Elementary Schools

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you have read a fair amount about Terra Bella School and Vena Avenue School, but I thought I would sort of "package it" differently with a summary of the schools and the descriptions.

Terra Bella School - I started there in kindergarten and stayed until halfway through third grade. I left there because the new school (Vena Avenue) was finally ready.

Terra Bella was all bungalows (portables, in today's language) and had a dirt playground. Very minimal playground equipment and not a lot to do as I recall. There was no cafeteria and no library. (What's a school without a library, for Pete's sake?)

I do remember there being a "music room" where we would go for folk dancing. The classrooms were the old fashioned kind with windows that went all the way to the ceiling. They had to be opened with one of those pole thinga-ma-jiggies!

Each room had a "cloak closet" in it. You came in through the classroom door (actually, each classroom had two doors I think) and if you went straight ahead you went into the classroom. If you took a jog to the left, you were in the "cloak closet," which was a room about 8' x 10' as I recall. There were hooks for our sweaters and coats, and a shelf where we put our lunch boxes.

Vena Avenue School - I attended Vena Avenue from the last half of third grade until the last half of sixth grade. This was a "modern" school. No bungalows (they were added a couple of years later as the school got crowded. The classrooms had sinks and state of the art equipment such as sliding chalkboards, which we thought were very cool.

There was a full library and a cafeteria that also served as a multi-purpose room. I had never been to a school assembly until I went to Vena Avenua. There was a lot more playground equipment (sandboxes with monkey bars among other things) and the playground was paved so we could play a lot of games that required the ground to have lines (foursquare, a game similar to volleyball called "one bounce," kickball, etc.).

We had a fulltime music teacher and other special kind of teachers, such as the "posture" teacher who dealt with kids with issues. I'm not sure what type. It was a "pull out kind of class" where you went twice a week or something for a half hour or so. I was put in the class because it was determined that I had a space between my large and second toe. Seriously! Who'd have thought that was such a big deal? :)

We also had Friday afternoon "clubs," where we could choose what we wanted to do. It was the last hour of class or something, and we could choose art, sports, and a host of other things. I always chose glee club, of course!

San Jose School - In sixth grade, we moved to Mission Hills, California. This was in late April, about six weeks before school ended. My mom felt it was going to be a good thing for me to move to the new school to get to know kids I would go to Junior High with. Vena Avenue School "fed" into a different Junior High than San Jose School did.

So I started at a new school, and I have to say it was the most miserable six weeks of my life up until that time. I made friends, but never really "fit in" like I had at Vena. At Vena I was kind of a role model, and teacher's pet in a way. At San Jose School, the teacher kind of resented having to make room for me so close to the end of school. It was really hard.

The school itself was very similar to Vena Avenue, so in that way it felt comfortable. (Back then, all of the LA elementary schools were pretty much built the same way.) I just felt awkward and uncomfortable, and that kind of paved the way for the typical angst of Junior High!