Private Schools Los Angeles County

High school students at Pasadena's Westridge School walked out of classes Friday, protesting what they said was the administration' hostile treatment of some teachers. Instead of returning to classes after lunch, students at the private girls school marched onto Orange Grove Boulevard with signs reading "No Lies" and "We Want Answers." The students said many teachers have left the school in recent years because the administration does not tolerate faculty dissent.

The sign says it all. A billboard in front of Centers of Learning, a Christian school on Haskell Avenue, reads, "The Future Site of Classrooms for Centers of Learning." But someone had crossed out the work "future." Nine months and $1.5 million after construction began, Centers of Learning will hold its grand opening today. School officials are eager to let the community see what the tiny private school is all about.

Plenty of people in the mid-Valley aren't very pleased to live near the country's busiest general aviation airport. But the folks at Montclair College Prep are thrilled. The Van Nuys private school has launched a flight training school designed to expose students to all aspects of aviation.

The drum's reverberating thud brought the roomful of squirming young children to attention. Once the woodwind and brass instruments kicked in, the kindergarten-through-second-grade audience grew rapt. Students at Laurence 2000 School in Van Nuys capped their two-week Elizabethan Days on Thursday by hearing the Southern California Early Music Consort perform Renaissance music fit for dancing, fighting and wooing.

A group of middle-schoolers from Sierra Canyon School who spent Sunday offering bottles of water and words of praise to weary runners at the finish line of the Los Angeles Marathon were only a small contingent of the legion of volunteers on the scene. But unlike those who were giving freely of their time, the students from the private school were earning credit toward fulfilling their community-service requirement.

The champion Academic Decathlon team from Bishop Alemany High School was honored by state Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) and San Fernando City Councilman Raul Godinez on Friday night in a special ceremony at City Hall. In November, the Alemany team won the Southern California private schools competition for the second consecutive year. In March, the team will compete in the state finals at Cal Poly Pomona.

They may not win the championship this year, but athletes on the Francis Polytechnic High School girls basketball team are definitely stars in the eyes of girls at two northeast Valley elementary schools. Recently the Poly students began sharing their athletic insights with fourth- and fifth-graders at Fernangeles and Strathern Street elementary schools as part of a new Los Angeles Unified School District program called "Playground Parity."

In an effort to increase ethnic diversity among students and teachers at Chaminade College Preparatory, the two schools will use an Ahmanson Foundation grant to increase minority scholarships and strengthen faculty development, school officials said Monday. The grant, given to the schools in two parts, is designed to give deserving students a chance to attend the private Catholic schools which, with their $5,200-a-year tuition, are out of reach to many children.

Officials at Francis Polytechnic High School accepted the keys to an almost brand-new Nissan Maxima on Thursday--but neither the principal nor anyone else will be driving the vehicle off the Sun Valley campus. The car, a 1996 model with 17,000 miles on the odometer, was donated by the Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce for use in the school's automotive repair program. The chamber received the car from Nissan Motors U.S.A.

James V. Adams, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Sacramento, has been named president of Chaminade College Preparatory, which has a middle school in Chatsworth and a high school in West Hills. Chaminade is a 44-year-old, coeducational school run by the Marianist Fathers and Brothers, a Roman Catholic religious order. The school serves grades six through 12 and enrolls more than 1,600 students at the two campuses.