Publications

Spring 2004 Newsletter

NSBN/Paramount Herald Model Joint-Use School Project

In February, L.A. County Supervisor & First 5 LA Chair Don Knabe, along with the City of Paramount, civic, school district, teachers union, parent and community leaders, joined LA County Health Director Jonathan Fielding, SMMC's Joe Edmiston & Gateway Cities' President Richard Hollingsworth in a press event to announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding with NSBN for the master planning of a joint-use school, park, family resource & community center adjacent to Los Cerritos School. NSBN is pleased to present a sampling of comments taken from this press conference.

"Paramount is an incredible community with an incredible history; their leadership has done a phenomenal job. What stands out to me most is the level of cooperation. Not only internally on their school board and on the city council, but the joint-use work involving the school district, the city, private members of the community, and corporations all working together-it's phenomenal.

It therefore gives me great pleasure this morning to announce First 5 L.A.'s investment in Paramount. This investment is being made by New Schools-Better Neighborhoods, a grantee of First 5 L.A. New Schools-Better Neighborhoods will convene and manage a collaborative stakeholder planning of a joint-use, community-centered schools. Working with the school district, the city of Paramount, Gateway Cities Partnership and the district's early childhood education staff, NSBN will underwrite the master planning of the Paramount site. The goal is to design a healthy community asset here in Paramount, and not only to encourage K-12 educational opportunities, but preschool, after-school and recreational opportunities as well.

First 5 L.A. has approved $130 million in matching funds to 42 other sites in Los Angeles County. And, as with the Paramount site here today, each of these sites will be tailored to suit the needs of the local community that it serves. So while Prop. 10 has provided a dedicated funding stream, First 5 is well aware that the real change for children and families in Los Angeles County will not come unless everyone in each community works together for this goal. Both the New Schools-Better Neighborhood agreement and the school readiness grant show that this type of cooperation is possible, and I'm pleased to say, right here for the very first time, right here in the city of Paramount."
--Supervisor Don Knabe, 4th District, County of Los Angeles and Chairman of First Five L.A.

"The population of Los Cerritos School is roughly 1,000 students, of which 775 are English learners, 99% are Hispanic or Latinos, and 95% are eligible for the free reduced lunch program. These statistics fit the profile which attracted New Schools-Better Neighborhoods and First 5 L.A. to our city and school district. We have many needs in our community, as outlined in the memorandum of understanding, and welcome the opportunity of gaining additional resources that will serve the families of this community."
--Elio Mendoza, Principal, Los Cerritos School, City of Paramount

"New Schools-Better Neighborhood's plan to make Los Cerritos School into a community center, offering valuable resources for the entire neighborhood, is very exciting. It is a tribute to the staff of Los Cerritos and the Paramount School District that they are open to new concepts and willing to try this out on their campus. The whole idea of bringing different groups, agencies and people together to create a positive community asset is a perfect fit for the city of Paramount, because that's what we've been doing for years. People from outside our community are amazed about the city and the school board working together. They can't believe that we can come together and create consensus and work for the betterment of our community, where it doesn't happen too often in other communities."
--Gene Daniels, Mayor of Paramount

"The New Schools-Better Neighborhoods planning effort will help provide a facility for early childhood education and other services and resources that are needed in the community. We are very thankful working with the city, working with New Schools-Better Neighborhoods and the First 5 Commission. This is a tremendous opportunity for us as a school board and for the school district."
--Sonya Cuellar,Paramount School Board President

"For the school district, this is really a wonderful opportunity. We have worked hard the last couple of years to reform education in the District, to get us on track to greater student achievement, and we recognize that an area where we really need to grow is pre-school. Los Cerritos is a school that can benefit from that, but the school to the immediate south has the same types of communities where service is called for. We have to the east another school that will be open a year from July with the same types of circumstances. So an early childhood education center here will be of great value and service to some of our highest needs kids, who will really benefit from a preschool opportunity and come to Kindergarten ready to roll."
--Jay Wilbur, Paramount School District Superintendent

"New-Schools-Better Neighborhoods is excited to be here in the community of Paramount, and excited about the opportunity to facilitate the planning of a joint-use facility that will not only meet the needs of the school, but also the surrounding community. We're also excited that we can build on the momentum created by the city and the partnership that they have with the school district, as well as with Gateway Cities Partnership and other local players such as Edison, the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach, possibly Cerritos College, and bring them together to the table to figure out what the community needs and to capitalize on the existing resources. Our hope is that we can create a process that can be replicated in other communities that have similar resources and constraints and, in the end, create a model that can transform schools into the centers of community in the way that they should be."
--Tomas Duran, New Schools-Better Neighborhoods

"I was happy to introduce New Schools-Better Neighborhoods to the city of Paramount and to the school board here. It fits in very well with the work that the Paramount Education Partnership is already doing. In fact, we just opened our first community learning resource center directly north of here. So it's a great fit for us, and I think that it is going to be for New Schools-Better Neighborhoods one of the easiest projects they'll ever deal with, because this is the best city in Southern California to do this project."
--Richard Hollingsworth, Gateway Cities Partnership

"It's a long way from the Westside and the Santa Monica Mountains to this location. But, the reason I'm here is because of the regional significance of what is being done. And I want to pay specific homage to the work that Supervisor Knabe has done, not only as a Supervisor, but as the Chair of First 5 L.A and to the work that has been done by New Schools-Better Neighborhoods.
But, most specifically, those of us who live in sometimes dysfunctional city governments, like the city of Los Angeles, and sometimes dysfunctional school boards, like LAUSD, recognize the importance and the critical values that are represented here in the city of Paramount, in the school district, and in the school board in achieving this level of cooperation and collaboration.
It was around the turn of the century that the California Legislature passed what was called the Civic Centers Act, which said that schools were to be the center of community activity. Finally, 100 years later, we're recognizing the importance of that. Look around you. The green area that you see in this community is right here in this school. The opportunity for kids to play is going to be in this school. The opportunity to extend community services is going to be in this school. This is what the city of Paramount and the school board have done, and I am here to congratulate you."
--Joe Edmiston, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy

"We all want healthier communities, and what that means is that there have to be places where everything comes together, where families feel comfortable, where they can come for English as a second language instruction, or they can have their kids in preschool. We need places where kids can be in K-12, where families can be physically active together--after school, before school, on weekends, and in the evenings. Schools can be where you can sign up for health insurance, where you can get social services, where you can get connected with WICK programs, and others. You need to have a place that everybody recognizes as the center of their community.
I want to congratulate the city of Paramount and the school board in being so cooperative and being a model of how to make this happen. There's an old saying "good fences make good neighbors." Well, not always. Sometimes there are too many fences, and some of the fences aren't real, but simply territorial. That hasn't occurred here, and Paramount is a real model of how to collaborate and cooperate and overcome those kinds of barriers. My only hope is that a lot of other cities and school boards within L.A. County are closely listening and watching for your tremendous model and leadership."
--Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County Health Director

For more info on Paramount and other projects, visit www.nsbn.org.