EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Children in Fillmore and Piru Head Back to School : Education: Officials say at least 17 campuses in Simi Valley are expected to reopen Monday.

Leaving behind their earthquake-torn homes, children in Fillmore and Piru on Thursday returned to school for the first time since the devastating shaker ripped through the area.

Meanwhile, school officials in Simi Valley--the only other Ventura County city to cancel classes because of the disaster--said at least 17 of 27 schools are expected to reopen Monday and the rest could reopen Tuesday.

Fillmore school officials said about 1,325 students--less than 40% of those enrolled at the district’s six schools--came back for classes. Most of the others, officials said, were still with their families, coping with the damage from the quake.

David S. Haney, superintendent of the Fillmore Unified School District, said although officials expected low attendance Thursday, they wanted to reopen the schools to give residents a chance to resume their lives.

“Our job is to educate kids,” Haney said. “The sooner we can get things back to normal, the sooner everyone’s lives will move right ahead. It doesn’t do the students any good to be out of school.”

He said he anticipates that attendance levels in the district, which suffered minor damage in the quake, will be back to normal by next week.

On Thursday, teachers in Fillmore gave the students the morning to share their experiences with their classmates before getting back to their studies.

While some of the children said they were worried that something would happen to their parents while they were at school, others said they were glad to return to class to see their friends.

“It’s boring at my house,” said Tony Arceo, a sixth-grader at Sespe School. “You just wait there for another aftershock. I was glad to come back.”

But Rebekah Montejano, a fifth-grader, said she would have preferred to stay at her north Fillmore home.

“I’m so scared something is going to happen to my family,” she said. “I didn’t want to come to school.”

Donna Wojciechowski, who teaches fourth and fifth grades at the school, said teachers tried to ease the youngsters’ fears.

“One mom came in and said, ‘Can you please keep an eye on my daughter? She’s really, really nervous,’ ” Wojciechowski said. “I’ve kept her close to me.”

Overall, most of the students who returned to class Thursday were handling events of the past few days pretty well, said Marsha J. Porter, the principal of Sespe School.

“The kids have been in very good shape,” Porter said. “We expected we might have kids crying and upset, but we’ve had little of that.”

At Fillmore High School, students spent the day exchanging stories with their friends.

“I can’t sleep,” 11th-grader Kim Ritchey told her history class. “It seems like I can still hear the ground rumbling. I’m just afraid it’s going to happen again.”

But Jose Macedo, another 11th-grade student, was unfazed by the quake.

“I almost slept through it,” he said.

At Fillmore’s San Cayetano School, where volunteers had set up the largest Red Cross shelter in the county, school officials ordered 200 pizzas for lunch for the 270 youngsters who returned to class. The cafeteria had been closed because the natural gas was shut off.

“By the end of the day, the children seemed to be going home in a relaxed manner,” Principal Karen Cooksey said. “All and all, we were just happy that the kids who were here, were here.

“When the rest of the kids are ready, and their parents are ready, they will be back.”