Teachers, Pupils Mourn Children Killed in Fire

They were the kind of children everyone wanted to claim as friends. They hugged their teachers when they arrived at class. And after school, they walked home together, hand in hand.

In a matter of hours, news of their deaths reverberated through their Watts neighborhood and their school Thursday, a tragedy made even more poignant by the holiday season.

As Christmas music wafted through the hallways of the 102nd Street School, school officials went about the task of notifying teachers and students: Five of the Curtis children--ages 1 through 9--had been killed in an early morning fire in the 2100 block of East 105th Street.

“I keep asking myself ‘Why?’ ” said Nancy Balderas, a teaching assistant at the Watts elementary school where three of the children attended class. “They were just little children. Their lives were just starting. They didn’t deserve this.”

Fire officials late Thursday were still investigating the source of the 2:04 a.m. blaze in the converted garage, where the children had been sleeping. Family members believe a portable electric heater might have started the blaze.

Killed in the fire were Alexandria, 6, Alexis, 7, and Danielle, 9--who were all enrolled at the elementary school. Also killed were their brothers Alan Jr., 3, and Alex, 1.

“I remember I said to him yesterday, ‘Alan Curtis Jr., you be good. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ ” said Jennifer Gunn, a teacher at the HeadStart program that the boy attended. “He said ‘OK, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

“You can feel the loss in the classroom this morning. He was the sunshine.”

Alexandria was at the top of her kindergarten class. Just last week she was honored at a school assembly for outstanding achievement in language arts, said her teacher Catherine Mims-Yamaguchi.

“When we would do our testing, she would always be the top student,” Mims-Yamaguchi said.

Balderas added: “She was just so smart. And she had this gorgeous smile. It made everyone happy.”

The two teachers said it was hard to miss how close Alexandria was to her siblings.

“She really loved her sisters and every day after school, they would be waiting for her to take her home,” Mims-Yamaguchi said. “They were really a close family.”

School Principal Cynthia Dugan said that Alexis--whom she described as a “smiley little girl”--was supposed to sing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” with her classmates at the annual Christmas assembly Thursday.

The class was not told about the tragedy until after the performance, Dugan said. The school’s crisis team was quickly mobilized.

“It’s important to let the children know,” Dugan said. “They have to stop and think that even when they’re hurting, they can be peace builders.”

Said Robert R. Barner, an administrator for the Jordan/Locke cluster schools: “Unfortunately, the youngsters in this community face tragedies too often. We are going to do all we can to try to let them know we are here to provide as much support as we possibly can.”

Jason Smith, who was Danielle’s fifth-grade teacher, described the oldest girl as “very outspoken.”

“She definitely was not shy about talking about her feelings,” he said. “She was definitely a girl who was going somewhere.”

He said her friends were having a hard time grasping the news.

“Her friends started crying when they realized what had happened,” he said. “They don’t know how to deal with it. . . . It’s kind of a life lesson for these fifth-graders. It makes them realize that life is a precious thing.”