RESEDA : Students Honored for Surviving Rocky Year

The awards ceremony was held during National Adult Education Week, but the real purpose of the event was to recognize older students who not only juggled jobs, marriages and families along with school this year, but also survived a massive earthquake.

“It’s been a very difficult year for many of our students,” said Martin Conroy, principal of the Reseda Community Adult School. A ceremony was held Thursday night to honor all those who kept coming despite hardships caused by the Jan. 17 Northridge temblor.

“It’s really a recovery celebration,” Conroy said. “They’ve lost housing, they’ve lost jobs, and they’re still coming back.”

Among those receiving special awards at the event was Ludmila Cantwell, a recent immigrant from the former Soviet state of the Ukraine, now called Ukrainia by many of its natives. Cantwell of Reseda won the student “Rookie of the Year” award for an essay she wrote her second day of class, a piece expressing awe at the diversity of American classrooms.

“There were men and women with black faces, brown faces and white faces,” her essay reads, “immigrants or descendants of immigrants from all parts of the world. . . . Thank you America. Thank you for this opportunity to see people of so many nationalities in one classroom.”

The teacher “Rookie of the Year” award went to Judy Finkelstein, an English as a Second Language instructor at the school.

“Her house was totally destroyed in the earthquake, (and) she hasn’t let up one bit,” Assistant Principal David Halabe said. “It’s that kind of dedication.”

Student Elizabeth Hernandez, who received the school’s “Rookie of the Year” award in 1992, was presented a $500 scholarship from the Council of Mexican-American Administrators. And private Woodland Hills counselor Luz Bayer received a plaque for helping students through their many crises that followed the earthquake.

The 200 people at the event also heard big-band classics performed by the Reseda Community Adult School Stage Band, made up primarily of former professional musicians, many of whom now take part in the school’s gerontology programs.

The school’s mission is to “broaden education for adults,” Conroy said and, to that end, enrolled 5,000 central Valley students this term. Classes are held at 39 locations, and subjects range from English for non-native speakers to high school-equivalency courses.