Of Primary Concern

Every kindergartner should be as lucky as Shinese Jobity.

The little girl with dimples began school Monday at a kindergarten campus of just six classrooms.

There were no crowded hallways or big kids smacking balls across the playground.

Instead, Shinese found waiting in her classroom a little wooden mailbox with her name, along with two teachers and an aide, who greeted her warmly.

“Nice and happy,” a smiling Shinese said of her first day.

Shinese’s new school--Van Nuys Primary Center A--is the first campus in the Los Angeles Unified School District devoted exclusively to kindergartners.

Every detail of the campus is geared to 4- and 5-year-olds, from coloring books and Play-doh stations to tricycles and knee-high sinks in restrooms--one in every classroom.

The mini-campus, and others like it for students in kindergarten through second grade, are part of a broad effort by the district to serve its youngest students and ease overcrowding at elementary schools.

A second kindergarten school, 59th Street Primary Center in South Los Angeles, is scheduled to open next Tuesday.

Four others--including Maclay Primary Center in Pacoima--already are serving pupils in kindergarten through second grade. The district is planning 20 more mini-campuses over the next decade. Six of those are slated to open by July, including two in the San Fernando Valley.

The philosophy behind the schools is as simple as the primary colors splashed across their classrooms: keep the youngest pupils off buses and close to home in tranquil settings that offer individual attention and protection from older students.

The Van Nuys primary center, for example, will accommodate 285 students this year, a fraction of the total enrollment at nearby Van Nuys Elementary, which used to house kindergartners. The students at the primary center are divided into morning and afternoon sessions. The year-round school has three tracks, with two in session at any one time.

“Not only do I get to know every child by their first name, I also get to know their families,” said Van Nuys Principal Candida Fernandez-Ghoneim. “When you know the children personally, you are able to accommodate them more effectively.”

Primary centers also are attractive to school planners because they are far less expensive than conventional elementary schools and can be built within months, using portable classrooms.

The Van Nuys school cost $3.7 million, compared with the $12 million to $15 million price tag for a traditional elementary school.

The center, which has yet to be officially named, opened in July in classrooms at Van Nuys High School. Administrators wanted to begin a year-round schedule that would match the one followed by Van Nuys Elementary, where the kindergartners will go next year for first grade.

Monday passed with both excitement and chaos.

Even as students settled into classrooms to recite the alphabet and assemble puzzles, construction workers were fencing off what will be the staff parking lot. Wires dangled from the ceiling in the office, and although it was just after 9 a.m., a clock on the wall read 2:26. Another showed 2:06.

In the canopy over the lunch pavilion a hole remained where a skylight will be placed. Boxes filled corners of the faculty center.

Even the coffee pot broke before it could be used.

But teachers and administrators beamed as they surveyed their new--if unfinished--home, a former Department of Water and Power parking lot. Many of the 14 instructors said the new school and its classrooms--each slated to receive four computers and a television--created a sense of renewal.

“This is the first time in my career I can tell you how each child holds their pencil and how they make their strokes,” said Andrea Lindeen, a 24-year teaching veteran. “I feel like I’m starting my career over again. The whole environment is a teaching environment.”

Teacher Babette Tatum was equally excited by the opportunity to work with children in an intimate setting. “Everything is geared for the little ones, who are a world apart to begin with,” she said.

Parents, too, expressed delight as they walked their sons and daughters to the front gate and lingered a few minutes to chat about the opening of their neighborhood school.

“I’m so excited, because it’s a whole new place for them to learn in a better atmosphere,” said Flora Muratalla, as she dropped off her daughter Jacklyn. “They get to mix with other kids that are the same age and don’t have to worry about the older ones.”

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Duke Helfand is a Times staff writer; Michael Baker is a Times correspondent.