Uprooted Teachers Scramble, Grumble

Teachers at Mira Mesa High School scrubbed,cut, pasted and painted in their rooms Tuesday to put their kids in a learning mood on the first day of school today.

It’s the kind of work teachers normally love. But these weren’t normal circumstances. And these weren’t Mira Mesa High School teachers.

Mason Elementary School teachers found out Thursday that their school, along with 10 other San Diego elementary schools, is not earthquake safe and would be evacuated for repairs. About 800 students who would have started classes Monday were instead temporarily moved to the bungalows of Mira Mesa High three blocks away.

District officials hope teachers and students will be able to return to their own classrooms July 27, but until then they must make do with a campus filled with reminders of its regular teen-age inhabitants.

“I washed tons of swear words off the walls,” first-grade teacher Julie Allen said. “Otherwise my students would all be sitting here trying to pronounce them.”

Third-grade teacher Jan Suitts spent the day covering the peeling brown walls of her new room with canary yellow construction paper, on which she plans to pin her students’ work. She covered a sign on her door that tells late students to “report to the tardy room immediately” with a bunny poster.

“I thought: ‘Oh, no. The little ones will just panic,’ ” she said.

While teachers did their best to brighten up their rooms, there were a few unpleasant surprises.

“I don’t have water in my room. If we paint, we’ll have to transport the water, and the kids can’t wash their hands,” Allen said. Then there’s the bathroom problem: There are only two of them for everybody to share.

Mason administrators worked Tuesday to clear up some of the concerns, making special arrangements to use the high school photocopy machine, paint some “four-squares” and hopscotch lines on the playground blacktop, and hire a security guard to put teachers and parents at ease.

But the abruptness of the move frustrated teachers.

“It’s very poor planning on the part of the district,” first-grade teacher Linda Wittmer said. “They’re very naive about how simple it’s going to be to just pop over. If they think the quality is going to be up to what it was, they’re fooling themselves.”

Mason Elementary administrators were told of the move last Wednesday evening, but teachers didn’t find out until Thursday, and some say they didn’t hear until Friday.

Wittmer made up new name tags for her students, and set out crayons, scissors and picture dictionaries on each desk Tuesday along with the first day’s math homework.

The district hauled tiny desks and chairs out of storage to replace the high school’s desks.

But Wittmer said the room is nothing like her room at Mason.

Most teachers had spent a lot of time setting up their old rooms. They weren’t thrilled about doing it all again. And since the move is temporary, most teachers left the bulk of their teaching materials where they were.

“To me, this is just asinine what they made us do,” Allen said. “I had worked the two weekends before, Saturday and Sunday both, to get things ready in my room (at Mason). I mean, it sparkled. The first day’s work was out on the table. Everything was ready.”

The move will be especially hard on younger children, who rely on visual aids to learn, Allen said.

While Allen brought her butterfly color chart, she left her number chart and entire alphabet at Mason.

Many teachers said the extra work could have been avoided.

“The district’s known this for a good three weeks. They let out bids, took contracts,” Suitts said.

“I just feel a lot could have been done to inform teachers ahead of time. We had bulletin boards set up in our old rooms, some of them intricate. They took hours. We had our books and pencils out, ready to go.”

Dr. Eloiza Cisneros, assistant superintendent for school operations in the Mira Mesa area, said neither she nor San Diego Unified School District Supt. Tom Payzant knew ahead of time that schools would have to be emptied.

“There were some schools being inspected,” Cisneros said. “Obviously, some people in the district were already working on discovering what the concern was. I can’t deny that some people knew before that. But no, we did not know the extent of the problem, at the superintendent level, until July 1.”

Mason Elementary School has more than 1,100 enrolled students, but it is on a rotating multitrack schedule, and only three-fourths of the students attend at any one time, Cisneros said. Of the 11 schools that need repairs to their concrete roof support beams, Mason and Hickman must move students because of their multitrack schedules. Hickman students have been moved to nearby Challenger Junior High.

Some teachers say their suggestion to delay the opening of school until July 27, when track A students are due to begin, was callously discarded by district officials. The multitrack system divides students into four groups, which take staggered breaks throughout the year.

“We could have gone to a single-track opening on July 27,” Suitts said. “We were told we would have to petition the state.”

But Cisneros said the school is on a multitrack schedule because it does not have the capacity to serve all the children at once.

“What we elected to do is disturb the fewest number of students for the shortest period of time,” Cisneros said. “I do have to applaud all of the staff members who have really put their shoulder to the wheel. It’s not easy picking up an entire school program and moving it, even if it’s only three blocks.”

Teachers said the children will be treated well, despite the difficulties.

“As professionals, we’ll all come in and we’ll create a good environment and welcome the children,” Suitts said. “But some things just won’t get done properly because of shortages of equipment and materials.”

“I think the district should pay for a manicure for all of us,” said Ginny Pence, a Mason Elementary office clerk who spent Monday and Tuesday unpacking books and furniture.

Eleven-year-old Shelley Solis, who starts sixth grade in the bungalows today, said Tuesday that she was looking forward to the move. “I think it’s going to be cool, going to high school,” she said.

The school district began noticing potential structural problems well before the Big Bear and Yucca Valley earthquakes, but the quakes sped up the decision to take action, Payzant said last week.

The other affected schools are Ericson, Sandburg and Walker, all in Mira Mesa; Dailard and Green, both in San Carlos; Chesterton in Linda Vista; Penn in Paradise Hills; Spreckels in University City and Tierrasanta Elementary. Ericson, Penn, Tierrasanta and Walker are single-track, year-round schools that are scheduled to open July 27. The other schools are on regular, non-year-round schedules.