Map Firm’s Catalog to Chart L.A. Diversity

Ethnic diversity is paying off at three Long Beach schools this week as minority students are posing for a nationwide catalog in exchange for donations of educational materials.

On hand for Tuesday’s photo session at Roosevelt Elementary, a sales representative for Rand McNally said the Skokie, Ill.-based publisher commissioned photos in Long Beach because it wanted to show a diverse array of students using the latest geographical materials.

“We specifically were looking for a school that had a large [variety] of backgrounds,” said Sherri Ortman.

As an incentive for the schools, Rand McNally is donating every computer, wall map, book and globe pictured this week in photo sessions at Roosevelt, Polytechnic High School and Will Rogers Middle School, Ortman said. Each school will also receive $25 for each student model.

Roosevelt Principal Marnos Lelesi welcomed the photo session as good publicity, in addition to the free educational materials.

“Whenever schools get publicity and it’s a positive thing, it’s always good for education,” Lelesi said.

The sessions were a bit taxing for the students, however. School literacy specialist Anneke Dodge said Roosevelt third-graders became restless during photo sessions that lasted up to an hour. But she added that the students did benefit by using the materials.

“They were finding things on the globe they hadn’t noticed before,” Dodge said.

Third-grader Mark Garcia said he would gladly do it again, especially because the modeling allowed him to take time off his regular classwork.

“I missed my [math] test,” he said.