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EDUCATIONClaremont COURIER/Friday, June 14, 2013 5
It takes a certain drive and tenacity toembark on the ambassador
journeyand travel alone at such a young age,
Ms. Dierken recognized. Beyond thetravel, students must complete
2 onlinecourses and several orientations follow-ing their
excursion. While the programcan be grueling for some, Ms.
Dierkenfelt it posed an exciting new opportunityfor Faith.
Faith was one of the few I thought hadthat drive, Ms. Dierken
said. Some kidsare interested at first, but it takes a lot ofhard
work to stay in the program.
Faiths teacher, Kimberly Walters, canattest to her students hard
working spirit.
Faith is an extra-hard worker, alwaysgiving 110 percent, Ms.
Walters shared.You couldnt ask for a better student. Sheis always
prepared and has a positive atti-tude.
With the help of Ms. Walters, Faith hasspent a section of the
past school year fa-
miliarizing herself with global geographyand maps of the world,
including theplaces she will visit. She has also takenthe time to
study world cultures. Shelooks forward to learning more
firsthand.
I cant wait to share my culture with
other people and learn about their culturesas well, Faith
said.
Putting her classwork into action isonly part of the excitement
surroundingher impending trip overseas. Traveling toIreland and
England is a dream-come-truefor the avid readershe gets giddy at
themere thought of traveling along the sameroutes as many of her
favorite writers,Shakespeare included. Shakespeareshome is among
the top of her list of must-visit destinations. Perhaps shell
drawsome inspiration.
I love writing and improving my writ-ing, she shared.
While excited about the trip itself, Faithadmits her nerves
start flaring any time
she has to climb aboard a plane, let alonethe 12-hour flight she
will be taking by
herself. However, she has a game plan.Im trying to stay calm and
do other
things, she said. Her plan includesadding to her book knowledge
with someof the classics, including Harper Leesiconic To Kill A
Mockingbird. She will
also throw in some math practice with heralgebra book in
tow.
Its an equally thrilling and nerve-wracking venture for the
Nishimura fam-ily. Faiths mother, Freya Nishimura is notonly
preparing to send her daughter off tothe UK, she is also saying
goodbye to herolder son, Brent, who is traveling to Aus-tralia,
also with the ambassadorship pro-gram.
Im proud and broke, Ms. Nishimurajoked.
Despite the expense, Ms. Nishimurahas taken the opportunity to
impart an-other valuable lesson to her children be-fore they travel
cross-country. Faith andher brother have been tasked with
earning
their way overseas by fundraising to helppay for their $7000
trips. Over the last 6
months, they have been hard at workhelping to run yard sales and
sellingValentines and Mothers Day cards andother items. Faith took
it upon herselfwith the advice of her teacher KimberlyWalters, to
also reach out to the Claremont
Police Officers Association, which do-nates a certain percentage
of club moneyto worthy causes in the community.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportu-nity, Detective Rick Varney
said ofFaiths trip, and the associations decisionto donate $300 to
her ambassadorshipfund.
Ms. Nishimura is pleased to give herchildren the opportunity to
see the world,while representing the family and herChaparral
community. She says herdaughters drive and spirit, inspired by
herolder brothers, is something to be reck-oned with.
Faith has no fear, her mother said.She is something else.
Beth [email protected]
There was a special treat at theThursday, June 6 gathering of
theClaremont Unified School District
Board of Education when the Pledge ofAllegiance was followed by
a rendition of
The Star Spangled Banner as performedby districts Elementary
Strings Orchestra.
The showcasing of student talent continued when,with a clinking
of medals, a number of 4th through 6thgraders stepped to the front
of the board room to behonored for their success at the recent Los
AngelesCounty Office of Education Math Field Day. Addition-ally
receiving kudos was Jessica Jackman-Uy, a fifthgrade teacher at
Chaparral Elementary who coordi-nated the districts participation
in the event.
Congratulations were also given to members of theClaremont High
School debate program who havequalified to attend the National
Championship Speechand Debate tournament to be held in Birmingham,
Ala-bama next week, followed by a laudatory presentationby CHS
theater director Krista Carson Elhai.
Ms. Elhai took time to enumerate some of theachievements of her
students such as the awards theytook at the California State
Thespian Festival held inUpland on March 22-24. A number of her
students didso well in the festival they have now qualified for
theInternational Thespian Festival, to be held at the Uni-versity
of Nebraska on June 24-29.
With 5 productions, a move to a new theater and itsassociated
opening gala plus their annual F.O.O.T. auc-tion and a sing-along
with the cast ofWicked, Ms.Elhai and her thespians are wrapping up
a dizzyinglybusy school year.
I dont even remember what musical we did lastweek, Ms. Elhai
laughed. Were very excited to becelebrating our 50th year in our
new building that wenever leave.
The board next bid farewell to 2 high school stu-dents, Carolyn
Bird of Claremont High School andAimee Orcasitas of San Antonio
High School,
who had joined the school board at meetings in orderto report on
doings at schools throughout the district.
Please dont think this has to be your last boardmeeting, board
member Steven Llanusa joked.Youre welcome any time.
During the public comment period, Freeman Allen,co-chair of
Sustainable Claremont, stepped up to thepodium to appeal to the
board to renew the position of
Community Garden Coordinator. Sustainable Clare-mont values the
position so much it hopes to contribute$2000 to help finance the
job, up from $1500 last year,he said.
I see these gardens as an outdoor laboratory that isabsolutely
crucial in giving students real-world lessons
in what nature is like, Mr. Allen, a re-
tired Pomona College chemistry profes-sor, said.
For the last year, the district has employed DessaDAquila at 25
hours per week as the CUSD gardencoordinator. Along with helping
oversee gardens at var-ious schools, including San Antonios Food
JusticeProgram and the new biomes project at OakmontSchool, which
has staff, kids and volunteers cultivatingthe landscapes of 4
California native landscapes, in-cluding desert, grassland, shrub
land and forest.
Much of Ms. DAquilas time, she explained prior tothe meeting, is
also spent connecting teachers hoping toembark on gardening
projects with staff and studentsfrom local colleges as well as
community membersthat hope to donate time or resources to
Claremontschools.
As we go forward, were going to have a much
more successful program if we have someone to coor-dinate it,
Mr. Allen said.
Board approves Service Center sale,disagrees on sale process
There were some moments of tension as the boardprepared to vote
on whether to approve the offer for theService Center Property that
D.R. Horton made at anauction held at the end of May. The
homebuilderagreed to the districts $7 million asking price,
accom-panied by a $10,000 deposit.
While the board and district at large seemed pleasedwith the
results of the auction, Mr. Llanusa expressedchagrin that the
auction yielded no other conformingbids and no attendees other than
D.R. Horton. It shouldbe noted that there were 2 other bids
submitted bycompany representatives before the auction, but one
fell below the districts price tag at $4.5 million andneither
bid was accompanied by the required securitydeposit.
Mr. Llanusa said he urged the board and the districtto reach out
to a number of real estate agencies prior toselling the Service
Center Property, located at 700 BaseLine Rd., in order to find the
most motivated buyer. In-stead, the district opted to use the
services of Tierra De-velopment, which helped CUSD promote and
sellanother property, 4.35 acres located at its former dis-
trict offices. D.R. Horton also purchased the propertyfor $6.2
million.
I am hugely disappointed, Mr. Llanusa said. Thedistrict opted
for expediency over efficacy. This is aHobsons choicetake it or
leave it.
Im sure [Tierra Development] reached out to hun-dreds of
companies, Lisa Shoemaker, assistant super-
intendent of business services, said. Its very commonthat wed
get mostly nonconforming bids.
Board member Jeff Stark asserted that the bid re-ceived from
D.R. Horton was twice what people toldthe board and that district
the Service Center propertywould be worth in 2006, at the height of
the real estatemarket. The district benefited from relying on
experts,he emphasized, such as the Surplus Property commit-tee who
made recommendations as to the sale of theproperty and on a real
estate company that had previ-ously made good on its promise of
netting the districtthe top-dollar amount for a property. If the
district hadset a lower price for the Service Center property, then
itwould perhaps have received many more bids. Mr.Stark stressed
that the plan all along was to appeal to abig company with deep
pockets.
I think its important for the board to understand
what our role is in this, Mr. Stark said.Bill Fox, former
president of William Fox Homes
Inc. in Ontario, is a member of the districts SurplusAdvisory
Committee, also known as the 7-11 Commit-tee. The committee is
composed of volunteers with ex-pertise in the real estate industry
who donated manyhours to helping the district sell its properties.
Mr. Foxsaid he strongly objected to Mr. Llanusas assertion thatwork
conducted by the 7-11 Committee and by the dis-trict utilized
inferior methods this time around.
Im proud of what the committee has done, hesaid. Im proud to be
a resident of Claremont and Improud to be a part of the
process.
After the discussion, the board voted on whether ornot to accept
D.R. Hortons offer for the Service Centerproperty. Everyone on the
5-member board voted yesexcept for Mr. Llanusa, who cast a
dissenting vote.
Escrow on the former district office property, onwhich D.R.
Horton plans to build a 50-plus unit condo-minium development, will
close in the very near fu-ture, Ms. Shoemaker said. That happened
morequickly than the district expected, and, given that D.R.Horton
has already jumped over many of the hurdlesthat would apply to an
adjacent housing project, theService Center property should close
even morequickly, she projected. Sarah Torribio
[email protected]
CUSD
NEWS
Property sale finalized at CUSD board meeting
AMBASSADOR
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