Local News in Brief : Fullerton : Fire-Damaged School Functioning Well

Despite the loss of about one-fourth of its classrooms due to fire, Richman Elementary School in Fullerton functioned “almost normally and with no problems,” Principal Minard Duncan reported Tuesday.

Only 40 of the school’s 760 students had to be bused to another school, Duncan said. “We shifted around classroom space to take care of the other 720,” he said. The 40 that were bused are preschool, Headstart students who were taken to Maple Community Center.

Richman Elementary lost six of its 25 regular classrooms early Monday morning in a raging fire that caused damages estimated at $500,000. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.

On Monday, several school officials said they had been told that arson is suspected. But a spokeswoman for the Fullerton Fire Department said Tuesday that nothing definite has been found to point to arson.

“Marc Martin, the city’s fire marshal, has said that arson has not been ruled out, but there is so far no evidence to support arson as the cause of the school fire,” said Sylvia Palmer, city public information officer.