Schools Receive Video Animation Equipment

At Ybarra Elementary in Walnut and La Seda Elementary in La Puente, children will be making cartoons.

The two schools have been selected to receive new video animation production systems worth $7,000 apiece. The equipment will replace the outmoded 8-millimeter film technology the schools were using.

The Wilkerson Foundation of Sherman Oaks and the Los Angeles Student Film Institute, which are providing film-making supplies to dozens of schools across the county, donated the systems.

The new animation capability fits in with Rowland Unified School District programs at the intermediate and high school levels, Assistant Supt. Ronald Leon said. At upper grade levels, the district offers elective courses in animation under instructor Dave Master.

At the elementary level, Leon said, animation will be used to supplement the regular curriculum. “We’re talking about so much more than animation,” he said. “When students make the films, there is so much in terms of student writing, creativity, art; it’s almost an integrated language arts approach to instruction.”