LA MIRADA - La Mirada High School has been awarded a three-year grant to establish a solar energy academy.

It is the first time the California Department of Education has funded high schools to establish green academies.

"It's very exciting," said La Mirada Spanish teacher Norma Williamson, who will head up the new academy next school year.

She and her husband, Alan Williamson, are considered local solar energy experts. They've been featured in national magazines and on Public Broadcasting System's "Nova."

"It's our passion," said Norma Williamson, who drives a solar-based car and lives in a solar-based home.

One of the purposes of the academy is to train students for the green-collar work force.

"We will get them prepared for a new economy and their role in it," said biology teacher Padmini Kishore.

There will be 60 students enrolled in La Mirada's "Reach for the Sun" Solar Academy for the 2009-10 school year.

The grant is for $42,000, with matching funds from the district and in-kind services from solar industry partners, educational partners and individuals.

They include Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, actor/activist Ed Begley Jr., Golden West Community College, Biola University, Southeast Regional Occupation Program and others.

"We will have a great support system with the academy only getting bigger every year," Williamson said.

Kishore, who has placed an emphasis on solar energy in her biology courses, said students are ready and in need of the academy.

"My students have been studying the correlation between biology and solar energy, such as the workings of photosynthesis," she said.

Teaching one subject is an extension of teaching the other, she said.

sandra.molina@sgvn.com
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