Most Schools Reopen; Many Pupils Anxious

By STEPHANIE CHAVEZ and DIANE SEO

Jan. 26, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, school bells beckoned 581,000 of the region’s jittery youth back to class Tuesday--some arriving in tears, others trudging off buses after two-hour commutes--as officials scrambled to reopen 13 more quake-damaged schools.

All 640 district campuses were closed last week to assess damage after the quake. In the hard-hit San Fernando Valley, where 76 schools remained closed Tuesday, attendance was unusually low, prompting some principals to roam through tent cities and shelters pleading with parents to send their children back to familiar classroom surroundings.

Although final attendance figures were not available, administrators estimated that overall attendance was about 80%--about 10% below average. But for the most part, school started on time, most buses ran on schedule, few teachers missed work and teachers and students alike were generally relieved to be back among classmates and colleagues.

Confusion did arise at many of the 76 closed schools Tuesday as scores of parents showed up with children in tow, only to be turned away at the gate. Some criticized the district for making announcements about closures late in the day Monday.

Compounding the mix-ups, about 75 children were bused from their homes in South-Central Los Angeles to closed Valley schools because neither parents nor bus drivers found out in time about the rapidly changing school closure plans.

But overall, district officials were pleased with the quake comeback, a day that Supt. Sid Thompson described as “a very profitable day for our students.”

Throughout the district, elementary school children ran into their teachers’ arms, eager for a hug after the district’s unprecedented emergency closure. Other youngsters clung to their mothers’ arms, afraid to be left alone. Some teen-agers were so somber in class that they simply shook their heads when the teacher asked them to share their feelings about the quake.

Teachers cast aside academics and dealt with the conflicting emotions inside their classrooms. These were the lessons of the day: It’s OK to be afraid. School buildings are safe. What is a tectonic plate? Do you know what price-gouging means?

Teams of school counselors were on hand to offer reassurance to returning students.

“Some of them are nervous and a little tense,” said psychologist Marcy Feldman at Shenandoah Street Elementary School in the Beverlywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. “But for the most part they’ve gotten back into their routine. . . . We’re trying to reassure them that they have the skills to get through an earthquake.”

In other developments:

* Thompson announced that 13 more schools will open this morning, along with two day-care and preschool centers. He predicted that all but five of the most damaged campuses will open by the end of the week. While some students will be temporarily transferred to other campuses, Thompson said every effort will be made to keep students at their regular schools.

Additional school openings will be announced today. Thompson also asked for volunteer therapists to help counsel troubled students and parents.

* School board President Leticia Quezada was informed that President Clinton’s emergency aid plan before Congress would direct about $700 million to Los Angeles Unified schools, which suffered earthquake damage from the Crenshaw district to the Valley. She said the pledge “is an incredible reassurance and gives us tremendous hope” that the district will be able to rebuild.

The U.S. Department of Education is seeking congressional approval for another $165 million for Los Angeles Unified and other hard-hit school districts to pay for emergency operating expenses and counseling.

* The first of 200 portable classrooms arrived at two Valley campuses, part of the state’s promise to cut through red tape that tends to stifle quick action. Twenty of the bungalows are headed for Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, one of the most severely damaged schools.

* Gov. Pete Wilson announced that California National Guard troops, finished with the urgent task of building tent cities, have been dispatched to damaged Valley schools to help with cleanup. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) said that, at the school district’s request, he is also prepared to seek military assistance in school cleanup and reconstruction.

Getting There

After spending last week cooped up with his mother in their home just west of Downtown Los Angeles, Alex Lainez, 17, was more than ready to return to Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga. So bored and so ready, in fact, that he arrived at the bus stop at Beverly Boulevard and Loma Drive at 6:30 a.m, half an hour early.

Lainez is one of 80,000 students who travel in the largest school bus fleet in the nation. On a typical day many students commute more than an hour to school. Officials said Tuesday that the city’s damaged highway system doubled the commuting time for some students. Still, 93% of the buses arrived on time.

Lainez’s bus picked him up at 6:55 a.m., just as the sky began to lighten. Like most of the other buses headed for Verdugo, it had an abnormally light passenger load--only 15 students. In all, said Verdugo Hills Principal Gary Turner, only about half of the bused students showed up.

As it pulled onto the Glendale Freeway, the bus joined the usual caravan of school buses heading out of the inner city. Most were only half full--stark evidence of the quake’s impact on families and their fears.

Although traffic was not a problem for buses heading from Downtown to the Valley, those traveling many Westside routes endured long waits on choked streets and crippled freeways, making students late for class.

Driver Mary Pickett picked up her first passenger on 42nd Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles at 6:20 a.m. and headed west on Jefferson Boulevard for Hamilton High School in West Los Angeles. The 3 1/2 miles from Crenshaw Boulevard to National Boulevard took 90 minutes.

Bus driver Charlotte Spikes usually picks up 18 Valley students who travel to Hamilton High. On Tuesday morning, only five boarded. “I think a lot of parents are still afraid to let their kids out of their sight,” she said.

Said Turner: “I got a lot of calls from parents saying ‘I don’t want to send my kids to the Valley.’ ”

Saying Goodby

For many parents and children, the hardest part of the day was the morning goodby, the time when mom or dad had to finally let go of that little hand clasped tightly around her fingers.

“My heart’s going a hundred miles an hour,” said Debbie Neeley of Van Nuys after dropping off her 11-year-old son in front of the school. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

At 6th Avenue Elementary School in the Crenshaw district, 9-year-old Isabel Galvan softly cried into her mother’s sleeve, “I’m afraid, I’m afraid. What if the building falls?”

“No, no, my love,” Rosa Galvan said in Spanish, stroking her daughter’s braided hair. “It’s safe in school. Don’t you see all your friends there. Don’t you want to see your teacher?”

It took three kisses, the final bell and a last-minute bear hug with her 2-year-old brother before Isabel ran into line, disappearing into a crowd of children.

For Carrie Laurin, delivering her 7-year-old daughter, Kristina, to school was a way to reassure the girl that life had returned to its regular routine, even if the family continues to sleep together in their sunken living room and aftershocks test their nerves.

“I’m the one who wanted to cry,” Laurin said after the drop-off at Noble Avenue Elementary School in North Hills. “The only thing is that you can’t let them know that you’re as scared as they are.”

Some students, however, were eager to say goodby to their families for the day. School relieved them of frightening baby-sitting duties last week when parents were summoned back to work--but aftershocks continued.

“I had to be in charge of my two brothers and cousin all week. I was so scared. We just sat on the sofa and hoped we wouldn’t have to dive under the table,” said Anna Rosa Blake, 15, of John Adams Middle School, just south of Downtown. “At school, now my teacher can take care of me. She knows what to do.”

In the Classroom

From the South Bay north to Sylmar, teachers incorporated the quake into lessons at all grade levels. Vocabulary drills introduced such words as seismograph and thrust fault. Children talked about their fears and wrote in journals, read about the San Francisco quake of 1906, constructed earthquake preparedness kits and practiced “drop and hold” drills in case of aftershocks.

School psychologists held group sessions in classrooms and counseled the most rattled students individually. For the most part, older children’s concerns involved the impact of a quake on the family as a whole, said Shenandoah psychologist Feldman, while younger children most feared separation from their loved ones.

Students were subdued, classes small. Said Nerinita Munro, who teaches English as a second language at Verdugo Hills High: “It’s very somber. Usually the kids are much more talkative. Some of the kids can’t even talk about it.”

A sixth-grade class in Point Fermin Elementary School in San Pedro prepared care packages, and kindergartners painted outdoors--including one girl who daubed a desert scene complete with fault lines running through it.

“The kids have got to be able to express themselves,” said Principal William Fukuhara. “To just go to a lesson would be totally out of context.”

Teachers at Noble Avenue went over the scientific whys and wherefores of earthquakes to dispel possible misimpressions or superstitions of children who might believe that the temblors were caused by their bad behavior or were punishment for same.

“I want to move to Florida,” declared one fifth-grade boy whose special education class grouped in a circle to compare notes and express concerns. “My mom said we might.”

At Langdon Avenue School in North Hills, students gathered in “magic circles” and talked out their feelings. There was no difficulty in making them small groups because only about 200 out of the 1,000 students had shown up for school by 9 a.m. With the full roster of 37 teachers present, the student-teacher ratio was less than 6 to 1.

“You should’ve seen the yard this morning,” Assistant Principal Jacqueline Howard told one of her teachers. “It was like a bomb (had hit)--no kids. One here, two there.”

Second-grader Dominique Harris and her classmates used Play-Doh to re-enact scenes of terror from the earthquake that they had seen in their neighborhoods or on television.

Said Jose Victor Carrillo, 12: “I drew the freeway falling down.”

At Taft High School in Woodland Hills, snippets of survival stories peppered conversations that echoed through the corridors: “The building was, like shaking. . . . There was all this glass. . . . My friend Toby, her dog ran away. . . . Do you have any eyeliner?”

At nearby Robert A. Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks, teacher Robert Hayes said the quake prompted a lesson in his first-period science class, a demonstration of aftershocks using a metal Slinky to knock down a miniature cardboard house.

“Let’s face it,” Hayes said. “Nature does some strange things.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Carol Chastang, Henry Chu, Ted Johnson, Maria La Ganga and Beth Shuster and special correspondents Rebecca Bryant and Susan Byrnes.

Back in Business

Classes will resume today at an additional 13 campuses and two children’s centers in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles Unified School District officials announced. Quake-related repairs will continue at another 63 campuses that will remain closed until further notice. Parents should call their child’s school for more information about closures.

* Burton Street Elem., Panorama City

* Calabash Street Elem., Woodland Hills

* Canoga Park High School, Canoga Park

* Cohasset Street Elem., Van Nuys

* Darby Avenue Elem., Northridge

* Ft. McArthur Children’s Center, San Pedro

* Fullbright Avenue Elem., Canoga Park

* Granada Elem., Granada Hills

* Hart Street Elem., Canoga Park

* Lassen Elem., Sepulveda

* Parkman Middle School, Woodland Hills

* Parthenia Street Elem., Sepulveda