NEW LIFE BEGINS FOR VAN GOGH ELEMENTARY; QUAKE-RAVAGED SCHOOL SET TO WELCOME STUDENTS BACK.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

Sneaking past construction equipment, anxious students of Van Gogh Elementary School have been peeping through windows into their new classrooms, set to finally open more than three years after the original building was shuttered by the Northridge Earthquake.

School officials will begin moving in today, into the only school in the district to be completely rebuilt after the quake.

``It's really exciting to know we're going to be back in our old school,'' said Aimee DeSiderio, 10, who started Van Gogh in kindergarten. ``It looks exciting. It looks really nice to be in.''

The top-to-bottom reconstruction of the quake-ravaged school forced Van Gogh students into bungalows about a mile away at the Robert Frost Middle School. They are the last students left exiled by the 6.7-magnitude temblor.

``It's a beautiful facility. It's all wired for computers. There's a lot of potential for great things we can do there,'' said Principal Maureen Diekmann. ``What's gone into it is really state-of-the-art technology.''

Comparing the school's resurrection to the phoenix rising from its ashes, Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Julie Korenstein said the reopening will go a long way in mending the psyches of the students, teachers and neighbors of the school.

``Such terrible things happened out of the earthquake. This is one of the good things,'' Korenstein said.

Van Gogh students attending summer school last week talked excitedly about their impending return and escape from the bungalows at Frost.

``The air conditioning goes out all the time,'' Aimee said of the bungalows, situated on an asphalt-covered corner of the Frost campus.

``It was hotter inside than it was outside,'' said 10-year-old Aaron Wolk of the bungalows.

Nine-year-old Spencer Stone said he's pretty anxious to get to the new campus, away from the middle-school students. He said there are plenty of bullies at Frost.

``They're like aliens from outer space,'' he said.

When school begins Sept. 4, the 400 students will get an inside view of the school's seven buildings. Painted in tan and teal colors, the school is poised in the middle of a neighborhood dotted with homes that also benefited from post-quake repair funds. The school has three classroom buildings, a separate kindergarten, administration and equipment buildings and a multipurpose building that features a stage that allows students to watch performances from inside or from an grassy outdoor atrium, said Jeff Hauck, the superintendent on the site for the Anaheim-based Pinner Construction.

New grass, trees and raised flower beds dot the school, the playing fields are being readied and the blacktop has been marked for every game imaginable.

The carpeted classrooms have dry-erase boards, sinks, plenty of tall storage cabinets and loads of electrical outlets. ``You don't see this in most schools,' Hauck said.

The $6.1 million school was funded 90 percent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and 10 percent by the state's Office of Emergency Services, said Ellen Morgan, a spokeswoman for L.A. Unified.

Korenstein toured the new school site about a month ago. ``It's gorgeous. My mouth just dropped open,'' she said.

Although Van Gogh is the last school to reopen after the quake, other schools still have ongoing pockets of construction.

Warren Mason, the principal of John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, said work began July 14 on an administration building and another classroom structure, which will allow the school to remove most of the 54 bungalows it still uses on the campus.

The dean's, attendance, counseling and health offices will remain in a converted auto shop class until construction is complete, nearly 15 months away, he said.

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Photo: (1-2) Ramon Guerrero and Aureo Velazquez, at left, add a last touch at Van Gogh Elementary in Granada Hills, which reopens today. Above, Spencer Stone, left, Gabby Starkman, center, and Aimee DeSiderio are eager to return to school.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News