THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 13, 1995 TAG: 9509130405
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN AND BILL REED, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
They thought of nearly everything.
There were computers and books, desks and chairs, chalkboards and vending machines, even maps for students not familiar with the layout of Celebration Station.
But when the time came Tuesday to start classes for 1,500 transplanted Princess Anne High School students, one overlooked detail became comically apparent: their temporary quarters had no school bell.
So at the appointed moment when classes changed, school officials took up positions throughout the cavernous hallways of the converted shopping mall, breathed deep, and blew hard into bright orange whistles.
And with that, the school year began in earnest for students and teachers who 11 days earlier had learned that a major wing of the city's oldest high school had been gutted by an arsonist.
By nearly every account, the first day went off without much of a hitch. Instruction began on time. Most students made it to class, although a few missed bus connections to the classes that remain on the old campus. Everyone seemed to have the required books and, while details remained unresolved, school officials pronounced the day a success.
``It's going pretty good,'' said interim superintendent James Pughsley as he surveyed the crowded hallways moments before the first class began.
``A week ago no one would have thought that we'd be here, much less that we'd be here in style. But here we are,'' Pughsley said. ``The teachers, students and other school personnel have gone after this in a big way to make this place look good.''
Although the whistles served their purpose, by midday a shipment of air horns of the kind commonly used by boaters were in the building. The school system is hoping to activate an overhead public address system that was already in the building but apparently inoperable.
Whatever problems may have existed, few students seemed to mind.
``It was fun,'' said Jessica Howard, a 14-year-old freshman, after classes let out for the day. ``I was thinking that I might get lost in here, but I didn't.''
Her friend, Donna Gatewood, also a 14-year-old freshman, said she had no problem finding her way. ``I like it better here. The classrooms are bigger; there's more space.''
Few were as happy as Princess Anne's principal, Pat Griffin, who prowled the hallways of Celebration Station with a portable radio watching the plans of the past two weeks unfold before her eyes.
``I was amazed at how well it worked,'' she said as the last school buses left for the day. ``Everything went pretty much as expected. We had tried to think of everything.''
About two miles to the west, at the main campus of Princess Anne, similar reports of a smooth transition were heard. School buses began arriving at the main campus at 7 a.m., filled with slightly bewildered ninth- and 10th-graders, most of whom were anxious to learn where their classes were or how to correct errors in their schedules.
On hand to greet them were staffers like basketball coach Gary Cason, Associate Principal Barbara Salsberry, teacher Hutch Hammond, Associate School Superintendent Anne Meek, or parent volunteers like Anne Krause. Hammond had arrived on campus shortly before the buses, straddling a motorcycle and decked out in true biker fashion: black leather jacket, snakeskin boots, helmet and shades.
Krause, a transplanted New Yorker, chuckled after a brief sidewalk conference with a puzzled student, also from New York. ``She wants to go back to Bedford-Stuyvesant,'' said Krause. ``She says it's too confusing here.''
By 8:30 a.m., only a dozen of the 700-plus students who had arrived for the first day of classes on the campus, sat outside the office, waiting for a school counselor to unsnarl their schedules. The rest were tucked away in classrooms.
One minor glitch at the main campus was an interrupted computer link for the Student Data Base, which was supposed to provide school officials with information about student schedules. It remained down for almost the entire day.
Joe Lowenthal, a school system spokesman, later said wiring for the link had not been installed.
Meanwhile, efforts continued on cleaning up the asbestos contamination that has plagued the reopening of the areas within Princess Anne not damaged by fire.
Meek said the west wing of the high school, which had been contaminated, would probably reopen next Monday for special education classes. A more definite date would be set later, she said, after school officials determined what was needed to resupply the classrooms for some 200 students. ILLUSTRATION: MORT FRYMAN/Staff color photos
Brian O'Neill, one of 1,500 students attending classes at
Celebration Station, listens during a public speaking class
Tuesday.
Princess Anne High students mingle before class in the cavernous
hallways at Celebration Station. The first day of classes at the
mall-turned-school went smoothly.
by CNB