SIMI VALLEY : Pupils Learn to Cope After Fire at School

A fire that damaged four classrooms at Park View Elementary School in Simi Valley forced 118 first- and second-grade pupils to move into makeshift classrooms in the cafeteria Monday.

The biggest concern of the children was for some dead silkworms that had been kept in one of the classrooms by students as part of a class project, second-grade teacher Linda Robinson said. “They’re taking it all very well. We’re trying to stress that all we lost are material things and that it’s all replaceable.”

The fire started as a result of a malfunctioning electrical clock in one of the classrooms, located at 1500 Alexander St. Displaced students will be taught through the end of the school year in the school’s library, computer lab or in two special-education classrooms, Principal Rob Hunter said.

Besides the silkworms, textbooks, art supplies and other classroom materials were lost in the fire, Robinson said. “But we did all the usual things this morning. Music, drawing, writing . . . the kids are fine,” she added.

“They’re learning to handle stress really well,” said Shelley Humphries, vice president of Park View’s Parent-Teacher Assn. “My son cried at first, but all the kids are used to adapting. The parents were more upset than the kids.”

Community support has been extremely enthusiastic, Hunter said. Money, materials and labor have been offered, he said. “We’re going to take a couple of days and see what we need first.”

Two classrooms were gutted and two others damaged so badly by the fire early Sunday that they cannot be salvaged. Henry Needham, the Simi Valley Unified School District’s coordinator of construction, estimated the damage at between $400,000 and $500,000.

“The earliest a new wing would be constructed would be October,” he said.