S. Florida Students Find Start of School a Relief

Schools finally opened here Monday, giving thousands of students a reprieve from their shelters and damaged homes--and a new chance to voice their feelings about Hurricane Andrew.

Among those who had a tough day emotionally was Julissa Hernandez, 8.

Like many students at Campbell Drive Elementary School, which is next to the main tent city encampment here, Julissa was smiling and seemed outwardly happy. But when she was asked to put her experiences into words, she recounted how she had watched her Homestead home reduced to rubble in the storm.

When Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles dropped in on her class unannounced and began reading her essay aloud, the third-grader put her head down and quietly began to sob.

Teachers and counselors were told to be on the lookout for traumatized youngsters, and they reported finding many. “It is hard to get smiles out of them, especially the young ones,” said school district psychologist Isabel Vasallo as she led several children out of their tent city homes and onto school buses.

Although troops and school officials were on hand to escort students into classrooms, attendance was only about half the level that had been expected before the Aug. 24 hurricane. Uncounted numbers of students have moved away or did not receive mailed or broadcast notices that school had finally begun, two weeks late.

Nevertheless, Dade County Public School officials declared opening day an unqualified success, given the problems in transporting at least 6,000 displaced students through traffic-clogged streets to various schools, and then finding classrooms.

“All things considered, it went exceptionally well,” school district spokesman Henry Fraind said Monday night after the last of the students had left for the day. Only 10 schools in the devastated southern part of Dade County had to be closed because of the storm damage; another 25 were patched up at the last minute, thanks to a round-the-clock effort by school employees and more than 1,500 Navy Seabees and other military personnel.

Some roofs remained unpatched and some hallways stank of mildew, even though the rugs and ceilings had been pulled out. But school officials said all open schools were safe.

For students and teachers alike, it was a day to escape the dreary confines of their houses and makeshift rooms at four nearby tent cities. Among them was Rosalind Vicenty, 5, who by midafternoon was playing on the jungle gym at the Campbell school. “I don’t have books,” said the smiling kindergartner, “but I like it here. It’s way better.”

Kindergarten teacher Henrietta Guerra also noticed her students become more animated as the day wore on. “For them, it is heaven here,” she said as five youngsters from the tent city played with toys. “They are in a better place than wherever they have been for the past three weeks. For them, this is home.”