Classes End With Bittersweet Goodbys : Education: Most youngsters look forward to summer, but leaving friends and anticipating buckling down in the fall make for mixed emotions.

As the last day of school drew to a close Thursday, Adrian Smith cleared the worn textbooks from his desk at Ventura’s Portola School, packed his notebooks in a satchel and folded his hands, waiting for that final bell.

“I’m very happy to leave,” the fifth-grader said gravely. “It wasn’t so pleasant with all the work here.”

Many other students around Ventura County shared Adrian’s sense of relief.

The end of classes Thursday marked the beginning of summer for most of the 117,000 public school students in Ventura County. Except for those on year-round schedules, all county schools let out sometime this week.

At Portola School, most children bolted from their classrooms when the final bell rang at 11:30 a.m., in keeping with the busting-loose tradition of the last day of school. A few dawdled long enough to give a last hug to a teacher or say another goodby to friends.

“It’s about as crazy as the first day,” said Portola School kindergarten teacher Judi Branstetter.

But for some students and their parents, the end of the school year evokes mixed emotions.

Rae Stevens, whose 6-year-old son, Tyler, was in Branstetter’s class, fought back tears before the bell Thursday as she glanced around the classroom of 33 squirming kindergartners.

“Oh, it’s sad,” Stevens said. “Maybe because they’re getting older. It’s such a sweet age. Maybe because he’s my oldest and he’s not a baby anymore.”

Such end-of-the-year melancholy is common among parents of kindergartners, Branstetter said. “They know it’s a milestone.”

And some of the children also sensed that their completion of kindergarten marked a turning point.

But the students were divided over whether entering first grade--becoming “a grader,” as they called it--was cause for joy or dread.

“I’m not excited,” 6-year-old Thomas Wissinger said, “because then I’ll have to do really hard homework.”

Thomas’ classmate Taryn Liess is happy about moving up to first grade. Asked why, Taryn thought for a moment, tilted her head and rested her chin on her palm. Then she looked up and replied: “Because you get smart.”

Fifth- and sixth-grade students across the county, meanwhile, are leaving the secure confines of their elementary schools to enter middle school or junior high.

At Portola, fifth-graders said goodby not only to their teachers and their school, but to some of their friends.

Most Portola students go on to Anacapa Middle School, but some--such as 11-year-old Josh Olds--are sent to Balboa Middle School.

“If they’re going to Anacapa and I’m going to Balboa,” Josh said, referring to his fifth-grade friends, “I’m going to be all alone.”

Other fifth-grade students said their chief worry about going to middle school is being bullied by older children in the seventh and eighth grades.

“My mom says it’s going to be an adventure,” said 10-year-old Heather Carpenter, who will enter the sixth grade at Anacapa in the fall. “But I still don’t know. It’s like going from being at the top of the school to being at the bottom again.”

Heather said she has reason to be particularly concerned: At four feet, four inches tall, she was the shortest person in her fifth-grade class. “I already have to look up to most people.”

Although many Portola students confessed to anxiety about leaving the classroom where they had grown comfortable, their teachers viewed the last day of school more philosophically.

“This has been a really terrific class,” fifth-grade teacher Leslie Nichols said. Nevertheless, she said, “I see life as a process.”

The end of the year “is the end of the process. It’s time for them to go on. It’s time for me to regenerate to be ready to start the process again.

“It’s not sadness or relief,” she said. “It’s the end.”