STELLE MIDDLE SCHOOL FINALLY RINGS THE BELL.

Byline: Angie Valencia Staff Writer

The glitches were inevitable: The heating system malfunctioned, the melodies to the bell system kept changing, and the afternoon traffic was a drag.

But students, faculty and administrators made it through their first day at Alice C. Stelle Middle School in Calabasas. ``You anticipate the trauma,'' said Donald Zimring, Las Virgenes Unified School District deputy superintendent. ``But overall, it's a dream come true. This was the single largest project envisioned by our school board and the community.''

Just hours earlier, students roamed around the 31-acre campus with perplexed looks, bags filled with books in one hand, maps to guide them in the other.

It was an unfamiliar territory to them: a pair of two-story buildings, a library/media room, a gymnasium, a multipurpose room and a cafeteria - all made of steel.

Some classrooms were missing equipment, and the landscaping was incomplete, but on Monday administrators opened their doors to 900 students to a school that pays tribute to a woman touted as the driving force behind the formation of the school district in 1963.

``It's history,'' said Chloe Bucknell, 14. ``I'm one of the first people to be part of this school.''

Since the beginning of the school year, about 1,850 students were crammed in the A.E. Wright Middle School campus. Stelle Middle School was designed to help relieve the crowding by housing half of them. ``It's been two years in the making,'' said Principal Mary Sistrunk. ``Very few people get an opportunity to open a school. I feel very privileged.''

By the afternoon, construction workers were still putting the finishing touches on the $30 million school. Staff continued unpacking, and Sistrunk beamed as she made reference to the perks that come with having a new school.

The school was scheduled to open in September, but due to minor setbacks related to construction, it opened midway through the school year.

Sistrunk said administrators talked about postponing the opening date, perhaps being regarded as an odd time to open a school.

Angie Valencia, [phone]

angie.valencia(at)dailynews.com