Earthquake: The Long Road Back : Cash-Strapped Schools Count on State and Federal Emergency Aid : Education: Superintendent orders campuses to remain closed today. At least 170 facilities serving tens of thousands of students have been seriously damaged.

Struck with severe earthquake damage that may run into hundreds of millions of dollars, the cash-strapped and uninsured Los Angeles Unified School District will have to rely almost entirely on state and federal emergency money for a massive rebuilding effort.

As Supt. Sid Thompson ordered all schools to remain closed again today, authorities said at least 170 campuses serving tens of thousands of students have been seriously damaged and need further inspections.

“The impact of the quake on the school district has been catastrophic,” Thompson said. “We have an incredibly ugly problem in terms of educating and housing the kids and paying for this. We are going to need help.”

Although the most severe damage is largely contained in a swath of the San Fernando Valley stretching from the San Diego Freeway west to the city limits, district officials emphasized that the hardships will ripple through the entire 640,000-student district.

About 18,000 students from overcrowded campuses--in South-Central, the Eastside and the southeast cities, including South Gate and Bell--are bused to other schools, many of which are in the Valley.

“Just as we are concerned about freeways and how much and how long its going to take to reconstruct them, we are equally concerned--and the city ought to be equally concerned--as to how we are going to reconstruct the schools,” said school board President Leticia Quezada.

She said it is “very possible” that all schools will remain closed for the rest of the week because nearly half of Los Angeles students attend school in the Valley. The final decision on closures will be announced this afternoon.

Thompson indicated that some school buildings, including several at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, may have to be torn down.

Employees are requested to report to work if conditions are safe, and are encouraged to call their employee union representatives if questions arise.

While no decisions have been made, school officials are discussing actions such as a longer school year and double sessions, in which one campus stays open twice as long daily to accommodate more students.

“If I have a message for parents, students and teachers, it’s that we find ourselves in a situation where we have to be very flexible,” said United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein. “We are not the first district to face some kind of emergency. We need to rise to the occasion together.”

She said teachers will be instrumental in developing the district’s response to the crisis. The 640-campus district, with its thousands of buildings, is not insured for earthquake damage. Even if a company would underwrite the system, the cost would be astronomical, said David Koch, head of the district’s business services division.

The district has a $30-million emergency reserve, which will cover only a fraction of the repairs if Thompson’s huge estimate holds true. The district has suffered more that $1.2 billion in budget cuts over the past four years.

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School officials will plead for emergency funds in Sacramento today. It will be up to the state Legislature and U.S. authorities to allocate emergency funds.

“We need money and lots of money now,” Quezada said. “We have nothing, period. Zero. Unless school funding becomes a top priority we have no hope of repairing schools.”

Throughout the city Tuesday, teachers, principals and even a few students concentrated on the work at hand: cleanup. For most schools outside the Valley, brooms and trash cans were the only tools needed for the job. But others will need jackhammers.

“It’s been hard to see all this,” said Reseda High School student Iman Dakhil. “I think it’s going to be real hard to focus on education. I can’t even think about studying and finals were supposed to be tomorrow.”

Although reports of structural damage at University High School on the Westside turned out to be only surface cracks, the destruction at Reseda High was anything but minor. The auditorium ceiling plaster laid like a white blanket on top of the chairs and splinters of light shone through the roof.

“It’s beyond words, it’s breathtaking,” said Principal Bob Kladisko, who swept corridors. “Could you imagine what would have happened if we had been in school? Could anyone have gotten out in time?”

Scattered reports of damage also came from dozens of schools outside the Valley, especially in the neighborhoods near the Santa Monica Freeway. And even if schools escaped damage, water and electrical troubles affecting the rest of the city could keep campuses closed.

At hard-hit Kennedy High School, where authorities held a news conference, 10th-grader Kelli Moorman couldn’t resist the urge to go to her school, even on a day off.

“It’s really strange to look at it,” she said of the collapsed walls and broken windows. “I’m wondering if we are ever going to go back to this school.”