Principal of Urban Village Rolls Out the Red Carpet

Even by Yvonne Chan’s standards, this was a media event.

So, in the moments before Hillary Rodham Clinton’s motorcade screeched down Vaughn Street, Chan stood silently in her office, with only a Secret Service agent by her side, reading “Chi Chi” a Chinese fortune-telling book.

“Listen to the old wise guys,” she read aloud in English. “Don’t ask for money, but you can move people.”

Without missing a beat, she smiled broadly: “Tomorrow is great. Just wait until tomorrow.”

With that, Chan, the first lady of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, left her office and walked across campus to meet First Lady Clinton, tossing off sound bites along the way like a career politician.

Even for Chan, who is used to visits by dignitaries and regular media attention, Clinton’s visit was clearly different.

The two women led an entourage of reporters, dignitaries, Secret Service agents and LAPD officers through a tour of two classrooms, including a kindergarten computer lab filled with 5- and 6-year-old students who hardly spoke English.

The pupils, dressed in the school’s maroon and gray uniform, nervously pecked at their keyboards.

At one point, Clinton asked a little girl: “What’s your favorite letter?” The girl, who speaks only Spanish, could only smile.

The teacher, Tanya Pauley, finally turned to her students and implored in Spanish: “Can’t you write a word we’ve been studying?”

After the two classroom visits, Clinton stopped by Chan’s office for the only unplanned event of the day. Because some teachers were grumbling about being left out of the festivities, Chan concocted a plan to have the first lady speak to all the students and faculty over the school’s public-address system.

It was vintage Chan.

“Hello, this is Hillary Rodham Clinton and I am so happy to be here at Vaughn today,” she said in the message broadcast to every classroom. “I wish I could see every one of you and tell you how proud the president and I are of you . . . We know you are working hard and learning so much.”

Afterward, Chan led Clinton into the auditorium--filled with students from two classrooms, camera crews and invited guests.

During the talk, Clinton said she wanted to visit Vaughn to “see with my own eyes what I have heard about.”

She complimented the staff and the students and said that Vaughn was working hard to solve problems.

“Every problem has a solution in America,” she said to the hushed audience. “You are solving problems here at Vaughn.”

Chan, who beamed proudly throughout the visit, promised even more high-level visits to the school.

“After Hillary, then Bill then God,” Chan said. “We’ll build a helipad for God to land. God has been watching over us all this time.”