Schools Try to Calm Youths: ‘We Need Help Getting Them Back on Track’

Six-year-old Ricky Carmona wakes up screaming for his mother and crying during the cold nights he has spent outdoors since Monday’s devastating earthquake.

Fourteen-year-old Isabel Villa spent her first night indoors Thursday--in her high school gymnasium-turned-shelter--because her baby brother was too sick to sleep in the park.

And 10-year-old Enrique Munoz, who was busy fanning the flames of a campfire at a recreation center across from his school, said he was too scared to return to the campus because “the school could fall down on me.”

These students are among the thousands who will be returning to Los Angeles Unified School District campuses soon, their lives turned upside down by Monday’s magnitude 6.6 Northridge earthquake.

In anticipation of their return, school officials are scrambling to deal with the influx, seeking assistance to deal with the emotional and physical toll on their students. For some youngsters, school may be the first place since Monday’s temblor where they will receive hot food, medical care and counseling.

“Probably more important than the schools will be the souls of these students. We need to do everything we can to help them,” said Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias.

Supt. Sid Thompson said the district will need help from private and public organizations to provide for the students.

“They’re traumatized,” Thompson said. “We need help getting them back on track . . . and getting them help for what they’ve just gone through.”

District officials are working with the county health department to coordinate services for students who might need medical help, and psychological crisis teams plan to fan out across the district next week.

The 31st District Parent Teacher Assn., which covers the San Fernando Valley, is planning to aid schools with donations of supplies and other needed items.

“We’re talking about an incredible toll in terms of physical loss and psychological trauma,” said Harriet Sculley, the district PTA president. “Who knows how long these kids’ lives are going to be disrupted?”

District officials say they are preparing to deal with the medical problems students will bring to schools. They are concerned about the health of students who are living in tents and shelters.

“The school nurses are going to be on the front lines with this,” said Dr. Helen Hale, who oversees the district’s medical services. “As people continue living in those tents, we’re going to have big health problems.”

Rosie Carmona, whose son, Ricky, is having nightmares, said she will not send her children to school until she has an apartment and she feels it is safe.

“Even if school opens tomorrow, I won’t send them,” she said, brushing her daughter’s hair after her first shower since Sunday. “It might be more trauma for them. We’re frightened. We don’t want to go back inside.”

Canoga Park High School student Isabel Villa, who spent the night in a shelter instead of the park because her brother was having trouble breathing, said she is tired, her back hurts and she is worried.

“I’m scared for my family,” she said.

Other students, who have not lost their homes, say they, too, are worried.

Matt Feller, a junior at North Hollywood High, said his “life has been put on hold.” Feller was scheduled to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test today, but it was postponed.

“I’m disappointed,” Feller said. “I was psyching myself up for it. It’s hard to tell what is going to happen. I’m anxious.”

For Enrique Munoz, who is living in a makeshift tent next to his father’s truck at the Winnetka Recreation Center, the earthquake has left him fearful and homeless.

“We have no place to go,” he said. “We’ll stay here. It’s better outside.”

Even students whose homes were not lost are suffering.

“I’m afraid when I’m in school and my mom’s home and it could shake again and I won’t be with her,” Lilian Villa, 10, who attends Napa Street Elementary in Northridge, said as she sipped soup at the Canoga Park High School shelter. “I’m scared to go back.”

School officials predict the effects of the earthquake and the aftershocks will stay with many students indefinitely.

“I think we have to gear ourselves up for the long haul,” said Sandy Landar, a Canoga Park High School assistant principal in charge of counseling. “I think we have to take it day by day with these kids and be as responsive as we can.”