Parting Was Such Sweet Sorrow : Teacher Has a Tizzy on Last Day of School

It was the last day of school. So, of course, first-grade teacher Cheryl Apgar threw a tizzy fit.

Her students at Mariners Elementary School in Newport Beach, in fact, demanded it.

“Have a tizzy fit! Have a tizzy fit,” the youngsters chanted as they sat at their desks.

Apgar smiled. “Oh, all right,” she said. She then took off her shoes and climbed atop a table. Dancing up and down and yelling, Apgar waved her hands in the air and screeched happily.

The children laughed and clapped. “I like her tizzy fits,” said Annie Delaney, 7, one of the smiling students.

To guests and parents in the room, Apgar said, “This is somewhat embarrassing. But, you see, when my students do something very good in this class, I have a happy tizzy fit.”

Another first-grade student added, “Sometimes we all get to have a tizzy fit. And that’s fun.”

In a manner of speaking, all of Mariners Elementary School on Thursday was celebrating the last day of school with a tizzy fit. Teachers, parents and students agreed that it had been a good year.

Tears intermingled with laughter from time to time. “This is a very emotional day for all of us,” said Apgar, who burst into silent tears when opening a farewell present from one little girl. It was an album of photos of Apgar and her students.

“This is such an emotional day that it’s a good thing that most of the day is taken up with the talent show,” Apgar said.

The talent show is a last-day-of-school tradition at Mariners Elementary, said Principal Alvin Zeidman. Students from all classes spend weeks preparing the skits, dances, acrobatic acts and comedy routines for the show.

From 9:30 a.m. to shortly after noon on Thursday, the Mariners students gathered in the large multipurpose room of the school at 2100 Mariners Drive. Parents, grandparents and teachers joined and most sat on the floor.

Fifth-grader Scott Summers got enthusiastic applause for his cartwheels and backflips, but another act, a girls’ dance group, found their tape cassette wouldn’t play properly. They were cheered on anyway.

More events than vaudeville in its heyday unfolded on the small stage. A group of girls and one boy, all dressed in 1950s-style clothes, danced to a recording of “Lollipop.” The girls smiled; the boy didn’t. “My sister talked me into this,” he confided later.

The last goodbys came after the morning talent show, when children marched back to their classrooms to clean out their desks.

In Apgar’s classroom, a picnic-style lunch preceded the cleaning out of desks. “We’re going to have an earthquake lunch,” she told the class. The children cheered. To visitors, Apgar explained that Mariners School has the children bring canned and other non-perishable food to the school in September. “It’s kepthere all year round in case there is an earthquake and parents can’t get to their children,” Apgar said. “We have food enough to feed everyone for two days. But on this final day of school we celebrate the fact that we didn’t have an earthquake, and we open up the food and eat it.”

The first-graders opened pop-top cans of food. “Ugh,” groaned one little boy. “It’s tuna ! Tuna and no bread, can you imagine that?”

Teacher Apgar kept the children amused with funny stories and the command-performance staging of her tizzy fit. Ultimately, the final class buzzer sounded: the end of the last day of school.

Tears in her eyes, Apgar went to the door and bade the children goodby. “I love you guys,” she said. “Hey, you made it! You’re big second-graders now.”