Hundreds of Monrovia community members cheered as students from Monrovia Unified School District performed with their school bands and rode bikes, unicycles, and floats while dressed in spirit gear on May 18 during the Monrovia Days community festival parade. The three-day festival was hosted by the District, the City of Monrovia, Centre Stage, and the Volunteer Center of San Gabriel Valley. The event featured entertainment by Monrovia scholars, food, games, and carnival rides. Photos are available.
Edgewood Schools’ blue and gold campus was bedecked in lime green – the color associated with mental health awareness – during West Covina Unified’s inaugural Mental Wellness Festival on May 18, which connected families with mental health resources and aimed to reduce stigma. The festival featured nearly a dozen information sessions, meditation clinics, concessions, giveaways, live entertainment and family-friendly activities.
Emphasizing its focus on college and career, Paramount Unified School District distributed personalized College Readiness Guides (CRG) to parents in April to prepare them for their children’s college journeys.
A former Rio Hondo College student who has long advocated for the homeless and other marginalized communities will give the keynote speech at Rio Hondo College’s 56th annual Commencement ceremony.
Santa Fe High School senior Madison Kelly will pursue her dream of studying aquatic mammals and ecosystems at UC San Diego – on her way to a career as a marine biologist – with the help of a $20,000 Destiny Scholarship, awarded annually by the City of Santa Fe Springs Chamber of Commerce. Kelly – recognized as an exceptional graduating senior by the chamber – has completed six Advanced Placement classes, five Honors classes, is listed as one of Santa Fe’s Top 100 students and has competed on Santa Fe’s swim and water polo teams. Kelly is also a public programs docent for the Ocean Institute of Dana Point.
Hundreds of graduating seniors from El Monte Union’s comprehensive high schools celebrated their commitments to colleges and universities during College Signing Day ceremonies in May.
Bassett High School seniors will attend a rally on Tuesday, May 21 where, cheered on by their peers, they will sign symbolic letters of intent during the school’s College Signing Day, displaying their commitment to the four-year universities they plan to attend in the fall.
Rio Hondo College will celebrate the graduation of 11 new Tesla START technicians, the third cohort to graduate since the Whittier-based College became the globally recognized innovative car company’s second training partner in 2018. The new START program graduates, who have already been placed at Tesla service centers in Buena Park, Burbank, Costa Mesa, Pomona and San Diego, join 26 graduates of cohorts one and two.
Mountain Park School, a K-12 tuition-free Independent Study School option provided by Monrovia Unified School District, offers flexibility for students and families who need a non-traditional school schedule and program. Through Mountain Park School, Monrovia Unified provides students with a rigorous academic plan with a full curriculum that meets college admission requirements. The school is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and approved by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. To learn more or enroll, call (626) 471-3002.
As part of a living history lesson demonstrating how periods in time are both similar and different, past and present teachers and students of La Verne Heights Elementary gathered on May 30 to unearth a time capsule buried at the school in 1994. Lauren Barnes, a teacher and student council adviser at La Verne Heights, was a fifth-grader and student council president at the school in 1994 when the time capsule was filled with items from students and buried. Barnes, several of her fellow La Verne Heights alumni, former teachers and Marcia Pateau, who served as principal at the time, helped retrieved the quarter-century old items, which included student essays predicting hoverboards and flying cars, an old diet Pepsi can, a floppy disk and some Pogs. A new time capsule- set for retrieval in 2044- will be buried later this summer when Spencer Gardner, a La Verne Heights alum and Bonita High School student renovates an oak tree monument on the campus as part of his Eagle Scout project.
