Tutors

Every weeknight, Jerry Buchanan finishes up his work as a proofreader in the City of Commerce, and then drives to homeless shelters and transitional housing facilities in Glendale and Los Angeles to tutor homeless youth. Before the tutoring sessions begin, Buchanan spends a few moments in the car collecting his thoughts. When his day is done, he returns home in Glendale to watch some television before going to sleep. Buchanan, 59, tutors through a nonprofit organization called School on Wheels, which pairs adults with homeless kids across Southern California at more than 100 locations between Santa Barbara and Long Beach.

Just the very mention of math makes some people run for the hills. But for “Math Doctor” Ron Hartwell, it’s just another day in the classroom. Hartwell, owner of Glendale-based Math Doctor, tutors students from across the region — including Glendale, La Crescenta, La Cañada and Burbank — and specializes in making mathematics less intimidating. “Each student’s different,” Hartwell said as he sat in a booth at a Starbucks in Glendale, which sometimes doubles as one of his classrooms.

The last bell rang and students trickled into room 401 to riddle out proofs and parallelograms. The 25 or so freshman, seniors and both grades in between huddled together in a study lab after school at Herbert Hoover High School. They groused about teachers and tests and socialized a bit before hitting the books. "Dude, there's so much to do," said Saira Khimani, 14, of Glendale. "Why is 'ad' congruent to 'bc'?" She was having a geometry study session on Monday with her classmate Nara Gasparian, 15, of Glendale.

Few things are more important to finding success than being able to read and write the language in any community. Hundreds of people who want to learn have turned to the Glendale Central Library for help. At the library, 172 tutors have volunteered their time and 206 adult students are improving their English literacy skills because of them. However, there are many more people -- at least 100 more -- who want to learn, but there is a shortage of volunteers.

Janine Marnien Crescenta Valley High School teacher Lisa Reed was concerned about the 68 sophomores that have yet to pass the High School Exit Exam. Along with Co-principal Linda Evans, Reed helped start a new program at the school to help prepare stu- dents who wanted to enroll for the next time they take the exam. "It's the only standardized test that directly affects a student," she said. "It's a high risk test, and that's why we've taken it so seriously."

Glendale High School senior Jess Parmele is not a fan of algebra. After failing the regular, yearlong class twice, he enrolled in the summer program, an intensive four-hour class -- and passed. The big difference was "the fact that it was four hours long and there was tutors to help and it was a lot more intense," 17-year-old Jess said, adding that he is now enrolled in geometry. "With the main year, it's like that whole period of time was way too long."

The Glendale News-Press visited Herbert Hoover High School and asked students being tutored after school : "How do you like the homework help program?" "It's good. It helps you. You actually learn and you actually get the work done too." MISAK ISRAELYAN, 16 Glendale "It's good because there's tutors around and they're your age so you can ask them questions." ALEX FAJARDO, 15 Glendale "The people are your age and they explain it to you in more detail because it's like one-on-one help."

YWCA OF GLENDALE The YWCA of Glendale is looking for volunteers to help staff its "New to You" thrift shop at the YWCA, 735 E. Lexington Drive, Glendale. Adults and teenagers 16 years of age or older are needed between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The most urgent need is between 9 a.m. to noon daily. High school students may earn community service hours for their work. Duties include opening and closing the store, assisting customers, receiving and sorting donations and light housekeeping.

In the fall of 1975, several refugees from war-torn Vietnam arrived in Glendale. They had been attending orientation classes at Camp Pendleton and were still there when several local church members offered them temporary homes. None spoke English when they arrived here. In a recent letter, Nena Kelty, one of a group that stepped forward to assist them, wrote, “I don't think many of your readers know of Glendale's part in welcoming and assisting the Vietnamese refugees. The kindness and generosity its residents exhibited in helping these unfortunate people who fled their homeland in terror went largely unrecognized.” She learned of the situation when someone from Gospel Lighthouse Publications, at 110 East Broadway, contacted her group, California Literacy, requesting a tutor-training workshop.

Foothill Boulevard in La Crescenta is dotted with signs advertising SAT prep classes and other tutoring services, much of it geared toward the community's sizable Korean population. Still, academic extras that provide a number of students a leg up in school aren't financially possible for some families and culturally foreign to others. Now, a group of high-performing, high school volunteers are working to even the playing field, providing a free math tutoring program that is attracting dozens of students to New Song Church on La Crescenta Avenue each Friday afternoon.

Working at a table crowded with binders and textbooks, Glendale resident Nancy Stein is leading two children through their homework exercises. "Is that how you spell 'remember?'" she asks. "Sound it out. You are missing some letters. " It is a scene played out each evening in households across the country. But the children, siblings Jenny and Danny Barajas, 9 and 12 years old, respectively, are not Stein's own. And the table is not in the family kitchen, but in the activity room at PATH Achieve, a homeless shelter in south Glendale.

LA CRESCENTA — The glut of after-school tutors lining Foothill Boulevard did little to deter Tariq and Saddia Rana from launching a learning center of their own. "Each center offers a very different service," Tariq Rana said Saturday at the grand opening of his Kumon Math and Reading Center. "For us, everything is one-on-one, independent and individualized." The center, which on Tuesdays and Fridays serves roughly 120 students between the ages of 2 and 16, opened last month with support from the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce.

L?aureole donates funds for zone Proceeds from the recent L?aureole benefit concert have been presented to the Glendale Salvation Army Corps. The $5,500 is designated to The Zone Academy, an after-school program for students ages 8 to 14. Students have access to textbooks, computers, a library, calculators, school supplies and tutors to help them achieve academic excellence. Julyne Sales , Zone program director, emphasizes that students take advantage of online reading and math tutorials to improve English language and math skills.

Just the very mention of math makes some people run for the hills. But for “Math Doctor” Ron Hartwell, it’s just another day in the classroom. Hartwell, owner of Glendale-based Math Doctor, tutors students from across the region — including Glendale, La Crescenta, La Cañada and Burbank — and specializes in making mathematics less intimidating. “Each student’s different,” Hartwell said as he sat in a booth at a Starbucks in Glendale, which sometimes doubles as one of his classrooms.

Crescenta Valley High School senior Matthew Hanzel is ready for college; he is taking the right classes, participates in extracurricular activities, and has long completed the recommended 100 hours of community service. Instead of luxuriating in the free afternoons that are typical of senior year, however, Hanzel dedicates two days out of the week to tutor at-risk children as part of the Salvation Army Glendale Corp’s Zone after-school program. “Once you start ... why stop?

GLENDALE — School officials have had to pay nearly $100,000 a month out of pocket to keep a popular after-school tutoring program going while state lawmakers wrangle over California’s budget. The program, which offers recreational and educational activities such as help with homework to about 900 students in 12 district schools, did not get an expected $1.5-million state grant at the beginning of the school year. So Glendale Unified School District officials committed to paying for it in the meantime.

Before 17-year-old Dalar Nazari added a few drops of lead nitrate to some sodium chromate, she asked the group of Lincoln Elementary School students before her what they thought might happen when the two chemicals met. There could be an explosion, the elementary students suggested, or maybe a color change. The children crowded around as Nazari, a student at Clark Magnet High School, combined the two liquids. She encouraged them to observe what was occurring. ?There?