GRANADA HILLS : Transporting Students to New Realms

A field trip to Downtown Los Angeles marked many firsts for the students at Jane Addams High, a continuation school in Granada Hills.

For some, it was the first time they had been Downtown.

For many, it was their first time on a train.

The group of 27 teen-agers and three teachers boarded the Metrolink on Tuesday morning at the Sylmar/San Fernando station for an excursion to the other side of the hill.

The trip Downtown was arranged to acquaint the youngsters with the new train and subway system, show them the urban settings of Los Angeles and to prepare them for a future trip into the city to see a musical later this month.

The youths toured the Music Center, where they were shown the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theater.

The school has an enrollment of about 70 students and is located in two bungalows next to Kennedy High. Addams is a LEARN school and, therefore, has more control over its own curriculum.

With that freedom, Bill Clair and other teachers are now offering the students a lesson in the Vietnam era, where topics such as geography, music and politics are discussed in class and students are taught how to write essays and reports on the subject.

The culmination of the students’ studies about Vietnam will be a trip to see “Miss Saigon” at the Ahmanson on March 30.

To help the students take notes on their field trip, each student was given a workbook that asked questions about the different landmarks the students saw on the train trip and the history of Union Station.

The students said that they never took field trips or were given the opportunity to concentrate on a subject like the Vietnam era at the high schools from which they had either been expelled or had dropped out.

“I go to school more,” said Irene Armenta, 16.