Hoover High looks to extend district’s arts focus

Tours were given Thursday evening of Hoover High School’s newest classroom building for students studying visual arts and digital media.

The $6.8-million building features a photo lab equipped with a dark room, two studio green screens and two computer labs.

There’s also a room dedicated for students who will learn to draw and paint.

Dedicating the building to the arts and equipping the rooms with high-tech digital tools is a natural move for Hoover High, school officials have said.

The students who currently attend Mark Keppel Elementary, a visual and performing arts magnet, will eventually move on to Toll Middle School and then to Hoover High.

The 14,873-square-foot building was paid for with a combination of Measure S bond funds and matching state dollars.

Its construction also entailed constructing a new courtyard and installing a new scoreboard at the softball field nearby.

For Hoover High Principal Jennifer Earl, the new building is an extension of the focus on arts at Keppel and Toll.

“It’s a reflection of the arts on Glenwood Road,” she said, referring to the street where all three schools are located, adding that many students go on to pursue careers in art after graduating from Hoover with portfolios they created on campus, so they’re ready for the instruction they’ll receive in college.

Before parents, students and school officials toured the new building, Earl told attendees that the instruction set to take place in the building would help create real-world artists and that its impact would last “beyond four years,” she said.

Both Glendale Unified Supt. Winfred Roberson and Armina Gharpetian, school board president, said they appreciated that voters approved the Measure S bond in 2011, allowing for the district to fund construction of the building.

Hoover seniors Nazeli Herabidian and Adena Eskandarin, both advanced photography students, echoed the school officials’ sentiments.

On Monday, they’ll gain hands-on experience by taking senior portraits of their classmates.

They’re currently working on a project in which they’ll take five photographs that tell a story.

“We’re very grateful,” Nazeli said. “Everything’s so much better, especially the new dark room and computer lab. We have more opportunities to express ourselves through photography.”

--

Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan