He could have been right on target for all he knew.
The recent deaths of extraordinary people like Mario Danelo, the USC place-kicker, and Megan Maynard, 19, from slips off the edge – have helped to ignite concerns about how we can deal with this spectacular gem we have in this community, and balance that with safety.
It makes me think we have to start depending on the regulars, people like me who walk daily there, the radio-controlled airplane buffs who consistently fly their models on almost a daily basis and even the horse shoe players that were out in Sunken City until they were told to leave because of the cliff’s inherent dangers.
One resident I was discussing this with asked a really good question: “Couldn’t we post a specific phone number?” directly to lifeguards or police so that the visitors can call the minute they know a problem is brewing. I have been to Paseo del Mar in broad day light when a woman wanted to kill herself and was over the wall at the cliff's edge. Had I not been able to race to a nearby patrolling police officer (who believed my story), I don’t know what I would have done.
It seems to me we can put up all the fences and pass out all the citations in the world, and none of it will work. What might, however, is asking those who frequent the area to keep our eyes peeled and to call a special number where we could prevent more people from dying.
That still leaves us with one big problem – how can we possibly watch out for anybody in the entire cliff area sweeping around our coastal town in the middle of the night?
Even if we put up an outrageously big fence, the truth is -- we can't.

A MESSAGE OF THANKS FROM LAUSD BOARD CANDIDATE NEAL KLEINER: "I fell a bit short."


My Dear Friends,

I am disappointed that I didn't win, but I'm not sorry I made the fight. It was something I had to do. I decide a couple of years ago, but did make the mistake of not campaigning until I retired from Muir. Other than that, I am proud of the campaign, but mostly proud and in debt to all of you who gave me so much support, encouragement, and love.

I am humbled by the outpouring of an "all volunteer army" that made a real race out of a contest that few gave me a chance. I will always be in your debt. I walked over 35 precincts since the primary, and went to every community event, imaginable to try to compensate for my lack of finances. You walked, called, emailed people everywhere and people came "out of the woodwork" to give support. I may have fallen short of votes, but YOU WON. You believed in me, despite my weaknesses and worked to prove small campaigns can still work. I know what you did and I am very proud of you. At the end of the day, we are still standing, not necessarily to fight another day, but to continue to do what we feel is right for public education in LAUSD.

I will do what I can to support Dr. Vladovic and hope he is successful in helping students in this area, especially at some of the most troubled schools in the District. I sincerely wish him luck.

Neal Kleiner