Fire Is Topic A as Laguna’s Schools Reopen

For the first time since fire ravaged the city, students returned to classes Monday, but they spent most of their time trading horror stories with their friends and struggling to find the right words to console those who had lost homes and possessions.

“It was the longest four days in my life,” said Allison Holmquist, 17, a senior at Laguna Beach High School, one of the four Laguna Beach schools whose 2,400 students were evacuated last Wednesday as flames roared through the area.

“It is so hard to jump back into things,” Allison said, noting how difficult it was to resume classwork begun before the fire had consumed her attention.

Most students seemed ready to try, though.

Laguna Beach Unified School District Supt. Paul Possemato said Monday’s attendance was excellent, with even most of the students who had been burned out of their homes reporting for class.

At all the schools, teachers encouraged students to express their feelings in discussions and through writing and painting. County mental health counselors and school psychologists were available to listen.

At Thurston Middle School, the only school that suffered significant damage in the blazes, students attended a shortened session that ended at 11 a.m., and all academics were postponed so that they could talk about their experiences and tour the campus.

Students looked with dismay over a security wall at a pile of jumbled metal. It was an air conditioning and heating unit--all that remained of the building where they once were taught English and social studies.

Tears glistened in the eyes of some as they stared at the charred ravine that had been a picturesque canyon, filled with deer and other wildlife, through which the fire raged to the school’s doorstep.

“I’m so glad the whole school didn’t burn down,” said Lara Lebherz, 11, a Thurston sixth-grader whose Emerald Bay home had burned to the ground.

Lara spent much of the morning wistfully telling friends how she wished she could have salvaged a watch that once had belonged to her great-grandfather and an emerald cross her father had given her. But her sadness vanished when she recounted the generosity of friends who were helping in her family.

Sixth-grader Rory Newell, 11, said he wanted to tell his friends that he will be moving temporarily to Utah while his family rebuilds its home in the Canyon Acres neighborhood of Laguna Beach.

The fire had demolished Thurston computers containing the only records of grades for some classes. Lara said her social studies teacher told her class that “we would all have to start from an A-plus. We were all happy to hear that.”

In addition, many Thurston teachers lost lesson plans and other teaching materials to the flames.

“I lost a 23-year collection of old history books and a great copy of a picture of Abraham Lincoln and a copy of Lincoln’s letter to a woman who lost five sons in the Civil War,” said Tom Purdy, a social studies teacher, lamenting that such things are irreplaceable.

But Purdy added that friends of his who are teachers have called to offer some materials to replace the lesson plans, tests, posters and maps he needs.

“It Takes a Storm to Make a Rainbow” was one of the positive-thinking slogans on a banner in the Thurston auditorium, where students gathered in shifts to listen to a talk by their principal, Cheryl Baughn. She told them they would attend either morning or afternoon sessions until portable classrooms are brought in to replace the 14 that burned.

Terry A. Bustillos, the district’s chief financial officer, said one portable classroom was to be brought to the Thurston campus Monday evening and that three more would be added each day until the destroyed classrooms are all replaced.

Bustillos said that later this week, school officials will meet with the district insurance adjuster, an architect and a representative of the Office of the State Architect to start construction plans for a new building, which he said will take about a year to complete.

Several Thurston students said they will never again speak even jokingly of wanting their school to burn down.

“We are finding now that we are sad,” said seventh-grader Ari Sokoloff, 13.

Students at all campuses said they want to help and to thank others. At Laguna Beach High, students signed up to join in efforts to clean up debris and collect food, clothing and school supplies for the homeless.

At Top of the World Elementary School on Monday, pupils began writing thank-you letters to people who helped them survive the fire, including police officers, Red Cross workers, firefighters and bus drivers who helped in the evacuation.

Stuffed animals donated by the Episcopal Service Alliance were handed out to young victims at the school, and these were accompanied by cards filled with messages from their classmates.

“They were a big hit with the kids. It is surprising how little things are helpful--something tangible they can hold onto,” said Judy Neeve, a Top of the World kindergarten teacher.

School psychologist Vicki Landis said she talked to children whom Top of the World teachers had identified as withdrawn or sad. For many of the children, she said, fear of fire was very much with them. The children worry, she said, that another Santa Ana wind and another arsonist could cause new tragedy.

Landis said all the children she has counseled are “having nightmares about the fire coming into their homes.” Often they want to sleep with their parents or be close to their pets for fear of being parted from them once again in an evacuation, she said.

“They want to be close to everything they love,” she said.