Teachers, Pupils Say Goodby : Education: After 92 years, Fountain Valley Elementary closes its doors for the last time, a victim of sharply declining enrollments.

For 20 years, Fountain Valley Elementary School teacher Sandra McCollom had a small sign posted on the door of her kindergarten classroom that read, “All who walk through this door shall be loved.”

This year, she posted a larger addendum neatly printed in stark, black letters next to the small sign. “And they were loved. They grew in body, mind and spirit. Thank you for a fabulous year and glorious 20 years in the community. With love today and always, Sandra McCollom.”

It was a requiem for a venerable institution of learning that will be quietly put to rest today at the age of 92.

“It’s like the closing of a page in history,” said Colleen Wilson, the school’s principal.

A fixture on Bushard Street since 1898, Fountain Valley Elementary School--the oldest school in the Fountain Valley School District--fell victim this year to sharply declining enrollment.

Over heated objections from parents, the district’s school board, citing a plunge in enrollment from 1,000 students in the ‘70s to 297 today, voted 4 to 1 in February to shut the school. The property will be leased to enhance the district’s declining finances. The students will be reassigned to three district schools, and the school’s 10 teachers will be scattered to five schools.

On Thursday, the mood at Fountain Valley Elementary was alternately somber and upbeat. Nearly empty classrooms were strewn with the remnants of elementary education--first-grade readers, construction paper, crayons and oversized storybooks.

Sue Klingseis, the senior teacher at the school with 21 years in kindergarten and first-grade classes, spent the morning in her two adjoining classrooms wistfully packing dozens of books and thousands of memories.

She was surrounded by cheery childlike drawings pasted on cabinets next to strips of packing tape cheerlessly labeled “Klingseis--Tamura 6,” a reference for the movers who will transport Klingseis’ belongings to her new assignment at Hisamatsu Tamura Elementary School. A copy of “The Three Little Pigs” lay atop dozens of other fairy tales in a box marked “51.” A slogan written in flawless script reading, “All children are gifted--some just open their packages later than others,” was left on a shin-high table.

Klingseis choked back tears and swallowed her response when asked her reaction to the imminent shutdown. “I can’t even talk about it,” she said. When she regained her composure a moment later, she described the school as “just a wonderful place to work.”

“The families here have been so supportive,” she said. “The hard part for most of us is leaving the community. Sandra (McCollom) and I have worked together for 19 years, and now we’re leaving the community. That’s the hardest part for me.”

Although clearly upset at the school’s closing, teachers, staff and and parents decided to end Fountain Valley Elementary’s days on a positive note for the sake of the kids. The entire student body was treated to trips to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm last week, and, on Thursday, parents decorated the school’s multipurpose room with balloons and crepe paper for a cold-cuts luncheon honoring the last “graduating” class of fifth-graders.

Marilyn Aspinall, president of the school’s Parent-Teacher Assn., noted that graduations for fifth-graders are prohibited under district policy, but the school opted to go ahead with the ceremony anyway. “What are they going to do, shut us down?” she asked.

Aspinall, whose 11-year-old son, Michael, was one of the fifth-graders in attendance, said she believed that the tight-knit parents’ association will take the shutdown much harder than the kids.

“It’s the parents groups where we formed our friendships,” said Aspinall, who joined the PTA six years ago and has been president for the past two years. “I have no family here (in California). This was sort of my extended family.”

Susan Haukness, whose daughter, Anne, 9, attends third grade at the school, said the small enrollment encouraged camaraderie that she fears her daughter and other students may not feel at larger schools.

“The thing I’m going to miss the most is the closeness,” said Haukness, who softly played “Pomp and Circumstance” on a slightly out-of-tune piano as the school’s 50 fifth-graders were called forward to receive promotion certificates. “Everybody was somebody here. You walk down the halls, and everybody knows your name. That was real important for the children.”

Although Fountain Valley Elementary’s fifth-graders would have moved on to a middle school even if the school stayed open, several said they were sorry that their elementary alma mater was about to close.

“If you were at the same school for a long time, for five or six years, and it closed, would you be happy?” said Joey Hurley, 11, who attends fifth grade with his twin brother, Michael. “I feel like all my friends are spreading away.”

Jason Kelly, 10, said he was unhappy about the news because he had already been through one school closing in his short school career. “I feel sad because it (a school closing) happened to me in Whittier,” said Jason, whose former school shut when he was in third grade. “I kind of got upset about it because it was closing, and I had a lot of friends there.”

The potential loss of friendships saddened parents and students alike. But the teachers--some of whom have never taught anywhere else--are likely to feel the loss most of all.

“So much good occurred at this school,” said McCollom, who has taught kindergarten for 20 years at Fountain Valley Elementary and will go on to teach first grade at Fred Moiola Elementary School this fall. “It will be difficult to leave the people you’ve come to work with every day.”