First-Year Students' First Day : School: Kindergartners at Wilson Elementary in Costa Mesa, the first to reopen for fall, all aren't happy to be there. But 'they will do just fine,' assures veteran teacher.

By LYNDA NATALI

Aug. 26, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

COSTA MESA —

At precisely 8 a.m., teacher Eddy Dattler, a 19-year veteran of the kindergarten circuit, flips on the lights of her classroom and walks to the gate at Wilson Elementary School where dozens of parents and children wait on the other side.

The gatekeeper unlocks it and 5-year-old Marcela Hernandez steps up. Gingerly, she takes her yellow name tag shaped like a school bus and walks inside, heading straight for the classroom door. One down. Thirty-one more to go.

Following behind Marcela is Kenia Hernandez, who grabs her name tag and slowly takes a few steps.

Suddenly she stops and turns.

“Mommy! No!

“MOOOMMMMMYYYYY!”

Tears streaks her face. “Don’t leave me here! I want to go home!”

Kenia is the first to break the silence this Wednesday morning, but not the last. She is followed by Ivan, Raul and Roberto, in a scene that will be repeated throughout Orange County during the next few weeks as members of the high school class of 2006 say goodby to their parents and begin a daunting 13-year journey.

“They are so traumatized,” Dattler says as her teaching aides quickly hand out tissues to the rattled children and parents. “If we have a crier who really can’t do it, we ask the mother to stay a few hours.”

Aside from a handful of schools on a year-round schedule, students at Wilson were the first in the county to head back to the classroom for the 1993-94 academic year.

Summer vacation was cut short here to allow extended vacation days during the year, under a new program designed to accommodate Latino students who go to Mexico during Christmas break and other holidays. Wilson is the only school in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to adopt the new schedule.

“The district decided we will try one (school) and see how it goes,” said Principal Sandra Bundy, adding that the new schedule will also cut down on “learning loss” during the long summer months. “It winds up being pretty popular with a lot of the parents.” Most of the rest of the county’s 400,000 students who attend public schools will have until after Labor Day before they must pull out the new sneakers, backpacks and pens.

For some Orange County students, though, there no longer is a traditional first day of school that comes following a long summer break. Due to increasing enrollments, seven school districts have switched to year-round schedules at some of their campuses. In the Anaheim City School District, where 13 of 21 schools are on the year-round calendar, students get three months in the classroom followed by a month off.

But even in those schools, students try to maintain the back-to-school tradition, officials said.

“It isn’t like the anticipation of all summer . . . but there is a new teacher and a new class,” said Principal Joyce Holmes of Edison Elementary in Anaheim, as she recalled school on July 5. “They do come all dressed up in new clothes. Most treat it like the first day of school.”

But at Wilson Elementary School on Wednesday, there was no doubt it was the opening day of the school year.

Just before 8 a.m., parents hanging onto the hands of anxious children streamed in from the neighborhoods surrounding the campus.

The office, the heart of any school, quickly fills with people searching for registration information. With more than 70% of its student body having limited English skills, many are being tested for their language ability.

Before the day is over, about 485 children will get their name tags, find their desks and put their lunch pails in cubbyholes; it is the start of the new school year.

In Dattler’s kindergarten classroom, things start to calm down by the time the bell sounds at 8:23 a.m. Only four mothers are left comforting their children, while the kindergartners line up--girls on one side, boys on the other--for their first official tour of the cafeteria, principal’s office and playground.

As the class goes outside and is instructed on the proper way to use the swing, the howls of Roberto Cervantes are still heard on the sidewalk. Clinging to his mother’s legs, he refuses to let go as she drags him and his new koala bear knapsack to the gate.

Undaunted, Dattler continues with her playground safety instructions before taking the class inside.

“They are going to be great,” she says confidently. “They will do just fine.”

School Start-Ups

Wilson Elementary School in Costa Mesa became the first campus in Orange County to reopen after summer vacation. Start dates for all the public school districts:

Sept. 2

* Brea-Olinda Unified (K-12)

Sept. 7

* Anaheim City (K-6)*

* Fullerton (K-8)

* Magnolia (K-6)*

* Westminster (K-8)

* Fullerton Joint Union (9-12)

* North Orange County Regional Occupation Program

Sept. 8

* Buena Park (K-8)

* Cypress (K-6)*