School Where Sharon Rogers Taught Called Safe and Secure

La Jolla Country Day School will be safe and secure when classes resume next week at the end of spring break, the headmaster assured parents and faculty in a letter mailed Friday.

A school spokesman said the school is softening its stand on rehiring teacher Sharon Rogers for next year.

Rogers, the wife of the Navy captain aboard the Vincennes that shot down an Iranian airliner last summer, said in an interview that letters of support and community understanding have helped her overcome the trauma since she escaped unharmed from a bomb blast in her van three weeks ago.

“We have received hundreds of letters from concerned citizens, and we have received assistance of all kinds,” she said in the interview to be published in the April 10 editions of the Army Times, Navy Times and Air Force Times.

Her van exploded March 10 while the fourth-grade teacher was driving to her classroom at the exclusive, private La Jolla Country Day School. Federal investigators probing the blast theorize that it may have been set off by a terrorist acting in retaliation for the airplane downing that killed all 290 people aboard in the Persian Gulf last July.

Rogers’ removal from the school after the explosion sparked an uproar in the community, with numerous accusations being leveled that the private school facility was caving in to terrorism.

But Timothy M. Burns, the school headmaster, indicated in his letter Friday that after the 700 students return Monday from the two-week spring recess, the school hopes to rectify that perception.

“The school has experienced what has been termed ‘the first act of terrorism in the United States,’ ” he wrote. “We are going to treat this incident as a learning experience by providing speakers on issues such as terrorism and the ethical questions surrounding it.”

He also assured parents that private security guards will be posted at each of the school’s entrances.

Richard Roth, the school’s new spokesman, said the school will welcome Rogers back to the campus for the 1989-90 term if her presence provides no “substantial” security risks. Roth said the provision represented a softening of the school’s position.