LAKE VIEW TERRACE : School Celebrates Diversity, Computers

From a Chinese ribbon dance to a Tower of London skit, Fenton Avenue Elementary School students celebrated the school’s diverse cultures and the opening of a computer lab and refurbished family center during an International Festival Friday.

Principal Joe Lucente paid tribute to supporters who contributed thousands of dollars to outfit the lab and center and to give the school a paint job inside and out.

“We just thought it was a great opportunity for us to get together and celebrate all the things we’re happy about,” Lucente said.

School officials also lauded the school’s recent petition to the Los Angeles Unified School District to have Fenton become an independent charter school, the second to seek such a designation in the San Fernando Valley. Charter status would give the school local control over everything from class size to curriculum, all aimed at improving student achievement.

“Hopefully, all of our students will have an acute awareness of their individual responsibility to their own community and to society in general,” teacher Barry Flowers said before 200 parents and community members.

During the hour-and-a-half festival, the audience saved its loudest cheers for the scores of brightly costumed youngsters who took turns singing songs and dancing to music from countries such as Cuba, Israel and Egypt.

Students clad in poodle skirts, tie-dyed T-shirts and baggy hip-hop outfits paid homage to the United States by dancing to a medley of songs from the 1930s to the present. The school’s chorus finished the program with its rendition of “It’s a Small World.”

The festival was the first at the 1,162-student school. By heritage or birth, students and staff represent 32 countries.

“We got to learn a lot of things about each country and what they do,” said 11-year-old Jesenia Contreras, a fifth-grader who took part in the skit.