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In Helene-battered towns, many schools are still closed. What that means for recovery.
In Helene-battered towns, many schools are still closed. What that means for recovery.
Experts say when, or if, schools reopen will not only determine how families and school staff recover, but also how battered communities bounce back.
7 min read
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
Piles of post-storm dirt and debris in the wake of Helene outside an elementary school in Burnsville, N.C. (Photos by Allison Joyce for The Washington Post)
By Allyson Chiu and Nicolás Rivero
October 20, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
A week after Helene’s floodwaters swept through western North Carolina, Chris King returned to his middle school classroom for one last time.
Maintenance crews had already tried to salvage valuable educational materials from the Valle Crucis School in Watauga County, where more than a dozen classrooms flooded, some with as much as five feet of water. While King’s seventh- and eighth-grade English classroom was in a more elevated part of the school and spared, he and the rest of the teachers, staff and roughly 400 students won’t be coming back to this campus nestled in the mountains. He had gone back to save some personal mementos: family photos, a painting a former student had given him, the name plate on his door.
“As I was pulling it off, there were tears in my eyes,” said King, 52, who grew up in the county and has been teaching in the district for 27 years. “I cannot express enough what this community means.”
Helene had damaged the school beyond repair. When classes restart for the school’s pre-K to eighth-grade students — on a date yet unknown — Valle Crucis is planning to relocate to a temporary space, King said. Faculty and students will be sent to a nearby community center or a local community college. Eventually, the school will move into a new campus on higher ground, one that was already under construction and survived the storm.
Snip...
No paywall. Gift link.
https://wapo.st/3UiuXRV
Experts say when, or if, schools reopen will not only determine how families and school staff recover, but also how battered communities bounce back.
7 min read
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
Piles of post-storm dirt and debris in the wake of Helene outside an elementary school in Burnsville, N.C. (Photos by Allison Joyce for The Washington Post)
By Allyson Chiu and Nicolás Rivero
October 20, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
A week after Helene’s floodwaters swept through western North Carolina, Chris King returned to his middle school classroom for one last time.
Maintenance crews had already tried to salvage valuable educational materials from the Valle Crucis School in Watauga County, where more than a dozen classrooms flooded, some with as much as five feet of water. While King’s seventh- and eighth-grade English classroom was in a more elevated part of the school and spared, he and the rest of the teachers, staff and roughly 400 students won’t be coming back to this campus nestled in the mountains. He had gone back to save some personal mementos: family photos, a painting a former student had given him, the name plate on his door.
“As I was pulling it off, there were tears in my eyes,” said King, 52, who grew up in the county and has been teaching in the district for 27 years. “I cannot express enough what this community means.”
Helene had damaged the school beyond repair. When classes restart for the school’s pre-K to eighth-grade students — on a date yet unknown — Valle Crucis is planning to relocate to a temporary space, King said. Faculty and students will be sent to a nearby community center or a local community college. Eventually, the school will move into a new campus on higher ground, one that was already under construction and survived the storm.
Snip...
No paywall. Gift link.
https://wapo.st/3UiuXRV
❤️pants