Back to School : Students Bid Goodby to Summer, Prepare to Hit the Books--Again

It was 8 a.m. Wednesday outside steepled Santa Clara School and 7-year-old Wyatt Beckman would rather be riding his Yamaha.

The first day of second grade was less than a milestone for the blond-haired Wyatt, who shook his head “no” when asked if he was excited about returning to the historic one-room schoolhouse.

“He’s just been enjoying summer,” said his mother, Natalie Beckman of Fillmore, who said her son spent most of his vacation riding his small Yamaha 50 motor scooter around their property.

“This is his third year,” the mother said. “He’s done real well.”

Wyatt was among 37 children who showed up for the first day of school at Santa Clara School, the little red schoolhouse built on California 126 between Santa Paula and Fillmore almost a century ago.

Thousands of other school children sat behind desks for the first time this fall Wednesday, as classes opened in Ventura, Santa Paula, Ojai and several smaller districts in west Ventura County.

Schools in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Moorpark are scheduled to resume studies today, while campuses in Oxnard, Camarillo and other areas opened earlier this week.

Parent Gayle Reed of Santa Paula, who has two children enrolled at Santa Clara School, said the small campus makes for a more personal grammar-school education.

“It’s more like a private school,” Reed said. “The teacher-student ratio is lower, and they get more individual time.”

Reed said her children, 9-year-old Amanda and 8-year-old Paul, were not yet in the academic mood.

“They don’t like the idea of going back to school,” she said. “But once they get playing with their friends and back into the routine, it’s no big deal.”

Principal Ruth Metcalf said having six grades studying in one room allows students to reinforce what they already have studied. “We do a lot of cross-age tutoring,” Metcalf said. “So the older students can relearn material because they’re helping a smaller child.”

At Blanchard School in Santa Paula a few miles away, educators spent opening day giving new students tours of the campus and introducing a new life-skills curriculum that emphasizes 15 themes, like responsibility, curiosity and perseverance.

“It’ll be pretty neat and different,” Irene Valdez, 9, said of the new curriculum. “We’ll have to work more and learn more about other things.”

The perseverance message already had been drummed into 10-year-old Iris Bradburn, who was starting her first day of fifth grade.

“It means keep going to school, don’t stop,” said Iris, who wants to be a doctor. “You have to learn and you have to be smart and stay in school.”

Tenacity is not the only watchword at Buena High School in Ventura. But Principal Jaime Castellanos and his top administrators are tenacious about who is coming and going on their campus--even on the first day of classes.

Castellanos has renewed a program he began in the final two weeks of the spring semester. He plans to patrol the campus by bicycle with his top administrators, looking for errant children.

“It’s an idea that came from a parent,” Castellanos said Wednesday, moments after swapping his coat and tie for a T-shirt and shorts. “But it’s a different way of trying to secure the campus.”

Students who are not supposed to be off the campus at lunchtime--mostly freshman and sophomores--are rounded up at local fast-food restaurants and directed back to school.

“There’s also a better sense of safety, knowing that we’re out there being mobile,” Castellanos said.

Sophomore Alex Roberts, a 16-year-old Ventura boy eating pizza on-campus at lunchtime, said the bike patrol sounded like a good idea.

“It’ll keep people out of trouble and stop trouble from happening,” Alex said. “They seem to be a lot stricter this year than they were last year.”

But the new mountain-bike policy did not impress one senior, who sported a three-pronged spiked Mohawk about 18 inches high.

“It won’t accomplish anything,” said Chad Wiggins, who plans to either pursue missionary work or enroll at Ventura College next year. “There’s too many other things to look out for.”