For the past two years,  John Fleck and I have gone to speak at all campuses and meet with parents.  We call our circuit the “tuition tour” as the catalyst for the tour was a desire to explain the school’s finances and explain how the school allocates budgets.  The fact is that although the catalyst was a money issue, the tour has been a wonderful opportunity to share the school’s vision, its mission, its major projects, and what parents could expect for the year to come.

The series of meetings are very rich as they provide an opportunity for parents to ask questions and learn more about major projects we have in the works.  It was deemed that this type of forum needed to occur every year to help set the tone for the coming year.

Therefore, we have set dates for our meeting this year a little earlier per parent request.  I will still call it the "tuition tour", although that moniker is too restrictive and the focus goes far beyond merely finances (even though we will discuss the school’s budget).   The schedule for all campuses is as follows:

Tuesday January 12, 2010:                       Pasadena Campus       4:00PM

Wednesday  January 13, 2010:                 West Valley Campus  4:30PM

Thursday January 14, 2010:                      Orange Co. Campus    9:00AM

Thursday January 14, 2010:                      Los Feliz Campus       4:30PM

Friday January 15, 2010:                          Los Feliz Campus       9:00AM

The schedule is given for all campuses to allow people the opportunity to pick the date and time that best suits their needs.

I look forward to seeing you all!

On Saturday, May 2^nd, members of the Los Feliz campus community, in conjunction with City of Los Angeles Councilman, Tom LaBonge, partnered with Prospect Studios representatives to participate in a joint community outreach project. The chosen task consisted of cleaning up one of the many public stairways that crisscross the neighborhood, this one located at the intersection of Radio Walk and Deloz in Franklin Hills.  The purpose of this collaboration was not only to underscore the importance of our good neighbor responsibilities, but also to engage in a project that the local community would appreciate. And the neighbors have definitely reacted positively!

After parking at Prospect Studios, a dozen Los Feliz parents and students met several studio employees at 9 a.m. and proceeded to walk up the hill to the enormous, concrete stairway.  Armed with shovels, rakes, brooms, shears, gloves, face masks and positive energy, the volunteers worked diligently to remove a wall of thorny vines and clean up the dirt and trash that had settled on the stairs over many years.  After three hours of hard work, the stairway was transformed - not only clean, but accessible once again to its neighbors, several of whom had driven by and both thanked and congratulated the team of volunteers for their fantastic efforts.

LILA would like to thank the following staff, parents, and students who helped reach out to our community in this Neighborhood Appreciation Project:  John, Ruth, and Andrea Fleck; Laura Greene Roubicek; Jonathon Allen; Diane and Sebastian de Warren; Chouket and Cody Weglein; James Fish and Sabine Claus; Jeff Bos-Mast; and Marius Chevalier.

We hope to make these neighborhood adventures an ongoing project and will keep you informed of future dates so more members of the LILA community can participate. If you have your own ideas for worthwhile projects near your campus, please let us know.