Swimsuits Traded for Textbooks : Thousands of Schoolchildren Return to Class

Jiggling and vibrating like a tiny engine, 6-year-old Jessica Brunner was a giddy mix of excitement and jangled nerves.

With hardly a wink of sleep the night before to calm her, Jessica could hardly sit still in the back seat of her family’s van. She scissored the air with her legs and clutched her bright yellow lunch box, hoping for the best on a big day--her first day of first grade.

“All I can think about is school!” Jessica said, beaming.

Jessica had chattered happily most of the morning as she put on her new blue-and-white striped outfit, gathered her school supplies and let her mom tie a pink lace ribbon into her long, blond hair.

Smile Faded Suddenly

But as the Fountain Valley youngster joined her class on the playground of James H. Cox Elementary School, her smile faded and she fell silent.

The brown-eyed girl clung to the hands of her mother and father.

Her grave expression vanished within seconds, however, as friends rushed up to greet her. Jessica’s mother, Jo Brunner, watched with a smile as the girls oohed and aahed over new clothes and haircuts.

It was a scene repeated over and over Tuesday, as thousands of county children surrendered their summer vacations and returned to school. Many more will start class in coming days. Although some were reluctant to trade swimsuits for schoolbooks, they were also eager to see old friends, make new ones and face the challenges of a new grade.

Jessica’s first thought Tuesday morning was: “School!” She was especially excited that she is getting her own desk and chair this year, the floor-sitting of kindergarten behind her.

She and 29 classmates got right to work with their new pencils and crayons, writing their names and drawing pictures of themselves in yellow workbooks. When their teacher, Ruth Ann Stark, asked what they would like to learn this year, they called out: Science! Math! Reading! Animals! Insects! Planets! Dinosaurs! Nature! The Civil War!

Wrote Story to Take Home

Between recesses outside, the children worked diligently, memorizing a short poem, “September Morning,” and writing a little story to take home to their parents.

As she waited for her mother to pick her up in the afternoon, Jessica declared her first day of school a success. “It was neat,” she said, her hair a little windblown from playing outside.

The lazy pace of summer had picked up dramatically in the last few weeks as back-to-school fever gripped parents, students and teachers.

While the campuses were still quiet, teachers filed back into their classrooms and flung themselves into a cutting-and-pasting frenzy, transforming bare walls into a cozy, colorful home away from home.

A warm, soft-spoken woman with a blond pageboy hair style, Stark recruited her own two youngsters to help her pin up bright new calendars and cartoon figures on bulletin boards and to cut out huge paper leaves in autumn colors.

“I walk into a room that is completely devoid of anything,” she said a few days before school started. “There’s only furniture and filing cabinets. There’s a lot to do to make this room feel warm and friendly.”

Her preparations did not end there. She got her own sixth-grader and eighth-grader ready for school. She squeezed in a few shopping expeditions to “spruce up” her own wardrobe. And night after night, she made detailed outlines of her lesson plans.

Stark, 42 and beginning her 19th teaching season, said she shares her students’ mixed feelings about returning to school.

“There are always exciting new little faces to see,” she said. “They’re so lovely and so anxious to come to school. I kind of hate to see my summer end, but it’s inevitable.”

In the waning days of summer, enthusiastic youngsters dragged their parents up and down store aisles, filling shopping carts with school necessities.

Tyler Powell, 6, of El Toro, a first-grader at La Madera Elementary School, assembled a new set of colored pencils and markers. Eager to try buying lunch at school, Tyler hoped that the cafeteria would have nachos, one of his favorite foods.

Each night, Tyler had been practicing his alphabet, carefully drawing the letters on big sheets of white paper. First grade is exciting because, he said: “You stay there longer. It’s more grown up.”

Patrick Ford, 6, who started first grade at Roch Courreges Elementary School in Fountain Valley, pushed a cart through the local Target store with his mom the week before school.

He picked a Trapper Keeper--an all-in-one notebook and folder with pockets--decorated with colorful hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza slices. He stacked up scissors, glue, washable markers. Darting in and out of the dressing rooms in Robinson’s, he picked shorts, pants and T-shirts for school.

Michael Belmonte, 6, readied himself for school by practicing his math--he can already add two-digit numbers--and spelling his last name out loud, over and over. On Friday afternoon, he positioned himself in the office of Fountain Valley Elementary School so he could learn who his teacher and classmates were as soon as the list was posted.

Jessica Brunner prowled a Target store in search of the perfect backpack. She picked a sky-blue model, trimmed with pink hearts. Just as a grown-up kicks the tires of a used car, she scrutinized her choice, probing every compartment, zipping every zipper. Satisfied, she swung the paper-stuffed backpack onto her back and wore it for the rest of the shopping trip.

Next came a crucial selection: the all-important lunch box. Again, she was the careful shopper, testing the lock of each brightly colored plastic box, opening it and examining the design on the thermos.

“I wanna make sure I like this,” she said. “I’m gonna see it every day.”

Declining to put her chosen box into the shopping cart, she toted it up and down the aisles.

Back home, she listed the ways first grade differs from kindergarten.

“You get out later. You don’t get to play outside as much,” she said. Prompted by her sister, Janelle, 9, she added: “Oh, yeah, you eat lunch there.”

She said she was “a little” excited and nervous about her first day, but added, “It’s no big deal.”

Moments later, however, she squealed, “Only five more days until school! I can’t wait!”

For most children, the excitement of the new school year is mixed with sadness that another summer has come to an end.

“I’d rather have a little more time on vacation,” Patrick Ford said. “I wish I never had to go to school. I wish I knew everything myself.”

But he faced the new year on an upbeat, helpful note: “I think the first day will be fun,” he said. “I hardly ever cry on the first day of school. I see other kids crying because they don’t want to leave their mom. When I see that, I try to play with them to cheer them up.”

BACK TO SCHOOL IN ORANGE COUNTY School begins on the following days for Orange County public schools: Today in: Brea-Olinda Unified, and high schools in Tustin Unified. Thursday in: Capistrano Unified, Garden Grove Unified, Irvine Unified, Laguna Beach Unified, high schools in Los Alamitos Unified, Saddleback Valley Unified, and elementary and middle schools in Tustin Unified. Monday, Sept. 11, in: Placentia Unified; Newport-Mesa Unified; Anaheim Union High School District; Anaheim City School District; Centralia School District; Cypress School District; Magnolia School District; Savanna School District, elementary and middle schools in Los Alamitos United, and Westminster School District. Source: Individual school districts