Fire Memories Are Tough for Young Too : Education: It is described as a grieving process. Some mourn lost pets; others find it hard to keep up at school.

One girl in middle school, unable to stop thinking about her cats missing since the fire, can’t seem to concentrate in class.

A boy whose home burned to ashes became exhausted and had to drop out of a school choir production.

And a high school senior burst into tears while filling out a college application, frustrated that her studies have suffered since wildfire swept through her life.

On the surface, at least, students have returned to normal at the city’s four schools, outwardly putting the devastating Oct. 27 Laguna Beach fire, and the mudslides that followed, behind them.

But underneath, school officials, teachers and counselors are seeing that many students who lost homes, possessions and pets are still hurting, struggling to keep up their schoolwork while coping with a profound and disturbing sorrow.

“I’m all torn in different directions,” said Lindsay Pavlik, a sixth-grader at Thurston Middle School, whose family home in Emerald Bay was destroyed.

About 100 students of the 2,400 enrollment in the Laguna Beach Unified School District lost their homes in the fire, but all pupils have suffered in some way. At the very least, every student was hurriedly evacuated on the day of the fire that incinerated 366 homes.

“It’s a grieving process,” Laguna Beach High School counselor Art Wahl said. “The kids, parents, everybody has to go through at their own speed.”

Teams of psychologists and counselors from the school district and the Orange County Health Care Agency assemble daily at each campus to help students and their families.

Lately, only partly because of the holiday season, more children are seeking help, including those who may not have lost their homes but were traumatized during the evacuations or by other fire-related events.

Many students are experiencing normal reactions to a traumatic event, including nightmares, insomnia, anxiety and fear, according to psychologists. Others who had excelled in school are struggling to keep up with their homework.

“Some are going ahead pretty normally and others are showing their neediness in a variety of ways,” said Cheryl Baughn, principal at Thurston Middle School. “Fortunately we are expecting that and we are set up to provide support for the students.”

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Sixth-graders Bridget Whalley, Lara Lebherz and Pavlik are among a group of fire survivors who meet with psychologist Kay Ostensen each week at Thurston Middle School.

The girls said they find their moods swinging from happiness at the extra support from their teachers and community to anger at the thought of the arsonist who destroyed their homes.

“I was on an emotional roller coaster before the fire,” said Lebherz, whose family lost its home of only 2 1/2 months in Emerald Bay. “Now it’s worse.”

The fire is still a big topic on campus, the students said. But instead of being asked if their houses burned, they are are asked by classmates, “Are you OK?” Lebherz said.

Keeping up with schoolwork has been especially difficult as the girls and their families settle into new homes and take on the monumental task of rebuilding their lives.

“I did really good on my report card, but not as good as before,” said Whalley, who lived in Canyon Acres.

A small gift, the replacement of a treasured stuffed rabbit lost in the fire, made Pavlik feel much better. It had been hard to sleep without her old Thumper, which she got when she was born.

“When I looked into Thumper’s face, it looked the same,” said Pavlik. “Actually, I thought I was in my old house when I woke up.”

Students at all grade levels are expressing their feelings through writing and art projects assigned by their teachers.

In one writing project, students at El Morro Elementary School sent thank-you notes to firefighters and others who helped save their school and direct the evacuation.

“I will remember this fire to tell my children,” wrote third-grader Erin Bevacqua. “I was so scared that my house in El Morro was going to burn.”

Classmate Jay Knauer wrote: “I’m so glad that my school is still here. Why would someone set a fire on purpose? Why would someone want to burn a city down?”

One El Morro fifth-grader wrote an essay on the terrifying day of the fire as she and her family packed what they could and escaped, knowing their house would be gone when they returned.

“The next couple of nights I stayed up thinking things like, ‘Oh I forgot this,’ or ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’ ” she wrote, drawing little blue hearts at the end of some sentences. “I feel a little bit better now, realizing that I will have a brand new house with a bigger room, and things like that.”

School officials said it will take months for the children to recover, a point that was emphasized in a recent training session with psychologists from the Oakland Unified School District.

In the case of the massive October, 1991, firestorm in the Oakland and Berkeley hills, officials didn’t see a peak in counseling needs until months later in February, said Chris Arrington, an Oakland school psychologist.

Laguna Beach officials, working with the mental health division of the Health Care Agency, are applying for more federal emergency grant funds to continue the special counseling services for another nine months.

“Our focus here is going to be that all children will do better with some support, as well as all adults,” said Nancy Hubbell, director of special services for the school district. “But the other piece is this is an opportunity to develop resilience in all kids and in all of us.”