Cerritos

To congratulate her students for reading more than 3 million minutes this school year, Cerritos Elementary School Principal Janice Hanada rode onto the school's outdoor playground on horseback Tuesday morning. Each year, students log the number of minutes they read outside of class, and the school celebrates in June with a party. Last year, school staff dressed in Hawaiian shirts and grass skirts and hosted a hula party. In 2002, staff hosted a salsa-dancing party.

Nonleague match or not, Tuesday afternoon?s boys? water polo showdown between CIF Southern Section Division VI sixth-ranked Crescenta Valley and No. 1 Cerritos carried the feel of a postseason match. It was certainly worth the wait, too, as the Dons arrived nearly an hour late to the match due to bus problems, before promptly engaging the host Falcons in a nailbiting, back-and-forth saga that wasn?t decided until the final seconds. With just 7.95 seconds remaining, Crescenta Valley called a final timeout with the score knotted at 11. The ensuing play was designed to get everyone on the right side of the pool with Falcons Mason Holland and Tristan Winterhalter crossing on the left side.

PASADENA — Give the members of the Crescenta Valley High boys’ water polo team a man-advantage opportunity and it’s supposed to be like sharks at a feeding frenzy. The Falcons have normally used the advantage to their liking in recent seasons. On Wednesday afternoon, they practically lacked any bite with it at crucial times. Crescenta Valley went two for 10 with the man-advantage in an 11-9 nonleague loss to Cerritos at Pasadena City College. Crescenta Valley Coach Jan Sakonju, who led the Falcons to Pacific League and CIF Southern Section Division VI championships last season, wasn’t aware that the Falcons (3-6)

LA CRESCENTA - First the Crescenta Valley High boys' volleyball team broke Cerritos' spirit with a decisive win in a pivotal third game. Then the host Falcons simply broke the match wide open with a fourth-game rout to claim a 25-19, 22-25, 25-14, 25-13 victory in a CIF Southern Section Division III second-round playoff game on Thursday night. "That was a blast, it was so much fun," said Falcons outside hitter Wesley Cormier, who finished with 10 kills and four blocks and had four kills and an ace in the final game, which Crescenta Valley led by as many as 15 points.

It's long past time that the Glendale Unified School District and, especially, the companies responsible for rebuilding Cerritos Elementary School explain what, exactly, is taking so long to finish the project. Cerritos, which started a $15-million construction and renovation project in the fall of 1999, is still being worked on. Though officials say the school is about 97% complete, that outstanding 3% apparently is critical: Cerritos' main offices, the multipurpose room, library, kitchen, parking lot, gates and fences are not finished, and only about a third of the school playground can be used by students.

Edgar Melik-Stepanyan Flintridge Prep boys' water polo Coach Brad Netherton had mixed emotions following his team's 13-10 nonleague victory against Cerritos on Thursday. On one hand, the first-year coach was pleased the Rebels extended their season-opening undefeated streak to seven, including a win in their home opener. But on the other hand, Netherton couldn't be too proud of his team. -- BOX SCORE -- -- Cerritos 3 2 1 4 -- 10 Flintridge Prep 2 3 4 4 -- 13 -- -- CERRITOS Ko 6 goals, Pineda 3 goals, Biag 1 goal and 4 assists, Laos 5 steals, Sirihanyankorn 3 steals.

Darleene Barrientos While most children count down the days to Christmas or summer vacation, 11-year-old Sarah Kamiya remembers eagerly anticipating the first day of school. That's because Sarah is a sixth-grade student at Cerritos Elementary School, 120 E. Cerritos Ave., which for the first time this year boasted of everything new -- new chairs, new floors, new windows and a new playground. "Our playground used to be called a 'postage stamp.

Charles Rich In between teaching his students how to write an essay and discussing factual data on World War I, Jan Sakonju also managed to spend time manning the phone lines. It wasn't easy for Sakonju, who is a history teacher and the boys' water polo coach at Crescenta Valley High, but he managed to find a last-minute site for the Falcons to play their CIF Southern Section Division III first-round match against Cerritos on Friday. CV received three goals each from Nick Trimis, Chris Sherman and Austin Brown to earn a 13-7 win against Cerritos at Burroughs High.

Erik Boal GLENDALE SPORTS COMPLEX -- Crescenta Valley High softball Coach Dan Berry has been around the sport long enough to know that in a contest of two evenly-matched teams, one play can decide the outcome. In all but one of their 30 games entering Tuesday's CIF Southern Section Division II playoff semifinals, the Falcons made those plays. But in the top of the seventh inning, Corona High cashed in on the lone miscue made by either team and advanced to its first division title game since 1992, defeating CV, 1-0. "It comes down to a break and as far as evenly-matched teams, this is as close as you can get," said Berry, who led his squad to the playoff semifinals for the first time since 1986.

The Crescenta Valley High boys' water polo team avoided closing the ninth annual Falcon Classic Water Polo Tournament with two losses on Sunday, hanging on for a narrow 9-8 win against Sherman Oaks Notre Dame in the third-place match shortly after falling to Cerritos, 12-5, in the championship qualifier. Despite a porous defense in the fourth quarter, during which they were outscored 4-1, the Falcons staved off a Knights comeback behind a goal by Mason Holland with 75 seconds left.

Glendale Community College track and field Coach Eddie Lopez is basically conceding any thought of a team title when the Vaqueros women take to the Cerritos College track for the 2012 California Community College Track and Field Championships. "Laney [College] is going to win it, but as the other teams cancel each other out, we're going to be right there for second or third with Cerritos and Antelope Valley," Lopez said. "Every point counts. We start with the 10K, get some places there.

LA CRESCENTA - First the Crescenta Valley High boys' volleyball team broke Cerritos' spirit with a decisive win in a pivotal third game. Then the host Falcons simply broke the match wide open with a fourth-game rout to claim a 25-19, 22-25, 25-14, 25-13 victory in a CIF Southern Section Division III second-round playoff game on Thursday night. "That was a blast, it was so much fun," said Falcons outside hitter Wesley Cormier, who finished with 10 kills and four blocks and had four kills and an ace in the final game, which Crescenta Valley led by as many as 15 points.

The principal of Cerritos Elementary School said that despite the deadly officer-involved shooting early this morning just steps from the campus, student life has remained calm. Principal Cynthia McCarty and a psychologist visited classrooms to meet with students who may have needed any help coping with the police activity, but they were by and large understanding and expressed no major concerns. McCarty also created a script for teachers for student inquiries about the shooting, in which a man was shot and killed by Glendale police officers after engaging them in an intense gun battle early this morning.

Dozens of Glendale Memorial Hospital staff members Monday set aside their stethoscopes and medical charts to serve the community in a different capacity. Arms loaded with packages and bags, they made trip after trip to the hospital's main lobby until it was piled high with gifts intended for needy families at Cerritos Elementary School. "We are fortunate enough to have a Christmas we can count on, and it's the least we can do to all pitch in just a little bit to make sure somebody else has even a hint of the joy we are having with our own families," said Glendale Memorial nurse Abby Lloyd Sabin.

Glendale Unified is appealing a state decision to put two local campuses on a list of the 1,000 lowest-performing schools in California. Cerritos and Muir Elementary schools were caught up in a bill that authorized the California Department of Education to create a list of the 1,000 lowest-performing schools. District officials and school board members cleared the action, arguing that the Open Enrollment Act that became law in January contradicts the standard academic achievement measures that have been in place since 1999.

GLENDALE — Making it through their respective divisional prelims was just the first test for the group of local athletes slated to compete in the CIF Southern Section finals at Cerritos College in Norwalk on Saturday. Now, there will be medals and CIF titles on the line and, for the ninth-fastest times across all divisions in sprints and 12th-best marks in distance and field events, a continuation of their seasons into the CIF Masters meet the following week. The meet is scheduled to go off at 10 a.m. beginning with field events.

GLENDALE — Teachers at Cerritos and Edison elementary schools would have to relocate some instructional supplies and lose storage space if Glendale Unified increases class sizes to handle projected state funding cuts, district officials said. Both schools would be the tightest squeeze among the district’s 20 elementary campuses, and require rearranging some space to accommodate up to 30 students in every kindergarten through third-grade class, a cost-saving plan that board members are expected to approve Tuesday, officials said.

SOUTH GLENDALE — The books were bigger than their heads, and the second-graders at Cerritos Elementary School noticed. “It’s bigger than the one at home,” said Julian DeLeon “It’s the biggest book I’ve ever seen,” said Zoieel Hyde. Glendale Rotary Club members donated about 60 illustrated children’s dictionaries to the second grade Tuesday. “This’ll facilitate some activities I like doing with my students,” said Susan MacFarlane, a second-grade teacher.

PASADENA — Give the members of the Crescenta Valley High boys’ water polo team a man-advantage opportunity and it’s supposed to be like sharks at a feeding frenzy. The Falcons have normally used the advantage to their liking in recent seasons. On Wednesday afternoon, they practically lacked any bite with it at crucial times. Crescenta Valley went two for 10 with the man-advantage in an 11-9 nonleague loss to Cerritos at Pasadena City College. Crescenta Valley Coach Jan Sakonju, who led the Falcons to Pacific League and CIF Southern Section Division VI championships last season, wasn’t aware that the Falcons (3-6)

As Adam Rex knelt before the poster-sized paper to sketch four legs, a tail, body, neck and some stripes, his audience of first- through fourth-graders at Cerritos Elementary School wiggled and squirmed. Their hands shot up and proclaimed the drawing a zebra, tyrannosaurus rex and giraffe when the children’s book illustrator asked for animals. He finished the cartoon in less than a minute, capping off the sketch with a square Barney-style T-Rex head. Children’s book author Jon Scieszka took the microphone and polled students on what to name the never-before-seen animal.