ASHEVILLE, N.C. — When schools reopen here for the first time since Hurricane Helene unleashed a terrifying flood in western North Carolina, teachers won’t just pick up where they left off in their lesson plans. They’ll also provide a space for students to discuss the storm’s life-changing impact on their region.
While all of Asheville City Schools’ students and staff have been found, they’re grieving the deaths of other members of their community. Some have lost their homes. And for nearly three weeks, many have been without electricity or running water.
“We can’t just jump right into the academic side,” said Kim Decant, Asheville City Schools’ chief of staff. “We really need to help them work through the emotions that they’ve experienced because of this trauma.”
Asheville City Schools hopes to welcome the district’s nearly 3,900 students back on Oct. 28, a little more than a month after Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters inundated the region. Virtual learning wasn’t an option when the school was closed because of poor internet connectivity.
School officials say they are doing everything they can to meet their target reopening date, including drilling a well at one elementary school so students can have flush toilets when they return. The city has restored water for toilets and handwashing at all other schools in the district, Dechant said.
Until it reopens, the district has found other ways to help the community: by serving students a grab-and-go lunch and breakfast each day; by organizing donations for families, such as shampoo, batteries, headlamps and blankets as the weather gets colder; and this week, by offering optional hands-on learning in a temporary classroom for a few hours a day. It has given children in grades K-12 the chance to do activities like crafts or board games, eat and connect with other students.
On Monday, in the temporary classroom, there were “a lot of hugs, a lot of tears, but it quickly turned into joy and just being together,” Superintendent Maggie Fehrman said.
On Wednesday, children enjoyed kneading slime between their fingers, playing outside and participating in music and drama in the classroom.
“It was great to see my friends,” said Trenton Williams, 10.
His sister, Rosalyn, 12, added: “It was nice to see classrooms again and be around friends and teachers and get back to almost normal.”
But officials know the challenges for Asheville students won’t end when schools fully reopen. Some of their parents owned businesses that were washed away in Asheville’s famed River Arts District. Popular tourist areas of the city that normally fund schools through sales taxes have been wiped out. School bus routes will have to be adjusted for parts of the city that are still impassable.
And now that schools have been closed for more than a month, teachers will inevitably have to consider students’ learning loss.
“Any learning loss is a problem for teachers,” said math teacher Elzy Lindsey, adding that the pandemic had already disrupted his students’ education. “They were already playing catch-up with Covid.”
There are many logistics to consider before schools reopen, such as securing enough bottled water for each student to drink each day, since the area is still under a boil-water advisory.
Still, Decant said, the district is committed to reopening.
“We are going all out because we know our children need to go to school with teachers,” she said. “They need to have a safe place.”