$2-Million Fire Devastates School

Enduring the lingering smell of charred timber, students at a San Gabriel high school used everything from the boys locker room to the library Monday for makeshift classrooms after a suspicious $2-million fire gutted an entire wing of classrooms.

When fire crews finally got the blaze under control about 11 p.m. Saturday, it had devastated Gabrielino High School, destroying two offices, 10 classrooms and leaving the school’s southwest wing with little more than wood framing.

Hundreds of textbooks, years of teachers’ materials and even personal belongings were destroyed by the flames that jumped out of the building about 10 p.m. Saturday.

“My home is gone,” said English teacher Kathryn Konoske. “My eyes are about to fall out of my head from crying.”

About 400 of the school’s 1,300 students were displaced from classrooms by the blaze and forced to use the gym, the career center and just about any space as a classroom Monday.

Arson investigators said they considered the fire suspicious in part because it broke out on the weekend when the campus was closed. But officials said they have not ruled out an electrical short or other causes. Experts from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms combed the area Sunday looking for evidence.

“It is still under investigation. All the angles are being explored,” said San Gabriel Fire Capt. David Pacela.

Educators and students said Monday they are confident the school will be rebuilt.

“We’ll triumph over adversity as we’ve done in the past,” said San Gabriel Unified school board member Lee Freeman. “Obviously, this is devastating.”

Principal Dan Mooney recalled how the school had to fight just to exist.

Five years ago, Gabrielino High opened its doors as San Gabriel Unified’s first high school. The cash-strapped district converted a middle school by adding dozens of portable classrooms and introducing students one grade at a time.

Even as students began classes, Mooney said, the district was forced to rebuff a lawsuit by the neighboring Alhambra School District that threatened to close Gabrielino. For decades, San Gabriel high school students had attended Alhambra schools.

If that were not enough, voters in San Gabriel have three times rejected efforts to approve the sale of bonds to build a new high school campus.

“We teach resilience here,” Mooney said. “Despite the roadblocks and rundown facilities . . . we’ve savored academic success and we remain undaunted by this latest challenge.”

Today, Mooney said, the school that did not exist six years ago is among the academic elite--its speech and debating team is among the best in the state and the overall school rates among the best in California in mathematics.

“Students and staff here have a unique bond. We’re pioneers,” Mooney said.

The principal said he has already ordered temporary classrooms to replace the burned wing and will bring in experts to see if items can be salvaged.

It was the students Monday who helped their teachers overcome the loss. “I wasn’t looking forward to today, but all the kids were really concerned about the teachers,” Konoske said.

She and other teachers lost many special class plans and notes; even the school accreditation materials were destroyed, as the wing was home to virtually all the department heads in social sciences and English.

Konoske’s students reminded her that the school is more than a building.

As one student told her Monday: “Gabrielino has never been about buildings; it’s about people.”