Redondo Beach School Scores With Panel Seeking Excellence

BLUE RIBBON SCHOOL: Nick G. Parras Middle School in Redondo Beach is one of 40 California schools nominated for the U.S. Department of Education’s 1992-93 Blue Ribbon Schools Program.

The 440-student school was recognized for continuing to achieve high California Assessment Program scores in spite of changing demographics that saw the number of students who speak limited English rise to 63%, said school principal Kathy Tellez.

In the next few weeks, judges from the Department of Education will screen more than 400 nominees from all 50 states. They will select schools for site visits, which will take place in March, and announce the secondary Blue Ribbon Schools in May. The program recognizes elementary and secondary schools in alternating years.

Selection of the schools was based on conditions of effective schooling, such as school leadership, teaching, environment, student environment, curriculum and instruction, and parent and community support.

Tellez credits Parras Middle School’s success to maintaining high standards and innovative programs, like a 24-hour homework information hot line, and to participating as a pilot school for Project Excellence--a mentor tutor program for at-risk students.

RICHARDSON BOWS OUT: After 35 years with the Torrance Unified School District, including 15 years as superintendent, Edward Richardson is retiring effective June 30.

Richardson, 60, was selected superintendent after a nationwide search in 1978. He joined the district as a teacher at Seaside Elementary in 1958.

“I’ve had a love affair with this school district,” he said. “I’m leaving the way I came in, with love and appreciation for having the opportunity to serve the children of Torrance, and I’ll miss that. But it’s time for someone else to have the opportunity to be superintendent.”

Richardson said his only regret is that he was never able to accomplish his goal of lowering the pupil-teacher ratio.

He plans to travel, read, visit friends and do volunteer work during his retirement.

The 28 campuses in the Torrance school district enroll about 21,000 students, Richardson said.

NEW WING PLANNED: The Palos Verdes Peninsula school board voted this week to hire an architect to redesign and update parts of the Peninsula High School campus.

Robert Stockton of Stockton/Jellison Architects, Inc., will be paid $100 an hour to design replacements for 18 old portable classrooms and a new library in the school’s current multipurpose room, said district Supt. Michael Caston. According to the tentative plan, the current library would be transformed into an administration building with teachers’ workrooms.

A citizen advisory group called the 21st Century High School Task Force, which convened last year, recommended to the board that the renovations be made. The task force estimated the cost at $3 million.

The 2,900-student school was formed after the school board voted in 1990 to consolidate Palos Verdes, Miraleste and Rolling Hills high schools onto the Rolling Hills campus.

GOLDEN PEN: Christina Bebes, a senior at Redondo Union High School, recently received the National Council of Teachers of English writing award.

The 17-year-old was one of 87 winners in California and 658 seniors in the country recognized with a certificate of achievement and included in a list of winners that will be sent to 3,000 colleges throughout the country. She is also eligible to apply for the council’s $5,000 scholarship.

Bebes said she hopes to study theater at the California Institute of Art and get her master’s degree in directing.

BRAVISSIMO!: Three South Bay teachers are among 58 arts education instructors who have been nominated for the Music Center Education Division’s 1992-93 BRAVO Awards.

Principals and faculty representatives nominated Harold Dershimer and Mary Nicholson of Washington School in Hawthorne and Gerald Evans of Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Rolling Hills Estates for their leadership and creativity in making the arts an integral part of their curriculum.

Seven finalists will be selected from this group and from them, two winners--one in the arts specialists category and one in the general education category.

The finalists and winners will be announced at a reception in March.

ELSEWHERE: Pat Francis, a librarian at Redondo Union High School, was recently honored as an outstanding teacher by the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce, and Judi James, special needs counselor at the high school was named Teacher of the Year by the Redondo Beach Rotary Club.

Items for the weekly Class Notes column can be mailed to The Times South Bay office, 23133 Hawthorne Blvd., Suite 200, Torrance 90505, or faxed to (310) 373-5753 to the attention of staff reporter Lorna Fernandes.