THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060421
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
All that remained of I'Leta S. Hankley's classroom at Princess Anne High School on Tuesday was hidden behind a sheet of plywood that covered a shattered second-floor window.
For 22 years, Hankley has taught English at the city's oldest high school and developed a devotion that went beyond books, tables and chairs. It was collected in the lecture notes, student projects, even teaching games that her mother used when she taught students in Oklahoma and Alexandria.
Now they are presumably gone, burned to ashes in a fire that arson investigators believe was set early Sept. 1. The middle portion of the main building was gutted by fire. Other sections were damaged by smoke, heat and possibly asbestos contamination. No teachers have been allowed back into the school because of safety concerns.
But from the look of the windows, from the talk of firefighters, the teachers say that not seeing is enough to know that years of work have been lost.
``It's really hard for me to talk about it without crying,'' said Hankley, 54. ``I keep thinking of projects that students turned in as part of assignments. One of them was a map a student made of Florida. It was based on a novel I was teaching, and it showed the accurate locations of all places mentioned in the book. It's gone, I'm sure. Everything from 22 years. Gone.''
On a day that traditionally is full of excitement and hope, the 200 teachers and teachers' aides at Princess Anne High School were almost too busy to lament the loss of their classrooms. Meetings began early Tuesday and lasted through much of the afternoon as instructors were briefed on how the school system will relocate the students, classrooms, books and equipment.
``I had a Taiwanese student who once drew out how to write basic Chinese,'' said Hankley, who also teaches English as a second language. ``It showed me how to make basic words, when to move the pen down, when to move it up, how to pronounce words by raising my voice here or lowering it there. I really loved that, and it's gone, too.''
Claudia H. Cosimano, who has taught Spanish for 21 years and chairs the school's foreign languages department, was equally saddened by her own losses.
``For a while I didn't want to think about it because it's just too depressing,'' she said. ``I had posters and slides and pictures of trips I made to Spain and Mexico. I used to show it to students so they would know a little more about the places I was teaching them about. I know I'll never get that back.''
Cosimano had 121 posters. She had verb cards for drilling students. She had boxes of pictures she'd cut from magazines. She'd show them to Spanish students and ask them to write a sentence about what they saw. She kept the ledger for the Spanish Honors Society, a 20-year photographic record of students who were members. All were made of paper, and all, she fears, are gone.
``It took me ages to collect all that, to get them on cardboard, to laminate them,'' she said. ``You can't really put a dollar figure on it. I had bulletin boards. And pictures. And everything I needed to teach children.''
Like many teachers at the school, Cosimano was deeply touched by the many expressions of sympathy and affection from the community. After attending services at Providence Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Cosimano said, people were ``lined up'' to offer reassurances.
``You know, it was just like a death in the family.''
Even now, with the windows boarded and crime scene tape fluttering outside, Cosimano remains somewhat in disbelief.
``Even though I came here in the middle of the night and saw the flames coming from my window, I still want to see it,'' she said. ``I still want to go inside and see for myself, for closure if you will.''
For Princess Anne students, the day off school Tuesday was an unwelcome gift.
Senior Amanda Smith went shopping for clothing and found the stores virtually empty of teenagers. ``I thought, `Gosh, it's because everyone is at school, but I'm not,' '' she said. ``You'd think I'd be happy about not being in school, but I wasn't.
``All my friends are devastated. I haven't heard of one person being happy about this at all.''
Sharon Greene, 17, found a bright spot: ``It does wonders for school spirit. I don't think I've ever seen anyone unite this way. Everyone I've spoken to is a lot more gung-ho about being a senior.''
And, she said, it's brought freshmen and seniors together. ``Instead of being divided between classes, everyone's coming together for the sake of PA,'' the senior said.
That school spirit took some students Tuesday to the Thalia Shell gas station on Virginia Beach Boulevard, where they sponsored a car wash for the second consecutive day to benefit the school.
Since Monday, they've raised more than $6,000 for repairs, said Terri Johnson, a cashier at the gas station. ``It's been so heartwarming,'' Johnson said. ``People are just dropping checks off for $100. They don't even get a car wash.''
The car wash will continue today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
As Hankley, the English teacher, thought about the experience of the past five days, she decided there was nothing left to do but push on.
``As I told some students the other day, that building is PA,'' she said, using the school's shorthand. ``We're PA. We'll come through it stronger, purified by the fire.'' MEMO: Staff writer Phil Walzer contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT, Staff
Princess Anne High School teachers tour Celebration Station, a
former shopping center located near the fire-damaged Virginia Beach
high school, where classes will open next Tuesday.
KEYWORDS: FIRE ARSON PRINCESS ANNE HIGH SCHOOL by CNB