Fifth-Graders Try to Sew Up Quilt Contest

Using the centuries-old art of applique, two fifth-grade classes--one from Monte Vista Elementary School in La Crescenta and the other from Lancaster’s Tierra Bonita Elementary School--each have created a 19-by-19-inch quilt block they hope will be selected from five California entries for the nationwide Quilts Across America project. The Monte Vista students designed and stitched a colorful scene depicting the theme, Peace on Earth for the 21st Century. The state winner will be one of the 50 blocks assembled into a 12-by-22-foot triptych quilt set for exhibition at the American Craft Museum in New York next summer.

KUDOS

Top Scholars: Ten Valley high school seniors have won college-sponsored National Merit Scholarship Corp. awards, based on academic records, national test scores and personal essays. In all, 2,400 students out of 14,000 national finalists received the coveted awards of between $250 and $2,000 annually for four years’ undergraduate study at the institution providing the funding.

Local winners are Lee Sohyun, Burbank High School; Erik Shirokoff, John H. Francis Poly High School; Amy Jeppsen and Laura Snider, Crescenta Valley High School; Melissa Barshop, Harvard-Westlake School; Robin Stein and Eric Gottesman, North Hollywood High School; Jeffrey Lasky, Chaminade College Preparatory, Matthew Burns, Oakwood Secondary School and Minh Khoi Duong, Van Nuys High School.

Next week: Corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship Winners.

Out of the Park: Taylor Kelly, 10, is taking her entire class out to the ballgame Friday, after winning the grand prize--40 Dodgers tickets--in the baseball organization’s Jackie Robinson Essay Contest. Taylor, a fourth-grader at Nestle Avenue Elementary School in Tarzana, wrote about “What Courage Means to Me.”

She Cares: Jennifer Jones, the computer lab teacher and technology coordinator at Pacoima Middle School, was recently named a 1998 PacifiCare Middle School Teacher of the Year. Recognized for her excellence in classroom instruction and her dedication to student success, Jones was awarded a $500 educational grant.

Aiming High: The Hispanic American Commitment to Education Resources Program has awarded college scholarships to Southern California’s top 100 Latino high school seniors. The local winners of the $1,000 grants--underwritten by the McDonald’s Operators’ Assn. of Southern California--are: Juan Carlos Bustamante, Chaminade College Preparatory; Rita Escobar and Gloria Gutierrez, Sylmar High School Math, Science and Technology Magnet; Brenda Linares, Monroe High School Law and Government Magnet; Aldo Navarro, Verdugo Hills High School; Joe Robles, San Fernando High School and Marcela De Vivo, Glendale High School.

END NOTES

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s Chatsworth/Granada Hills Cluster is offering a “Celebration of the Healthy Learner” on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth. Free dental and blood pressure checks will be available at the event, which will also feature student projects and entertainment. . . . The Friends of Soka University is hosting a Junior Environmental Workshop Saturday from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at the Calabasas campus. Children will hike in the local hills, where they will learn to identify native plants and animals.

Class Notes appears every Wednesday. Send news about schools to the Valley Edition, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax it to (818) 772-3338. Or e-mail them to diane.wedner@latimes.com