Anxious students head back to school in Napa

Napa brothers Javier and Jesus Ramirez normally would be out the front door of their house before their parents, eager to get to school. But on Wednesday, their mother, Silvia R. Guzman, struggled to get the boys, 10 and 7, respectively, out of the family’s SUV when they arrived on campus.

It was their first day back at Browns Valley Elementary School since Sunday’s magnitude-6.0 earthquake rocked the Napa Valley. The 3:20 a.m. quake disrupted water and power services, injured more than 200 people, severely damaged more than 100 structures and caused serious damage to several hundred more.

“I’m scared because I think there’s going to be another earthquake,” Jesus Ramirez said as he lined up outside his classroom off Buhman Avenue in west Napa - not far from the fault line that released the powerful earthquake.

Anxiety was evident as students arrived on campus, hanging on to their parents, who waited with them until school started.

Meagan Currie held tight to her 5-year-old daughter, Madison, who cried when it was time to go into her kindergarten class.

“I’m terrified,” Currie said about leaving her daughter at school. “I didn’t want her to go.”

However, she said her husband urged her to drop their daughter off at school “to make her brave and strong.”

School had been canceled throughout the Napa Valley Unified School District on Monday and Tuesday while officials made sure there was no damage to the district’s 31 campuses in Napa, American Canyon and Yountville.

With a clean review at all but one school - Stone Bridge Charter School, where minor cracks were found - school was back in session Wednesday.

There wasn’t a significant change in school attendance Wednesday, compared to other days, according to a district official.

Expecting nervous students and worried parents, counselors and psychologists were on hand at schools across the district to help out.

Each school is expected to do some kind of earthquake safety review this week, according to district officials. Principals were to assess how their students were doing and how much they could handle - from a full-on drill to a milder lesson.

Stephanie Guzman, a seventh- grader at Redwood Middle School, said there was an earthquake drill during first period Wednesday. Students were asked to get underneath desks and tuck their heads before they headed outside to a field.

“Before school, there were a lot of people that were nervous,” she said. “I was nervous, too.”

She said she felt more calm by the time she was done with school Wednesday and ready to go home, where her family remained without water service for a fourth day.

At Napa High School, Assistant Principal Jon Salinger said students seemed eager to get back to school and talk about the earthquake.

During first-period classes, teachers had the teens share their experiences.

“The students were ready to come back and get some normalcy back,” Salinger said. “There was a lot of hugging going on with friends this morning.”

While there was no structural damage at the school, the quake shook up the campus, creating a mess that had to be cleared. District employees and school staff worked for three days to clean up the rooms, Salinger said.

“There were messes everywhere,” he said. “I couldn’t even get into my office. I had 31 years of stuff in the middle of the floor.”

In one room, mounds of textbooks still needed to be picked up off the floor after some shelves had given way.

The earthquake has turned many kids’ lives upside down - something Frank Silva, principal at Browns Valley Elementary, reminded his teachers about as the kids poured into the classrooms Wednesday. The school has about 565 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Teachers, who had other staff available in case they were having difficulties in class, were expected to talk to their students about what to do in case of another earthquake and calmly take their kids outside for a drill, said Silva, who had met with about a dozen concerned parents who remained on campus after school started.

“I’m going to treat your kids like they’re mine,” Silva told them, explaining how the school would strive for a sense of calmness.

“Time will heal,” he added.

You can reach Staff Writer Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com.