Capistrano Unified’s New Schools Make Debut : Education: All five open on time, though two need some finishing work. An Irvine middle school doesn’t beat the clock.

As third- and fourth-graders skipped rope on the blacktop at the new Bathgate Elementary School during morning recess Thursday, a team of maintenance workers hastily assembled about 25 lunch tables just 10 feet away.

And not a minute too soon.

Lunchtime was an hour away. The tables had arrived just an hour before.

“They are going to get done even faster than they estimated they would,” Principal Curt Visca said of the workers, who, with a power drill and hand wrenches, moved as smoothly as a pit crew at the Indianapolis 500.

Bathgate was one of five new elementary schools opening simultaneously in the Capistrano Unified School District on Thursday, the first day of school for 13 other school districts as well. Saddleback Valley Unified also opened one new elementary school Thursday.

All did not go as smoothly in the Irvine Unified School District, where seventh-graders enrolled at the new South Lake Middle School were unexpectedly awarded a few extra days of vacation because of last-minute work that still had not been finished, officials said.

“We couldn’t open it” Thursday, said Jerry Rayl, assistant to the superintendent. “That’s how tight things have been. There have just been some normal construction problems with things like getting cabinets in and carpets down.”

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When the school finally opens--an event now scheduled for Monday--only half the classrooms will be complete, and it will house only 338 seventh-graders. Next fall, when the entire campus is scheduled to be completed, seventh- and eighth-graders will occupy the school, Rayl said.

At Bathgate, Visca was calm as he strolled about his still-uncompleted school, clipboard in hand. Children had to park bicycles in storage rooms, the front office filing system consisted of piles of paper on a conference table, and sections of the campus without landscaping were cordoned off by enough yellow tape for a dozen crime scenes.

“You make it work,” Visca said, smiling. “It’s been amazing.”

According to the state Department of Education, Capistrano Unified is opening more schools at one time than any other school district in California this year.

The district’s five new schools--Bathgate in Mission Viejo, Hidden Hills and Malcom in Laguna Niguel, Lobo in San Clemente and Wood Canyon in Aliso Viejo--all met a deadline the district set more than a year ago.

But the achievement did not come without late nights and weekend work for construction contractors and some eager members of the school’s staff, according to Daniel Crawford, the district’s executive director of construction and operations.

“Teachers were here helping clean windows and vacuum,” said Crawford, who was at Hidden Hills on Thursday as students recited the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time.

Crawford said three of the new schools--Malcom, Lobo and Wood Canyon--are “99.9% complete.” Crews will return to Bathgate and Hidden Hills on upcoming weekends to finish work that cannot be accomplished while youngsters are on campus.

But even as children arrived Thursday, crews continued their work.

As more than 600 students, their parents and siblings stood in a courtyard at Hidden Hills for an opening ceremony, workers in a hallway were still moving new cabinets that had to be installed. Hard hat on his head, a district inspector watched the festivities from a rooftop as other workers checked equipment.

In front of the school, slender trees on a makeshift lawn of freshly raked dirt were festooned with blue and green balloons. A worker dug holes for shrubs along one side of the campus.

Dave Holmes, father of four boys, walked his son Simon to the first day of fourth grade at the new facility. One of Simon’s brothers, James, a kindergartner, would be arriving for class at 11:45 a.m.

“This one’s quite futuristic looking, I think,” Holmes said of the school. “The children are excited. My son said it looks like a space school.”

He said that two weeks ago he did not think crews would make their deadline. The school looked like a full-blown construction site, he said.

“They obviously put in a lot of overtime,” said the father, who works in construction management. “They deserve a pat on the back.”

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Lori Redpath, who saw her daughter Brenda off to her second-grade class, was thrilled about the facility.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Redpath said.

In Santa Ana, the new Cesar Chavez High School did not open as scheduled Thursday. The continuation school is not scheduled to take in its first students until Sept. 19. Instead, the estimated 80 students enrolled there attended classes at the district’s Regional Occupational Program campus on Ritchey Street, where they will remain until Cesar Chavez High opens.

In the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, Robinson Elementary in Trabuco Canyon opened as scheduled, with 883 students enrolled. But Foothill Ranch Elementary School students are still waiting for their new campus to be completed.

Until the school is ready in January, the estimated 400 students, their teachers and principal will share the campus of Portola Hills Elementary School. Foothill Ranch students take up six classrooms and five portable facilities at Portola Hills, which has 600 students and is not filled to capacity, said Portola Hills Principal Sondra Morrow.

To avoid overcrowding in the parking lot and on playgrounds, the two schools began a staggered schedule Thursday, Morrow said. Foothill Ranch Principal Carole Wong said the unique arrangement worked surprisingly well.

“It was the first day and we got everyone into their places with ease,” Wong said. “It’s a big campus but with that many children, you worry about complications.”