NORTHRIDGE : After-Class Activities Offered to Students

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan joined school officials, local politicians, teachers and students Tuesday on the playground of Napa Street Elementary School to kick off an expansion of the after-school enrichment program LA’s BEST to a neighborhood hit hard by the Jan. 17 quake.

LA’s BEST provides after-school programs such as tutoring, art lessons, field trips, athletics and performing arts classes to nearly 4,000 elementary school children in low-income areas that are at risk from drug and gang activity. It was created in 1988 by Mayor Tom Bradley through a $2-million grant from the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Program directors hope to launch LA’s BEST at two new sites this year. They decided last week that Napa Street school would be a good place to start, since the quake left three apartment buildings in the neighborhood red-tagged and many families temporarily displaced. The Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce contributed more than $60,000 from private donations to start LA’s BEST at the Northridge school, which will be the fifth San Fernando Valley campus and the 20th in the Los Angeles Unified School District to play host to the program

“It’s coming at a time when spirits here were low,” said Principal Allen Sussman, whose Sherman Oaks home was severely damaged by the earthquake. “It’s hard to be up and then go home and see all that damage. But this is a plus for everyone.”

Sussman said that about 90% of the school’s 730 students live very near the school in a neighborhood that he described as “a big gang area.”

“It’s not like they can go to a movie or go swimming after school. We don’t have those facilities,” Sussman said. “These children have nowhere else to go.”

District Supt. Sid Thompson, who joined school board member Mark Slavkin and City Councilman Hal Bernson in addressing more than 450 children and dozens of parents at the presentation, urged everyone to sign up for the program.

“There’s an alternative education program out there--it’s called the streets,” Thompson said. “If you don’t take the time, the streets will take the time.”