Several Districts Will Close Schools to Assess Damage : Fear but Few Injuries Reported in East L.A., San Gabriel Valley

Public schools will be closed Friday in East Los Angeles and in several San Gabriel Valley school districts in order to clean up scattered debris and assess structural damage resulting from Thursday’s earthquake, officials reported.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, classes were canceled until Monday in all East Los Angeles elementary, junior and senior high schools, where school safety inspectors observed foundation cracks and other types of structural damage. Closures of several campuses in other areas of the sprawling district also were planned.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County superintendent of schools’ office estimated that 190,000 students in 196 schools in 15 districts would be affected by closures today.

There were widespread reports of damage in the San Gabriel Valley.

The Garvey School District, which encompasses parts of Rosemead and Monterey Park, reported serious damage at three schools, with cracks in walls and fallen ceilings at Garvey Elementary School.

Many Close Early

Many schools closed early Thursday after parents came to take their children home, while at other campuses teachers suspended their normal lesson plans and allowed pupils to play games or engage in other relaxing activities.

At some schools, district psychologists were pressed into action, counseling pupils who appeared unusually upset and advising teachers on ways to help their students express their fears about the quake.

“Some of the teachers have the tendency to say everything is going to be all right, but they need to know that children will be afraid and need to have a way to express the fears, not hide them,” said Jerry O’Day, the staff psychologist at 112th Street School in South-Central Los Angeles.

At least six of the children at 112th Street who received special counseling told their teachers they were survivors of the recent major quakes in Mexico City and Guatemala. One 8-year-old girl who lived through the Mexico City disaster asked O’Day if Thursday’s quake meant that she would have to sleep outside now.

Another pupil, 10-year-old Nadia Raya, moved to Los Angeles from Mexico City a year ago. When the quake hit Thursday, she said through an interpreter: “I was scared. I thought about Mexico . . . and the buildings falling and people running. I hope it doesn’t happen anymore.”

At Eagle Rock Elementary School in northeast Los Angeles, Joyce Takahashi said that she and other teachers pulled out kits packed with crayons and drawing paper that they had prepared for just such an occasion and carried them out to the playground, where children had been instructed to assemble. Children were soon sprawled on the asphalt, drawing pictures and trying to take their minds off the morning’s scary event.

“Kids were really, really scared,” said Takahashi, who teaches a gifted class. “Some of the kids had experienced the earthquake on the bus coming to school and didn’t know what to do.”

Some Students Cut

At Marshall Intermediate School in Pasadena, glass shattered in a hallway and cut several students.

“Lots of kids were panicking, and lots of kids were crying. It was pretty scary,” said Alisia Granillo, 12.

Los Angeles school district officials said they received reports of a few cases of students who suffered minor scratches, but no major injuries were reported.

For the most part, schoolchildren in Los Angeles and other outlying districts were just arriving on campus when the quake occurred. But officials reported that the majority of students appeared to remember the safety lessons they learned during earthquake drills staged periodically by school officials. They ducked under tables if they were inside a building and reported to a predetermined evacuation area--generally on the playground, away from school structures--when the shaking stopped.

“The practice paid off,” said Jose Velazquez, principal of Weigand Avenue School in Watts. “Everybody knew what to do” and only a few students cried. When it was safe to return to their classrooms, he said, teachers spent much of the first hour engaging students in discussions about earthquakes, precautions and the emotions that a quake can stir.

Eagle Rock student Javier Melara, 10, could even laugh at the eventful morning. “When the quake happened, I got a little mixed up with fire drills. I thought I was supposed to stop, drop and roll over” instead of take cover, he said.

Staff writer Mark Arax contributed to this story.