The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo Herald Publications - El Segundo, Torrance, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 106, No. 7 - February 16, 2017 Inside This Issue Best of the Best..................2 Calendar...............................6 Certified & Licensed Professionals.....................18 Classifieds............................4 Crossword/Sudoku.............4 Legals............................ 16,17 Obituaries.............................6 Pets......................................19 Real Estate................8-12,20 Sports.............................. 5,13 Weekend Forecast Holiday Parade Grand Marshal Winner Recognized by City Council Earlier this month, the El Segundo City Council and El Segundo Chamber recognized the winning entries in the 2016 Holiday Parade covering 10 different categories. The coveted Grand Marshal’s Award went to 1-800-Got Junk!/You Move Me/Haz Away Today. Pictured from L-R are Will Herbe, General Manager at 1-800-Got-Junk! LA; Dylan Ruberg; Nicole Zalazar, People Manager at Endless Pursuit Corporation; Chris Ruberg, General Manager at You Move Me; Val Smith, General Manager at HazAwayToday.com; and El Segundo Mayor Pro Tem Drew Boyles. Photo by Robert Cetl, City of El Segundo. • Da Vinci Schools’ RISE High to Serve County’s Homeless and Foster Students By Brian Simon As the local community continues to monitor the progress of the upcoming Wiseburn High School campus (the future home of Da Vinci Communications, Da Vinci Design, and Da Vinci Science high schools) and onsite aquatics center, a major program arguably a bit under the radar will also take flight this fall. Thanks to a $10 million grant provided by XQ: The Super School Project co-led by Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs), the new RISE High launched at Da Vinci Schools will provide educational opportunities for underserved homeless and foster children in the broader Los Angeles County. A major component of the program will embed school sites within multiple social service-provider locations in high-need areas across Los Angeles (with MOU agreements in process with identified partners). Additionally, a Mobile Resource Center (MRC) will travel to strategic locations to meet students who are disconnected from traditional school campuses. Stops will include areas near shelters and service providers. “Students will be able to track the location of the center via its Twitter handle, as well as on the RISE app,” explained Kari Croft, RISE High Principal. “The MRC will be equipped to serve and support students by providing meals, snacks and water; a washer and dryer; hygiene kits; tutoring and academic support; laptops, computers and Wi-Fi access; outlets to charge cell phones; and school supplies.” Da Vinci was one of just 10 schools across the country to secure grants in a competition in which 42 judges pored over nearly 700 applications comprised of various ideas to reimagine high schools. Da Vinci Schools CEO Dr. Matt Wunder didn’t think there was much of a chance to win the grant. “It’s not because I didn’t believe in the vision and the team, but because the XQ competition was so extremely competitive—and originally, only five awards were to be handed out,” he said. The impetus for RISE goes back several years when Wunder maintained a regular dialogue with Natasha Bayus, Team Leader of Volunteer Engagement, at Schools on Wheels—a nonprofit based on Downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row--that provides 1:1 after-school tutoring and mentoring. Bayus had a counseling internship at Da Vinci Schools and related to Wunder that despite the best intentions, Schools on Wheels could not provide many of the important services these children needed to thrive both academically and personally. In 2014, a small Da Vinci team met with Schools on Wheels officials about the latter potentially becoming its own state-funded school. That team See Da Vinci, page 15 School Board Honors ESHS Would-be Engineers By Duane Plank Tuesday evening’s meeting of the El Segundo School Board, a Valentine’s night special, featured a presentation from a pair of highly-motivated and entrepreneurial El Segundo High School students who had recently participated in the sixth annual Project Lead the Way (PLTW) conference in Riverside. Also on the agenda for the nearly two-hour meeting were presentations by El Segundo Unified School District Chief Business Official Susan Aceves; a presentation spearheaded by Executive Director of Human Resources Dylan Farris and his team about state funding granted to Districts to improve energy efficiency; a school site wrap-up from Alex Nilsson; and an appearance by Ed! Foundation representative Neil Cadman. The Board recognized nearly a dozen high school students who took part in a recent presentation about their Cyber Education Initiative (ESCEI) program to more than 100 educators at the PLTW conference. All of the participating students are enrolled in the El Segundo High’s PLTW Engineering Pathway. In conjunction with the Computer Science Club, they established ESCEI last fall to provide computer science and Internet safety education for elementary students. They feel that with the current state of See School Board, page 15 Friday Heavy Rain/ Wind 59˚/55˚ Saturday Showers 62˚/51˚ Sunday Partly Cloudy 62˚/54˚
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