Back on Course : Students, Teachers Return to Face New Experiences, Old Friends

As she stood at the crowded entrance to Valley View Junior High School in Simi Valley on Tuesday morning, the smile suddenly disappeared from Phyllis Gill’s face.

“OK people, the bell has rung. Let’s GO!” the campus supervisor roared.

So much for the lazy days of summer. By today, the bulk of Ventura County students will have returned to the classroom for another year of learning and discipline.

For Benjamin Seifert, the halls at Valley View were a new world compared to elementary school. The seventh-grader stopped at the school’s entrance to check a list for his homeroom number and then wandered off.

“I’m just checking it out,” Seifert said of his new school.

Older students hugged in the hallway as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, while younger ones shyly hung back and teachers prepared to work all of them into shape.

“For me, it’s like you get a new lease on life every year,” said Peggie Noisette, who teaches foreign languages at Valley View. “It’s uncharted waters.”

For the most part, the ninth-graders in Noisette’s homeroom have known each other for a couple of years, Noisette said. When class schedules were handed out, the students huddled in cliques to see if their routines matched.

“Do we have anything the same?” Jenny Hulse, 13, asked her friend, Amy Sales, 14. “Yes, history.

“Oh, no,” Jenny cried, slapping her knee.

“Different teachers,” Amy moaned.

At Knolls Elementary School, 8-year-old Mariel Jenkins was quick to curry favor with her new teacher, Mary Clark, by sharing the warnings of her playground peers.

“They said they were sorry I got Mrs. Clark, because she’s mean, but I think you’re nice,” Mariel said.

“Don’t tell anyone. We’ll let this be our secret in here,” an amused Clark responded. “If they think I’m mean, let them think I’m mean.”

Elementary pupils start the year by learning the basic rules of respect and teamwork, which they will build upon throughout the year, Principal Diane Opp said.

For example, tots in a combined kindergarten and first-grade class also were taught to ride their bikes in the same direction and to pull each other in wagons. They also learned not to throw sand at each other.

All the while, the first-graders showed their younger counterparts the ropes.

“The first-graders are wonderful models, and their self-esteem goes right through the ceiling because of it,” teacher Jean Bierfreund said.

For students at the other end of the education scale, the first day of school is a time to anticipate the last. Tom Kochendarfer, 17, said he was anxious to see how he would fare with classes and friends in his final year at Royal High School.

“But it’s exciting too, because you’re on the top now; there’s only one more year to go and you have your whole life ahead of you,” he said.

Students returning to high school are concerned about whether they can graduate, get a date to the prom and make friends, said new Principal Michael McConahey.

“They’re probably more concerned right now about their personal life than their academic life,” McConahey said.

McConahey said he is concentrating on getting to know the school’s 1,950 students, learning how the campus operates and fixing his sights on improving the system.

As he observed students milling around a courtyard during lunch, McConahey said he plans to focus as much on the good that happens this year as the bad.

“I’m more concerned about finding what we can do than what we can’t do,” McConahey said. “To me, the sky’s the limit.”

Elsewhere in Ventura County, classes open today in Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Santa Paula.

In Ojai, where classes started Tuesday, teacher Isabelle Turpin wanted to make the transition from vacation to school as painless as possible for her sixth-grade class at Meiners Oaks School.

“I take it easy on the first day,” she said, “so the kids can get back in the swing of things. It’s not always going to be like this.”