Sept. 22, 2010
News A3
The
Chronicle
City, county join students’ safety drive By Jordan Freisleben
and
Judd Liebman
A “Slow Down for Julia” initiative to call attention to unsafe driving was launched last Thursday at a news conference at the corner of Cliffwood and Sunset in West Los Angeles, where Julia Siegler ’14 was struck and killed by two vehicles last February. “Slow Down for Julia” was created by Jake Feiler ’13, Eli Kogan ’13 and Max Theony ’13, all of whom were on the school bus and witnessed the accident. “All three of us knew Julia,” Kogan said. “We had been going on the bus with her the past year, so we knew her pretty well, and it was kind of the impact of seeing the accident that affected us a lot more than most, so we definitely wanted to get involved and help the family and help everyone we could.” Shortly after she died, the three sophomores started selling purple wristbands for $3 each that say “Slow Down for Julia.” The wristbands were sold at the middle school bookstore. “By the first day we had already made over $2,000. We started using that money towards the corner, and we used it to paint the bench at the corner purple and then I went separately and spray painted so it said ‘Slow Down for Julia,’” Kogan said. “We used the money and a lot of the donation money that parents and students donated so we could cut down the eucalyptus tree that blocks the driver’s view of the corner, which was why she was hit.” Julia’s mother, Jody Cukier Siegler, got involved with the project shortly after. “One day, I was at the corner with a few people and Jody came down and we talked to her about how we wanted to help and prevent this from ever happening again,” Kogan said. “From that point on, we just became really close with Jody and we’ve been with her since.” “The three guys completely embraced the role of teen leadership and activism, and I didn’t even know them,” Siegler said. “The great thing was that it was not the usual suspects – not her best friends or class leaders, but civilians organizing themselves.” When some of their proposed safety measures, such as repairing the sidewalk on Sunset and cutting down the tree, required city permission, Councilman Bill Rosendahl got involved in the project. Rosendahl is councilman for District 11, where Siegler was killed. “The law at bus stops and school bus stops is that you can’t go around and that it’ll be a $300 ticket,
Courtesy of Jon Fairbanks
slow down for julia: Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan (left) joined City Councilman Bill Rosendahl (center) and sophomores Eli Kogan ’13, Jake Feiler ’13 and Max Theony ’13 at a news conference last Thursday to kick off a traffic safety awareness drive in West Los Angeles in memory of Julia Siegler ’14. and we will enforce that,” Rosendahl said. “A lot of people don’t know that’s the law here in L.A. But the message of awareness and safety so that Julia didn’t have to die in vain was very clearly present in it all.” Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky also attended the news conference. “They launched this initiative to coincide with the beginning of the school year to have kids and drivers to be extremely careful around school buses where kids are embarking and disembarking,” Yaroslavsky’s press deputy Joel Bellman said. “We’re out there participating to increase public awareness and sensitivity about the issue to change driving habits and to be more attentive to safety issues. There were no laws broken in this tragic event, so it’s not a matter of changing laws; it’s a matter of being more sensitive and considerate,” Bellman said. Rosendahl said he had been proactive in the safety of drivers and pedestrians since Siegler died, holding two community meetings to discuss what could be done. “There was a lot of genuine interest. We met the three boys and just to look into these kids’ eyes and hear them speak, you know that it’s the first tragedy that they experienced. Hopefully it will be the last
Technical director leaves for new job at CalArts By David Lim Middle school performing arts teacher Grant Gorrell is leaving this week for a new position as assistant technical director at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. He has worked at the Middle School for six years as technical director and also taught the Stagecraft and Advanced Stagecraft classes to eighth and ninth graders. Gorrell helped produce plays, musicals, concerts and assemblies. As the only theater technician at the middle school, he was responsible for managing all the technical aspects during performances and rehearsals including lighting, sound and special effects, as well as creating recordings of shows. Gorrell also helped set up new facilities in Bing Performing Arts Center during the summer of 2008. He worked to fine-tune the equipment in the main auditorium, black-box theater and dance studio. Gorrell said he considered his most important role to be that of a teacher. “I try to instill a sense of responsibility in the work that [my students] do and teach them to have the confidence in themselves to troubleshoot problems effectively and manage the unexpected,” he said. “[Gorrell] has always been first and foremost a fantastic teacher. If you have ever seen a middle school production, you know that amazing lights and sound can really bring the ‘wow’ factor to a performance,” Jacob Swanson ’11, a former student of Gorrell, said. “Through his very hands-on
teaching style, he has given the most unusual of suspects a passion for theater.” The highlight of his career here was the production of the play, “The Curse of Ravensdurn,” Gorell said. “I did have the honor of directing the last play nathanson ’s/chronicle ever to be performed in Grant Gorell the Great Hall, and the time that I spent working with the cast and crew of ‘The Curse of Ravensdurn’ will always have a special place in my heart,” Gorrell said. Until a replacement can be found for his position, Gorrell will serve in his current capacity for a few more events. “I have really enjoyed every single performance we have put together during my time here, and I’ve had the good fortune throughout the years to work with a number of truly exceptional students who have proven time and again to be absolutely essential to the success of our shows,” Gorrell said. “I will miss helping put together all of the wonderful productions we have lined up for this year, I will miss all of my colleagues and friends, I will really miss the dodgeball tournament in the spring, but most of all I will miss all of my students, past and present, as they were the best part of each and every day here.” “I think the school will find itself hard pressed to find anyone that is as competent, loyal, and hardworking as he was,” former student Ben Vigman ’13 said.
they will experience,” he said. Feiler, Kogan and Theony had flyers printed by Greg Foster (Jackson ’11, Lucas ’13) that were handed out by over 30 officers of the Los Angeles Police Department West Traffic Division at Sunset Boulevard intersections Thursday morning. The same flyers were also handed out to parents at the Middle School during carpool. “The emphasis and focus was to acknowledge and applaud an age group that is often blamed,” Siegler said of the three organizers. “The courage of that age group amazed me and drove me to hold it together.” Rosendahl said that he’s trying to take as many preventative measures as possible to avoid any other tragedies. “Hopefully this will be the beginning of people following the law and respecting the law and the more publicity we get on the dangers of crosswalks and school busses. I can’t bring the young lady back but I can certainly attempt to do whatever I can so that this doesn’t happen again,” he said. “It’s still a blur to stand in the place where Julia left us,” Siegler said. “The message was that they wanted to do something so no other mother had to be in the street with her dead child.”
National
Merit Semifinalists 28 seniors were chosen as National Merit Semifinalists based on their PSAT/NMSQT scores for the 2009-2010 school year. These students are part of the 16,000 out of 50,000 high scorers on the PSAT/NMSQT exam.
Chase Basich Austin Block Jordan Bryan Ben Dreier Mary Rose Fissinger Hanna Huang Alexander Jaffe Rachel Katz Benjamin Kogan Matthew Lee Sophia Lee Sue Lee Jenny Lin Shawn Ma
Jasmine McAllister Advai Pathak Jack Petok Alexander Scharch Joshua Schwartz Jacob Sonnenberg Jeffrey Sperling Ben Sprung-Keyser Charles Stigler Ben-Han Sung Jackson Usher Catherine Wang Adam Wolf Colette Woo
Source: National Merit Scholarship Corporation Graphic by Emily Khaykin