Earthquake: The Road To Recovery : Shaky Return to School : Education: Disoriented Kennedy High students receive maps to bungalows five weeks after quake damaged their campus. They learn to adapt.

Five weeks after the Northridge quake crippled their school, students returned to John F. Kennedy High School on Tuesday, confused and disoriented by a patchwork of 60 new bungalows and parts of old buildings, but eager to settle in to familiar routines.

Students quickly adapted to their new surroundings despite the fact that Tuesday was no ordinary first day of school.

The first students dribbled in an hour before school began, some to get maps and tour the new campus, others to greet friends they had not seen since before the quake.

School administrators and staff met hundreds of students who arrived by bus, handing out photocopied maps of the campus as a chilly wind whipped among the maze of buildings. Students clustered in small groups to decipher the maps, turning them one way, glancing up to compare them to the rows of bungalows, then looking down again.

“The school’s all messed up,” said 16-year-old Aaron Robinson. “It’s gonna be confusing.”

Many teachers were equally as lost. Sandy Wilcher’s students milled outside her locked bungalow as she made her way about the campus trying to find them. “I was wandering all over the place, trying to find out where to go,” Wilcher said.

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Last Thursday, teachers were given “care packages” from the school district containing basic materials like pens, papers, notebooks and pencils. But that was little comfort to the photography teacher with no darkroom, the science teacher with no lab, the gym teacher with no locker rooms or the blind English teacher with no Braille lesson plans.

“We’re winging it,” said earth science teacher Lori Mount.

Kennedy Assistant Principal Pete Fries said attendance was at about 76%--down to 1,705, from an estimated spring enrollment of 2,200.

While most made it to their classes with only minor delays, some ninth-graders were distressed by the drastic changes. “I was barely getting used to it,” said Jackie Ochoa, 14, of Los Angeles. “It feels scary now, like coming to a new school.”

Kennedy’s administration building, with all of the school’s offices and two floors of classrooms, was condemned following the quake. A replacement or significantly reconstructed building is not likely to be ready for two years, said Doug Brown, the district’s director of facilities.

El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, which opens today, and Kennedy were the last two schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District to open after the January temblor caused major damage to the campuses.

On opening day at Kennedy, unforeseen problems created a slew of minor annoyances.

A sign on classroom NP 02, incorrectly designating it as the interim main office, was not removed until after several bewildered parents and students clustered outside the building, looking for school personnel.

Doubled-up homerooms left some students sitting on the floor and teachers struggling to be heard. Bike racks went out with the administration building, leaving some students to ride around the campus and lock up wherever they could find metal bars.

Bells to signal class changes were unpredictable, which made ending class all the more hectic because many bungalows were not equipped with clocks.

Lockers were another matter. There weren’t any.

School personnel hope to retrieve the contents of lockers in the two less-damaged buildings within the next few weeks. Students with lockers in the administration building may not get them at all. For now, there are more backpacks on campus, stuffed with lunches and recovered schoolbooks.

Photography teacher John Ker said he will have to teach his classes without a darkroom, chemicals or a sink.

“After 28 years, you just take it in stride,” said Ker, who said he will either bring in some electronic imaging equipment of his own or teach out of a book. “It’s a test for all of us--teachers, students, the district, maybe even the community at large.”

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As complicated as the first day back to school was for most people, it was especially difficult for English teacher Tari Livingston-Hughes. Completely blind, Livingston-Hughes has been teaching in the same classroom in the administration building for the past 11 years. Her Braille books and materials are inaccessible.

“I have a lot to learn,” she said. “I have to figure out new ways of locating where I am--I only know the way in relation to the administration building, which is no longer available to me.”

To make up for time lost to the quake recovery, school officials trimmed 23 minutes from breaks throughout the day, increasing instruction time at the school. Spring break was canceled to allow students to finish school on schedule.

“It’s all the same once you’re in class,” said 15-year-old Cathy Barriga. “The teachers, the teaching--everything is the same. It gives you confidence that everything is going to be OK eventually.”

Goldman is a Times staff writer and Byrnes is a correspondent.