Private Schools Los Angeles County

It could be a perfect fit: Well-regarded girls school buys beautiful retirement home as its new campus and vows to preserve the historic building and fields in a busy corner of Brentwood zoned for more condos. The residents of the Eastern Star Home leave their cherished Spanish Colonial Revival building in appreciative hands to move to a more modern facility. But many of the neighbors are building an arsenal to fight the school's efforts to obtain the permit necessary to open next fall.

Voicing fears about clogged roads and a cluttered landscape, about 40 residents of Mountain View Estates in Calabasas testified Wednesday against a proposed boarding school at a packed county hearing on the project. The Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission is considering whether to grant Mesivta of Greater Los Angeles permits to build a Jewish Orthodox boys' school on Mureau Road in unincorporated Calabasas.

This morning, after the presents are unwrapped and the stockings emptied, some 500 young singers and their chaperons will finish packing for a once-in-a-lifetime performance before Pope John Paul II in Rome. The choristers from the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere in Los Angeles, as well as Azusa and Claremont, will leave Sunday to join some 5,000 other children from around the globe to celebrate a special children's jubilee Mass on Jan. 2, one of the first of the new millennium in St.

More than two dozen children from the private Pinecrest School were treated at two hospitals Friday after a toxic chemical cloud wafted over the school's pool during a swimming class. The poisonous gas was released shortly after 11 a.m. when a maintenance employee at the preschool and academy on Cochran Street accidentally combined chlorine with pool acid, officials said.

City zoning officials will hear public testimony today regarding a conditional use permit being sought by the Archer School, a girls school located in Pacific Palisades that purchased a former retirement home on Sunset Boulevard. School officials want permission to convert the Eastern Star Home to a school for sixth- through 12th-graders. They also seek several variances, including one that would allow construction of a gymnasium and parking lots on the property.

Heavy rain may have washed out classes Tuesday at Alemany High School, but it was business as usual for members of the school's academic decathlon team. While their classmates stayed home, nine of the 11 members of the Alemany team of juniors and seniors slogged their way to the Mission Hills campus to hunker down in a faculty lounge for a daylong study session with coaches Janie Prucha and Sharon Veenhof.

It's been almost four years since the Northridge earthquake destroyed the old classroom building at Mary Immaculate School, so teachers, parents and students at the Catholic campus figure they can wait one more week before moving into the new one. Especially the students. The $3.2-million building was originally expected to be ready Monday, but construction delays mean that students at the prekindergarten through fifth-grade school will get an extra week of vacation before returning to class.

The Birmingham complex of schools, including Birmingham High School, today adds a college course to its Saturday School curriculum. The course is targeted at parents of students who never completed their high school education or find themselves just wanting to sit in a classroom again and soak up a little knowledge, officials said. "We believe education is a lifelong process," said Constance Gibson, a coordinator of the Saturday School. "We're putting that belief to work."

A lost hubcap brought Wini Jackson to the dealership where the Long Beach Polytechnic High School freshman football team was washing cars. From the moment Jackson met the players, help for the cash-strapped team began falling into formation. Jackson didn't have time for a carwash, but she promised to help. She rallied community support for the team's banquet today.

Alemany High School in Mission Hills won its sixth consecutive Academic Decathlon competition among 15 Southern California private schools Saturday night, advancing students to the state contest. Alemany scored 41,163 points out of a possible 60,000. St. Francis High School in La Canada Flintridge ranked second with 36,743 points, followed by a town rival, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, which netted 34,337 points.