School Closures Are a Lesson in Teamwork

By NICK ANDERSON

Oct. 15, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

IRVINE —

Nearly as fast as flames raced through the hills of eastern Orange County, telephone trees lit up Tuesday to spread the word that 11 public schools had closed as a precaution and thousands of students had the day off.

On 10 campuses in the Irvine, Orange and Tustin districts, classes were canceled before the school day started about 8 a.m. One elementary school in the Tustin Ranch neighborhood shut down midmorning after teachers and students complained of headaches caused by smoke and ash.

Classes on at least 10 of the 11 campuses are expected to resume today. Orange Unified School District will decide this morning whether to reopen tiny Silverado Elementary School on Santiago Canyon Road.

School officials said the informal networking Tuesday morning was so efficient that relatively few parents appeared to be caught unaware.

Seven Irvine school principals were alerted to the closures starting at 5:30 a.m., Irvine Unified School District said in a news release.

At Irvine High School--named for closure in part because it serves neighborhoods north of the Santa Ana Freeway deemed vulnerable--classes for 2,600 students were to begin in 2 1/2 hours.

School operators and teachers were putting out the news at 6:30 a.m., Principal Gail Richards said, and parents started calling parents. Teachers and assistants were posted at the entrance to the school parking lot to tell students and parents as they drove up.

Thus, what Richards said was the first school day canceled by emergency in her five years on the job proceeded with virtually no complaints. Only about a dozen students were left stranded, she said. They stayed at the school until rides home could be found.

“It was amazingly quiet here,” Richards said, “so the word was clearly out there. All I can tell you is it was very smooth.”

Parent volunteers had the same impression.

“We all started calling friends. Word got out pretty quickly,” said Annette Symons, president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Assn. at Irvine High. “My phone started ringing around 7 a.m., and I was on nonstop for close to two hours.”

The closures were a novelty for many parents and students. In other parts of the country, people expect Mother Nature to cancel school a few days a year--but not in Orange County.

“They wouldn’t think about it,” said Sue Kuwabara, a parent activist at Sierra Vista Middle School, one of six other Irvine campuses that canceled classes. “I lived in Denver. When it was snowing, we all knew.”

With the exception of Irvine High, all the Irvine schools closed by the fire were north of Santa Ana Freeway, in or near the city’s Northwood neighborhood. The high school opened its gymnasium for a Red Cross shelter, but there were no evacuees there at midday.

In Tustin Unified School District, officials decided to close Arroyo and Peters Canyon elementary schools at 7:30 a.m. and Tustin Ranch Elementary at 10:30 a.m. Parent telephone trees sprang up there too. The telltale smoke billowing from the hills alerted neighborhoods accustomed to the threat of fire.

“We assumed [school] was going to be out because the air was pretty bad,” said Melinda Johnson, who has two daughters at Arroyo. She started making calls at 7:40 a.m.

Mark Eliot, a spokesman for Tustin Unified, said the last students were picked up from Tustin Ranch by about 1:30 p.m.

Officials at Orange Unified School District had little choice but to close the remote Silverado Elementary School, which serves 125 students. Road closures forced teachers and parents to stay home, said Assistant Supt. Neil McKinnon.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Tina Nguyen.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Schools to Check

Here’s a list of the schools closed Tuesday because of the fire. All Irvine and Tustin unified schools are expected to be open today. Silverado Elementary parents should check with the school. Irvine school officials said updates will be posted on the district’s Web site: https://www.iusd.k12.ca.us

School district and individual campus numbers, all in the 714 area code:

ORANGE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, 997-6100

Silverado Elementary, 977-6000

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IRVINE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, 651-0444

* Brywood Elementary, 857-9230

* El Toro Marine Elementary, 559-0818

* Northwood Elementary, 551-8567

* Santiago Hills Elementary, 544-5362

* Westwood Basics Plus Elementary, 544-9670

* Sierra Vista Middle School, 838-5440

* Irvine High School (emergency evacuation center), 552-4211