SULLIVAN TWP. — The new school year that began Tuesday is a lot quieter than fourth grade for Black River’s fifth-graders.
While construction will soon begin on the Black River Education Center’s damaged gym roof, the fifth-grade class and preschool students have been moved down the street to the Homerville Community Center.
Black River officials decided to move the classes because the modular classrooms they would normally be in are too close to the damaged roof of the BREC and the construction that will soon be going on there.
On Aug. 9, an F1 tornado touched down in Sullivan Township and damaged the BREC and other school property.
The modular classrooms used for preschool sustained roof and water damage. In addition, the back windows on two school buses were blown out and a van and a car owned by the school were hit by debris.
School, however, goes on. Things are just slightly “rearranged,†as Black River Elementary School Principal Pam Oberholtzer put it.
Gym classes meet in the band room, where students get in their daily physical activity with trombone and tuba cases pushed to the side of the room.
Middle school band and choir classes meet on the stage of the auditorium, where the teachers have wheeled in a blackboard to write out the day’s lessons.
And, of course, the school’s 115 fifth-graders and 75 to 90 preschool students spend most of their day at Homerville Community Center, which housed kindergarten and first-grade students prior to the opening of the BREC in 1996.
“We just have to be flexible,†Oberholtzer said.
Everyone had to be flexible, down to the custodial staff, Oberholtzer said, to make the rearrangements necessary to prepare the damaged school for the start of the year.
Custodians transported materials back and forth between the BREC and the community center. The school district’s technology support staff worked on getting the center tech-ready by transporting projectors and setting up a wireless system for the teachers.
“We are having a few technical glitches,†said the school’s assistant principal, Tammy Starkey. She added that everything ran fine despite the hitch or two.
The children arrive at the community center every morning by way of the BREC. Their usual bus takes them to the school, where they have breakfast and their “specials,†classes such as technology, art and physical education.
Afterward, the children take a shuttle bus to the community center, where they have their regular classes.
“It looks like a school. It feels like a school. The kids are here and they’re ready to learn,†Starkey said.
The building, however, is not simply a school. There was a family reunion held at the center on Sunday. Wednesday morning, a tai chi class met in the building’s gym. On Thursday, the auditor’s office will hold meetings there, pushing the children’s lunch into their classrooms.
“Some of them really love it over there. Some of them miss the school here,†Oberholtzer said. “They miss the air conditioning.â€
But the children will not spend their entire fifth-grade year at the community center. Black River Superintendent Janice Wyckoff said she hopes to have the construction on the gym roof done by November.
At that time, she hopes to have both the fifth-graders and preschool students back to school in the BREC.
Further minor repairs, such as of the main body of the roof over the kitchen and elementary school, are expected to be completed in the summer of 2008.
Bids for the work have not yet been put out and the school has not received an estimate of the cost of repairing the damage.
Kacik may be reached at 330-721-4046 or mkacik@ohio.net.
