A New Lesson Plan : Private Schools Scramble to Find Alternative Classrooms and Wonder How They’ll Be Able to Afford Repair Work

Alemany High School, a Roman Catholic institution in Mission Hills, is moving--and not just bouncing with aftershocks.

With its Rinaldi Street campus shattered by this week’s earthquake, the school is shifting operations to a nearby Roman Catholic seminary that will accommodate the 1,610 students on double shifts starting Feb. 1.

Alemany administrators were scrambling Friday to rent portable classrooms and haul salvageable equipment to the Queen of Angels Junior Seminary a block away. Looming beyond those chores are more daunting questions of how to rebuild the Alemany campus, where nine of the 12 buildings are unusable.

“It’s so heartbreaking. It looks like a war zone,” said Theresa Litzie, secretary to Alemany’s principal. Exterior walls of its English classroom building are split precariously from the roof, by a foot in some places.

Alemany’s woe is one of the most dramatic examples of the temblors’ effect on private and religious schools in Southern California. Most such schools appeared to have escaped major damage and expect to have students back Monday, or no later than Jan. 31. Still, even moderate losses may mean an uneasy future if the schools have no earthquake insurance and no major endowments, experts said.

“If they’ve done their homework, they’ve set aside reserves for that kind of contingency. If not, they’re in real trouble. They may have to borrow money or have to raise money,” said the Rev. Charles Rowins, past president of the California Assn. of Private School Organizations. He is headmaster of St. James Episcopal School in the Mid-Wilshire area, where damage was light.

The coeducational Alemany High School has earthquake insurance through the sprawling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which can soften the blows through its charitable activities in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Of the archdiocese’s 53 high schools and 232 elementary schools, only Alemany and four elementary schools--St. Euphrasia in Granada Hills, Mary Immaculate in Pacoima, Nativity in South-Central Los Angeles and St. Anne’s in Santa Monica--were damaged so badly that officials are unsure when they will reopen. Most others will be open Monday or after safety inspections later in the week.

Jerome Porath, the Roman Catholic archdiocese’s superintendent of schools, said students would be sent from damaged schools to other campuses only as a last resort. “Our preference is to keep the student body and the program intact at each school, on the property if we can,” he said. Temporary arrangements were being studied Friday.

Private schools, non-sectarian and religious, are eligible for federal emergency assistance, according to a government spokesman. But school administrators said they are not counting on such aid to cover much of their repair expenses. So, voluntary fund raising and cleanups have begun.

At Los Angeles Baptist High School in North Hills, a letter will soon be mailed to alumni and other supporters requesting donations to offset the estimated $100,000 in earthquake damage, mainly at its gymnasium. “The fact is I’ve already gotten calls from all over the nation offering help,” Principal Gary Smidderks said.

Classes are set to resume Monday at the Baptist high school for its 780 boys and girls. However, with the gym off limits, basketball games will be moved to other schools and scheduled assemblies postponed.

The Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angeles, which serves 30 Orthodox-, Conservative- and Reform-affiliated schools, reported that all will be reopened by Jan. 31. Some were to be on winter vacation next week anyway, executive director Gil Graff said.

At Emek Hebrew Day School in North Hollywood, administrators said students’ parents will ease the estimated $50,000 in quake repairs with their own labor as well as with cash. “We really have no other choice,” said Rabbi Philip Wachsman, the principal.

Monday’s quake tumbled a rear cinder-block wall, cracked plumbing and tilted doorways at Emek Hebrew, which has about 300 pupils from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Wachsman said he hoped most repairs will be done in a week. “When you are working with small children, you want to be sure it’s safe,” he said.

That volunteer spirit was evident at many other schools as well.

Contractors by Friday had replaced thousands of fallen ceiling tiles at the Harvard-Westlake School’s Studio City campus. Volunteer faculty, parents and students cleaned up much of the remaining mess and re-shelved 20,000 library books. Part of a shattered wall at the interdenominational chapel awaits repair.

Harvard-Westlake does not have earthquake insurance but has enough reserve funds to cover the more than $250,000 in reconstruction, according to Headmaster Thomas C. Hudnut. He said the school would not apply for federal emergency aid because “we have our own resources and see no need to take government funds from anyone else.” The school, which enrolls 1,500 middle school and high school students, has a campus in Bel-Air that was undamaged.

Around the Los Angeles area, some families of students in private or religious schools have lost jobs or homes and fear that they will no longer be able to afford tuition. The schools say they will attempt to grant financial aid for those emergencies. In many cases, arrangements are still being worked out.

What’s more, campuses in the San Fernando Valley report transportation obstacles. The Village Christian Schools, a kindergarten through high school campus in Sun Valley, has students and faculty from the over the hills in the Santa Clarita Valley, now cut off from its bus service. The campus is encouraging teachers and students to ride the Metrolink trains to the Burbank station, from which the school will operate a shuttle bus.

Some parents of elementary students may ride the train with their children, but others cannot do so and will not send the youngsters alone, according to David Wilson, the school’s director of development. “We may lose some students. That’s an unfortunate possibility,” he said.