ASHEVILLE – Though power and other vital utilities are slowly returning to schools in Asheville and Buncombe County, there is still plenty of work to be done before students can return to class.
Superintendent Rob Jackson told the Citizen Times that Buncombe County Schools were “blessed” to have suffered no major damages to any campus. As of an Oct. 9 briefing from Buncombe County, only five of 45 schools were without power — but 32 of the 45 were still without running water.
“To open our schools, we need 939 portable toilets and 391 handwashing stations,” Jackson said in the Oct. 9 briefing. “This comes with a large financial burden, especially in a large school system with 45 schools and 22,000 students.”
Jackson said the district has turned to emergency management authorities to help. BCS has put in a request to get portable restroom facilities on campuses as soon as possible.
More: The latest on Western NC schools: See which systems are open, opening or closed after Helene
While BCS has no specific goal reopening date announced, Asheville City Schools Superintendent Maggie Fehrman offered Oct. 28 as their target date for fully reopening schools at the same briefing. Fehrman said that promised well-digging efforts were starting strong, with groundwater located at Hall Fletcher Elementary’s new well.
Both districts have offered resources to families and students as WNC recovers from Helene’s destruction including food, water, and directories of additional assistance. BCS provided a long list of community resources through the district website in addition to social media updates. ACS posts regular updates on the district Facebook page, from food, water and toiletries to FEMA assistance clinic information and more.
What are teachers doing?
Teacher pay has long been a contentious issue in WNC. Jackson said that BCS has informed the entire staff, educators included, that their salaries will “not be impacted by the storm.” At the moment, many BCS staff members are actively engaged in the district’s response efforts, helping to distribute supplies and other aid to the community.
“Our immediate first response was to work with our county leaders to offer our help in any way we possibly could, because we live here, we care about our neighbors and friends, we love our students and our staff, and so it is in an educator’s DNA to help, and we’ve been honored to do everything we possibly could to help our community,” Jackson said.
Tim Lloyd, president of the Asheville City Association of Educators, said he felt the district handled the situation well, checking in on staff following the storm and providing vital supplies to teachers and students alike. He also said that pay has continued in the district, though he was uncertain as to how long it would continue with schools closed. Like BCS, many ACS educators are assisting with outreach during closures.
“All work that’s being done is volunteer, which is actually very good, because many people want to volunteer and they want to help out at different sites, handing out aid, checking in on people, doing whatever they can,” Lloyd said. “But we do think that within at least a couple weeks, some staff will be returning back to schools.”
How will closures affect academic progress?
Jackson said that, when it comes to academics, BCS is confident that students aren’t in danger of falling too far behind. Part of the confidence in this process lay in practice teachers had in the restart process.
“Our teachers and staff had preparation for this through the pandemic, and so we’ve certainly worked on helping our students recover from the academic learning loss that was experienced during the pandemic, and have felt really good about the metrics that we were seeing prior to this storm. And so I remain confident in our faculty and staff that we’ll be able to help our students recover from any learning loss and then continue to progress forward.”
During the Oct. 9 county briefing, Fehrman spoke on ACS bridge learning plans beginning Oct. 14 at Isaac Dixon and Haw Fletcher Elementary Schools for students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
“We know that bridge learning is meant in no way to meet all the educational, social and emotional needs of our students,” Fehrman said. “We know that can only be done through fully reopening our schools. We do hope that bridge learning provides our students and families with a bit of normalcy, and an opportunity for our students to gather, learn and have fun together while we continue to fully dedicate our time to opening our schools.”
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Messages to the community
Lloyd summed up ACS teacher experiences as he had observed them during closures.
“Everybody right now is very much feeling the itch to actually get back in schools, both because they really enjoy their jobs and they really enjoy helping out students, and they also know that many parents are also wanting to return soon as well,” Lloyd said.
On behalf of BCS, Jackson signed off with a message for the community.
“Our hearts are breaking for all of the loss that our community has suffered, loss of loved ones, loss of homes, significant damage to homes. And we stand with our community. We know that we are strong as a community and resilient as a community.”
Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at iseaton@citizentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Indefinite WNC school closures brought by Helene: What we know
