A brief but eventful special meeting of the Perry County School District 32, which included an update on the school district after an EF1 tornado damaged multiple buildings last month, was held Wednesday, March 26, in the Career Center Multipurpose Room.
Board President Nancy Voelker was the first to address the board and those attending the meeting.
"Things are not perfect, things are not pretty, but we can teach, and students can learn,” she said. “I think that has remained our focus through this whole entire time. I'm very proud that that has been our focus. We are going to have our students back on campus for instruction. We'll have that done by next week on Wednesday. Our high schoolers will be coming back on Wednesday. I just want to say great work and thanks to our administrative team, technology, maintenance, first response, first site responders, CJ Huff, our resource officers and anyone that has helped us in any way to get to this point.
“It's taken a lot of work and a lot of hours to get to this point and I want to thank everybody for helping us get to that point. I also want to thank our community for their support. We are ‘Pirate Strong,’ and we will get there. It's still going to take us a lot of time, but we're going to get there and we're going to need a lot more community support, a lot more parent support because we've lost some instructional time, and we've got to get back to classes and we've got to buckle down and our students have got to get back to learning. So, thank you all for coming and being a part of this and I just want to thank everybody that's helped us get to this point and will continue to help us along the way.”
President Voelker next introduced Superintendent Dr. Fara Jones, who gave an update on the state of the school district’s buildings.
“It's been a great week for us,” Jones said. “We've accomplished a lot. We are tired. We worked hard. We're very proud of what we've been able to plan. We brought the primary and the career center students back to campus on Monday, and the elementary students were so excited to be here today. Our middle school students will be back on Friday, and then our big news today is that our high school students will be coming back on campus to be with us on Wednesday. So that brings everyone back to campus, but it doesn't necessarily bring them back to exactly where they were before.
“We have found learning spaces all over campus for our high school students and staff. It has taken a lot of planning, a lot of effort, a lot of moving and everyone has just been wonderful and so willing to give up space for kids and for teachers that would give them at least the end of this school year. This is temporary. This is temporary to get us through the next six, seven weeks of school to get us to the end of the school year. As the board president said, we still have a lot of work to do. We had some very significant damage to the high school. We still are not able to access that area just yet but we're not going to sit and wait for that. We're moving on. We've got a plan. We're going to get our kids back. We're going to have a really great end of the school year. A lot of people are wondering what we are going to do. We're wondering the same thing. We have a lot of questions that have not been answered and we're going to need a lot of engagement from our parents and our community members so that we have input and feedback from you all on what you all think is best, as well.
“So, we are going to establish plans to engage our community, to get feedback, to take surveys, to go through that whole process so that everyone is involved in that plan moving forward long-range. We haven't been focused on that just yet. We've been focused on our kids and getting them back. Once they're here, we'll be ready to start that work moving forward. All of the areas that's going to be used by students and staff, those have been tested, and they are all negative for asbestos. Some areas in our high school are still being tested. We are still waiting on some results from some of those areas. This testing will determine when and if we can get materials and supplies out of those spaces and move those over into the new learning spaces. But our high school, we're prepared to go, to get our kids, get started and do what we can for our kids. We are also just incredibly proud of everyone, and reality set in for us today when we really started looking at what we've accomplished in this amount of time."
Jones put into perspective the short period of time in which so much has already been accomplished.
“We were hit with a tornado,” she said. “Our campus was hit hard 16 days ago. Our primary students only missed four days of school. Our career center kids only missed four days of school. Our elementary missed six. Our middle schoolers are going to only miss eight, and our high school students are going to miss 11. And their building has significant damage to it.
“So, we are very proud of that. But our recovery from this tornado really has just begun. We have a lot of work to do, and that work will take time, and it will take a lot of input, a lot of people leaning in to help everyone make the right decisions for what our students need. We've accomplished a lot. We have more to do.”
Near the conclusion of the meeting, the board approved the request for qualifications of engineering and architectural services and construction management.
