ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Out of the Fire and Into the Fiscal Frying Pan : Fallout: School that was damaged in last year’s firestorm must now put construction plans on hold. ‘You feel you are at the mercy of fate,’ one teacher says.

The students and faculty of Thurston Middle School, the hilltop campus that was badly damaged more than a year ago in the Laguna Beach firestorm, received yet another blow Friday afternoon.

As classes broke for the weekend, the 530 pupils took home a notice from the Laguna Beach Unified School District saying that the district has put all new construction on hold until it can better assess how its finances will be affected by the county’s bond crisis.

What that means for Thurston, school officials said, is a sudden derailment of the school’s plans to go to bid this month to hire a contractor for a $2.6-million construction project to replace 14 classrooms lost in the fire.

The hope was that construction could start in February and that by next December, students could move out of the portable buildings on the athletic field that serve as temporary classrooms.

“I was just planning the groundbreaking ceremony this week,” Principal Cheryl Baughn said.

Baughn said she learned about the construction freeze after the district board of directors met in an emergency session Friday morning to decide how to proceed now that the district’s funds, kept in the county treasury, are tied up as a result of the county’s bankruptcy filing. The district had received an insurance payment for the new construction, which under state law had to be given to the county.

Staff members, students and parents at Thurston who had just heard about the board’s decision said they were saddened, disappointed and a little shellshocked by the series of problems the school has been forced to endure because of events beyond their control.

“It’s hard. You think there is only so much you can take,” said Marnie Hueg, an eighth-grade English teacher. “I think we are kind of in shock about the situation. . . . We are tired. You feel you are at the mercy of fate.”

Some students also expressed disappointment. “I feel bad for the sixth- and seventh-graders,” said Rochelle Rose, 13, an eighth-grader who will graduate from Thurston this spring.

Rochelle said the students want back the full use of their athletic field and a more compact campus. It is a long hike between classes on the main campus and those in the portables classrooms arranged along the athletic field. “I have to run to be on time,” she said.

The school had planned to build 16 classrooms to replace the 14 lost in the fire that had housed every subject except science and to provide added space for an anticipated increase in enrollment.

Angela Irish, the school district’s PTA council president and mother of an eighth-grader at Thurston, said the school will cope with this latest problem.

She noted that the school reopened five days after the fire, handling the classroom shortage by operating on split sessions for two weeks until the portable classrooms arrived.

“If they weathered the fire, they will be able to weather this,” Irish said.

Baughn was equally confident. “I think we are a resourceful group and we will deal with this crisis as we did with the crises in the past,” she said.

One bright note, she said, is that the $50,000 the community raised to build an amphitheater at the school as part of the new construction was not deposited in the county treasury and thus is not in jeopardy.

Paul M. Possemato, superintendent of the Laguna Beach Unified School District, said that although the classroom construction project has been delayed indefinitely, the board decided to go ahead with construction of the amphitheater.

Possemato said the district also will complete construction under way at Laguna Beach High School.

Some Thurston teachers said that although they would like new facilities, the temporary portables are comfortable and adequate.

“I think the kids are getting a quality education out there,” said Tom Purdy, a history teacher who was on a committee of parents, teachers and administrators overseeing the construction plans.

Purdy said the county’s previous assurance that it would continue to fund the salaries of teachers and other school staff members outweighs the construction holdup. “If put to a vote, everyone would rather get their paycheck,” he said.

On Friday, Thurston’s classified employees, including the clerical staff, instructional aides and custodians, received their pay and school officials said they were certain that next month’s payroll for the school’s 33 teachers also would be met.

Todd Foot, a maintenance worker, said the construction postponement is “just another letdown after the school burning.” He had been looking forward to modern buildings that would require fewer repairs and thus lighten his workload.

But he expects that the school will do fine. “It is a small community and everybody sticks together, “ he said. “Things are going to get better. They have to.”