Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Community School of Music & Arts students Ben Halstead, Olivia Lau and Claire Jun paint a mural that will hang in the offices of NetBoost.
Town Crier Staff Writer
Schools Round Up
Local students are creating a giant mural in an unusual collaboration between start-up company NetBoost and the Community School of Music & Arts.
Barbara Rand, director of community outreach at NetBoost, said company officials invited 16 local students at the arts school to create a giant mural to hang inside the lobby of the company building.
Rand said company officials hoped the project would support local arts while providing a piece of art for its employees to enjoy.
Through a two-week mural camp from July 26 to Aug. 6 at the Mountain View-based arts school, students in grades 6-8 created the mural from scratch, including its theme, content and design. Communications Director Evy Schiffman called it a computer fantasy embodying a dragon with wires coming out of its tail, "shifting into wire speed." The idea was inspired by stories about dragons and gnomes.
The students designed, sketched and painted the 16-by-5 foot mural onto large canvass panels that are scheduled to be transported and mounted on the building wall at NetBoost by the end of this month.
Event organizers said they hoped that this would be the first of many collaborations between local businesses and artists.
"This mural project embodies so many positive elements for students, from working collaboratively to seeing through a project in all its stages, from the infancy of idea to its display as a piece of public art," said Ernest Regua, a visual art teacher at the arts school.
Los Altos Hills student named film finalist
Christina Frenzel of Los Altos Hills was recently named a finalist in the junior high category of the 1999 National Children's Film Festival.
The annual international program encourages youth from ages 9-18 to write, direct and produce films by providing a platform for children to share their voices and visions.
Only 20 students nationwide were selected as finalists in this category.
If chosen as one of the six winners this fall, Christina will have the opportunity to attend an awards ceremony at the Third annual National Children's Film Festival at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
NCFF is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Indianapolis. For more information, call 1-877-KIDFILM or go to www.childrensfilmfest.org.
LAHS pool workto proceed as planned
A July 30 agreement with the only bidder for renovating the Los Altos High School pool will keep the work on schedule for completion by the end of next winter.
Rich Fischer, superintendent of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District, said negotiations came "down to the last minute," but the $865,000 project for a new pool and redoing the heating system will proceed as planned. In order to keep the project within budget, Fischer said such items as automatic touch pads and a new scoreboard had to be cut.
The district received` two bids for the project with one company bowing out of the project.