Learning Centers

The Nova Community Foundation will open a learning center Saturday for children who live in the Tara Village Apartment Community. Students can use the center to get help with their homework or brush up on reading, math, computer skills, geography and other subjects. Services are free. At the Novaland Learning Center, staff members and volunteers aim to help students through school and into college.

CODY, Wyo. - The drive east of Cody is through high desert, and the February weekend of my visit was bitterly cold. But I was wearing a heavy down coat, snow pants and boots, and riding in a cozy, warm SUV. That's not how nearly 14,000 earlier visitors had arrived in Cody. They came by train from California in late August, and they weren't wearing down or fleece, nor did they have a comfy hotel room awaiting them. They were among the 100,000 Japanese Americans relocated from the West Coast to the interior of the U.S. at the beginning of World War II, shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Backed by a growing body of research and a sense of desperation, large high schools are breaking themselves down into smaller, more personal communities. They've won the financial support of the federal government and several major foundations, which, in the wake of the Columbine school shooting, believe smaller could mean better and safer.

A triumphal march blared and the crowd roared Saturday afternoon as hundreds of competitors filed into the massive gymnasium at the Roybal Learning Center. The high school students were pumped - some teams danced a little to get warmed up, and at least one team had their school mascot there to root them on - and they were prepared, having spent months training for this moment. Some of the students carried themselves with the intensity of gladiators stepping into the ring. The challenge before them was a purely intellectual one, but it was still daunting: The last leg of Los Angeles Unified's regional Academic Decathlon was about to begin.

After experiencing success with its first learning center in an apartment complex on Vanowen Street, the Van Nuys Livable Neighborhood Council is looking to open at least two more in the area. Council officials are meeting with several apartment complex owners and with city officials to find the additional locations, said Carlos Ferreyra, council chairman. "The surrounding community [of the Vanowen center] has benefited greatly from having the center there," said Ferreyra.

Like other teens in her Orange neighborhood crammed with worn apartments and dollar store-anchored strip malls, Alex Gutierrez has choices. Hang out on the corner or do homework. Ditch school or take that history test. Do things the easy way -- and fail -- or earn success through hard work. With the help of the after-school learning center THINK Together, Alex had chosen the tougher route.

Residents and city officials held a dedication ceremony at a Watts housing project Thursday to celebrate the success of a newly completed computer learning center. The center at the Imperial Courts projects was hailed as a place where people who cannot afford personal computers will have access to modern technology and the information superhighway. "The center is a great assist to our community," said Dewayne Holmes, a Watts community leader.

Glenn Hogen and his colleagues bristle when for-profit learning centers are compared to McDonald's, although both are franchised businesses popping up in shopping centers across the country. "The value of the (learning center) service is so different than that of a commodity," said an irritated Hogen, vice president of education with the Sylvan Learning Corp. "When you offer something as personal and as important as education, there's no way to compare that to a commodity."

UC Irvine officials are calling their first off-campus learning center an extension of the extension, a satellite of the 32-year-old UCI Extension program to open Sept. 22 to serve North County residents. The UCI Learning Center in Orange will offer 74 of the most popular career-related courses among 1,800 classes offered each year by UCI Extension. The satellite program will occupy the entire second floor of the four-story building at 200 S. Manchester Ave.

What do a group of veteran rock 'n' rollers from East L.A. do for thrills between tours? They go back to school. "Goose bumps" was the reaction Los Lobos drummer Louie Perez registered Thursday as he and other members of the renowned rock band received plaques honoring their contribution to a children's elementary and preschool at Whittier College where a building will now bear their name.

A year and a half ago, Laryssa Almazan wanted to build volcanoes, not write about them. But last month, the fourth-grader at Panorama Elementary in Santa Ana stood up before an audience of adults to read aloud from a 26-page book on volcanoes that she'd written herself. It was a shining moment for a young girl who had always been a decent reader but struggled with comprehension. Laryssa had never voluntarily opened a book. That began to change, her father, Juan Almazan, said, after he saw an ad for the Kathleen Muth Reading and Learning Center in the Orange Unified School District newsletter.

Love animals? Attend the Safari Social in support of the Wildlife Learning Center. Take pictures with rescued wild animals, watch trainers ply their trade, enjoy a silent auction, cavort with reptiles and behold flying hawk demonstrations. Wildlife Learning Center, 16027 Yarnell St., Sylmar. 4 to 7 p.m. Sat. Adults, $45, children, $25. (818) 362-8711; http://www.wildlifelearningcenter.com.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened for hip-hop musician will.i.am at the Mendez Learning Center on Monday to announce Los Angeles will join in an Obama administration program to boost the number and diversity of American students studying in China. "Who wants to go to China?" the mayor asked as he stepped to the podium, sparking a quiet reaction from about 100 students who are learning Mandarin. "Aw, man, I can't hear you. Boyle Heights in China, right?" Los Angeles is the third city to participate in the 100,000 Strong Initiative, which was launched last year and is supported by donations.

The Flight Path Learning Center & Museum in the Imperial Terminal at LAX is a treasure, with exhibits of a time gone by when we enjoyed flying. The docents we met were airline retirees who really entertain the visitors. Children will love all the model planes, and a wonderful mural shows the airport history. You can watch planes take off and land on the south runways too. Flight Path Learning Center & Museum, 6661 W. Imperial Highway, (424) 646-7284, http://www.flightpath.us . Open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays.

I picked him up at 10:30 Monday morning. He was waiting on the sidewalk outside his apartment with a cello, a violin, a guitar, a trumpet, a walking stick and a backpack full of music. "Good morning, Mr. Ayers. " "Good morning, Mr. Lopez. " When Nathaniel Ayers and I go places together, I'm the driver. But he's the talent, as they say, so in a sense, I'm just along for the ride. Such was the case as we headed off to the Foshay Learning Center , a K-12 school near Western Avenue and Exposition Boulevard, where Mr. Ayers was slated to perform.

Operators of a social services program in Canoga Park dedicated a statue Monday in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Perhaps Catholic Charities, which operates the 60-year-old Guadalupe Community Center, will erect a statue saluting Mary Logan Orcutt next. Orcutt was the wife of a pioneering San Fernando Valley rancher and the person who, in 1947, bought two acres of peach orchard land and drew up plans for a family services center to help the ranch's mostly Mexican-immigrant workers.

Don't be surprised if this is the apartment ad of the future: "For rent--2br, 2ba, w/prking, crptg, new appls and tutoring." Under a rapidly growing nonprofit program based in Newport Beach, renters in several low- to moderate-priced apartment complexes across Southern California are finding the usual perks of tennis courts and swimming pools expanded to include free learning centers for their children.

It took the birth of her son Colin two years ago to show Liz Henry how to realize a lifelong dream of owning her own business. "Once you have a child, what the education system will do for you becomes a focus," Henry said. "There are real problems in the public school system. My husband felt as I do that we need to do some supplemental things for our children's lives that will give them as much of a boost as possible."

Things were a bit discombobulated last week on the Eastside, where a generations-old allegiance to Roosevelt Senior High School has been upset by a new relative: the recently opened Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center. At Roosevelt, hallways shimmered with gold and crimson banners hung in anticipation of the biggest football game of the season against Garfield High School. At the new Mendez high school -- populated by many students transferred from Roosevelt's overcrowded campus -- the walls were bare; the gymnasium empty.

Gleaming new buildings in red, purple and mustard welcomed hundreds of families on Saturday as they gathered to celebrate the opening of the Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center, one of the first new high schools built on the Eastside in many years. The $106-million center, set to open next month, has two schools: a math and science school and a technology and engineering school. The campus brings relief to families that until recently had little choice but to enroll students at Roosevelt High School, an overcrowded campus with low graduation rates.