For some, bus ride by moonlight begins first day back at school
By Associated Press
Published August 31, 2004
PORT CHARLOTTE - Some students got up well before dawn and rode buses under a full moon to resume classes Monday for the first time since Hurricane Charley tore through 17 days ago.
The early-bird schedule was necessary because they were sharing their buildings with students whose schools were left unusable by the storm.
Jennifer Chadwick drove her daughter to school in a minivan with four of its windows blown out by hurricane debris. It was the same school where two weeks ago the Chadwicks were living with hundreds of others in a Red Cross shelter.
Outside some Charlotte County schools, anxious administrators and teachers paced, hoping out loud to restore some normalcy to children whose world was thrown into chaos.
Schools had braced for a chaotic first day, but district administrators reported early success in getting the county's classes under way.
"The kids are very positive; they're glad to be back," said Kathleen Bohlander, principal of A.L. Ainger Middle School, which was sharing its facilities with students from Port Charlotte Middle School. "They understand this is a community and we need their support."
A third of Charlotte County's 27 schools were so damaged by the storm that seven undamaged schools are now on double sessions. For thousands of students, that meant a new schedule, bus routes and classrooms.
But there was comfort in the familiar for students, who had started classes just four days before the Aug. 13 hurricane hit, as they reunited with their teachers and friends.
The district opened the year with 18,000 students, and officials hoped to learn this week how many may have moved away because of the storm, which also flattened 10,000 of the county's homes and many of its businesses.
Superintendent David Gayler said Monday afternoon that daily attendance ranged from 85 percent to 96 percent of normal.
Free breakfast was offered to all takers at 6 a.m. and classes started promptly at 6:30 for Port Charlotte High School students, who have been squeezed into an early schedule to allow Charlotte High School students to get going at 12:45 p.m.
"I don't like the fact that we got to come so early when we can see the moon," said 15-year-old freshman Kassy VanZandt.
Career counselor Debra Tate spent her first hour greeting students she knew and asking them how they fared in the 145 mph storm.
For Tate, the mother of a 12-year-old daughter, Monday brought a host of new worries like those facing many other parents. Half of the roof on her family's home is gone and her daughter is being bused to Ainger Middle School, more than 15 miles away.
"She doesn't get the bus until 12 o'clock, and I'm still at school, and she's too young to be by herself," Tate said. "There will be no homework time with her, so I'm worried about that because she gets off the bus at 8 o'clock at night. She'll eat dinner and go to bed. I'll have no time to help her."
The local YMCA has also stepped in to help with child care before and after school for working parents, offering a discounted rate of $35 a week.
Incoming state Education Commissioner John Winn met with some students and faculty, trying to assure them that the state understood their trouble. Gov. Jeb Bush is waiving class size, minimum 180-day attendance and teacher certification requirements in the storm zone.
The state is also considering giving the schools more time to prepare for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, usually taken in February.
At Meadow Park Elementary School, a kindergartener had a hard time letting go of his father. The boy had gone to his first day of school at another school, but was forced to transfer after the family's home was destroyed.
"It's all brand new to him ... and dad was clinging as much as the kid was," said guidance counselor Linda Hutchison.
Hutchison invited both of them to her office and got the boy interested in her electric pencil sharpener. Four pointy pencils later, Hutchison said, "Dad was gone and he was fine."
Chadwick, the mom in the van with the broken windows, dropped off her 14-year-old daughter Mariajah at Ainger Middle School.
Chadwick said she was at the School Board's office at 8 a.m. trying to figure out where to take her daughter to school because the family is now living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in another school's territory. The family doesn't know when their badly damaged Port Charlotte home will be habitable.
Port Charlotte Middle School assistant principal Cathy Corsaletti tried to calm some sixth-graders.
"Remember, we are not going to have an exactly perfect, smooth day," she said. "But remember when you were a baby, first you got to crawl, then you get to walk and then you can run."
