Antelope Valley schools schedule Sept. 11 activities

Most schools around the Valley will observe the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with moments of silence and assemblies and by encouraging students to dress in red, white and blue.

Here are some of the activities scheduled:

LITTLEROCK - Almondale Middle School will set up booths for students to make ribbons and posters and write down their thoughts from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. A moment of silence will be observed.

LITTLEROCK - Alpine Elementary School will have a remembrance service from 9:15 to 9:45 a.m., including a presentation of the colors by the Littlerock High School cadet corps. Students will sing patriotic songs. Representatives from the Los Angeles County fire and sheriff's departments are expected.

LANCASTER - Two fifthgrade classes from El Dorado Elementary School will perform patriotic songs at 11 a.m. at Lancaster City Hall. The students recorded and sold a CD of patriotic songs as a fund-raiser; they donated $2,500 to Roberto Clemente School in New York. Students from Mariposa Elementary will walk to City Hall to watch their fellow elementary students perform.

LANCASTER - Jack Northrop Elementary School will have a "Freedom Day" assembly at 2 p.m. Local firefighters are invited to receive a $1,000 donation. Students will wear red, white and blue, say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing. Fifth-graders will read essays on what freedom means to them.

LANCASTER - Monte Vista Elementary School students will sing patriotic songs around the flagpole and wear red, white and blue and die-cut stars made by parent volunteers. The Highland High School ROTC Color Guard will present the flag at 9 a.m.

LANCASTER - Park View Intermediate School will have a patriotic door-decorating contest and leadership classes will decorate the campus. Students will wear red, white and blue and reflect on their responsibilities as Americans.

LANCASTER - Each grade at Sunnydale Elementary School will lead the school in a patriotic song, and a new U.S. flag will be raised.

LANCASTER - West Wind Elementary School will have a flag ceremony at 7:42 a.m. that will include patriotic songs. A moment of silence will be observed at noon.

PALMDALE - Highland High School is having an art and poetry contest, and entries will be displayed on a special Sept. 11 Wall of Honor after judging. A 15minute wreath-laying ceremony at 8:46 a.m. in front of the school will be broadcast on the school's TV channel. The ceremony will include short speeches, patriotic songs and a moment of silence. Two fire and rescue personnel will lay a wreath at the flagpole, the school's ROTC students will lower the flag to half-mast and then taps will be played. A moment of silence will follow.

Teacher Ed Mooney donated a large U.S. flag that once flew at a municipal building in Pennsylvania next to the town where one of the jets went down. The jet flew over the flag that day. School officials will try to hoist the large flag on the school's flag pole and incorporate it into the ceremony.

LANCASTER - Lancaster High School's social studies and health classes are invited to its theater for a remembrance presentation that will include a short speech from a local firefighter, a slide show and video.

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley High School students will wear flag pins distributed by the associated student body. Posters will be placed around campus and a moment of silence will be observed.

QUARTZ HILL - Students at Desert Winds West Valley campus will spell out USA with red, white and blue Styrofoam cups on the front fence and attach small flags along the fence it shares with Quartz Hill High School. A front case will display photographs of the 343 firefighters reported missing.

During the one-hour silent reading period, an article with gripping details of telephone conversations of victims before the collapse of the World Trade Center will be read. Students will be asked to reflect on the event in an essay; one student will win two passes to Magic Mountain for his or her response.

Students at the east campus in Lancaster will have an assembly and a moment of silence.

LITTLEROCK - Littlerock High School will have a flag ceremony before school. A moment of silence will follow at 8:24 a.m. Students are asked to wear red, white and blue, and associated student body will distribute remembrance ribbons.

PALMDALE - During second period, Palmdale High School students will watch a live video broadcast in all classrooms. The school then will observe a moment of silence and a flag salute. Students later will view a video shot last year when New York firefighters visited the school.

QUARTZ HILL - Quartz Hill High School will have "American Games" during lunch, which will including a watermelon-eating contest and a contest for the most patriotic attire. The associated student body will decorate the campus that morning before school.

PALMDALE - R. Rex Parris High School students will observe two minutes of silence at the beginning of second and eighth periods. During the remainder of those periods, teachers will ask the students to discuss what made the day traumatic, how their personal assumptions about life changed, how their lives have been changed by terrorism and how they reacted.

LANCASTER - At Sundown Elementary School, 200 to 300 students will form a human flag at 10:30 a.m.

LANCASTER - An Edwards Air Force Base color guard will be at Linda Verde Elementary School at 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. to have a flag-folding ceremony. Secondgraders will perform patriotic songs at the morning events and at a 6:30 p.m. program.

Uploaded September 10, 2002