After the third week of school closures following Tropical Storm Helene, Evergreen Community Charter School’s seventh-grade math and science teacher Oslo Medley took matters into his own hands. Medley knew students needed a sense of normalcy, as well as a place to gather and share stories. Plus, families were in desperate need of childcare.
So he opened an alternative school at Leicester Community Center in Buncombe County for the week of Oct. 14. Between 70 and 100 students in all grades attended daily, with around 10 teachers and counselors present throughout the week.
The focus at Medley’s alternative school was less on academic material and more on simply spending time together, reconnecting with teachers and with their fellow students.
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“Kids often process through play, through socializing with their peers,” Medley told Carolina Public Press. “I’m imagining that their processing and grieving will take place over many months.”
The East Asheville charter school, like many other schools in the disaster area, experienced loss of power, water and internet access, making it impossible to open for students. The school’s first order of business was establishing communication with every family, assessing their situations with surveys and making house calls when necessary.
Monday was the first day back to regular classrooms at Evergreen Community Charter School, as well as at many public school systems throughout the disaster zone.
Though some key sacrifices are being made, most schools in the area — both K-12 schools, universities and community colleges — are opening Monday. Some, though, need to hold out a bit longer. Avery County Schools, for example, aren’t opening until Nov. 6.
Medley says staff at Evergreen is working hard to gauge the condition of students’ home life and mental health after the storm, and adjust the plan for the rest of the semester accordingly. Situations will differ vastly within student bodies. Many are still without internet, compromising their ability to complete their homework. Flexibility is key.
Children, teens, and young adults returning to classrooms across the disaster zone faced serious trauma and threats to their livelihoods over the last month. Teachers and counselors are finding ways to address this, while also dealing with the need to redesign their syllabi to fit material into a truncated semester.
“People are really showing up for kids now,” Medley said. “But my concern is: what will it be like in three months? This is a long game. I remember this narrative when Katrina happened — there’s a lot of resources in the beginning, but as time went on, it became more of a challenge to find those resources.
“We don’t want this to be something that defines or redefines our students in a negative way.”
The traumatic situation kids across Western North Carolina find themselves in makes UNC Asheville education professor Megan Keiser think of this quote from Rachel Remen, a leader in spiritual health care practices: “The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily and not be touched by it is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet.”
Asheville-area students
On Monday, Asheville City Schools, which serve more than 4,100 students across nine schools, reopened to students. The system could not think about reopening until the city got water running through their pipes again, according to school system spokesperson Kim Dechant. As of this week, that water is still not potable, but can be used for flushing toilets and washing hands. The schools are distributing bottled water for drinking.
One sacrifice that Asheville kids are facing this week is hot lunches.
“It’ll be cold sandwiches and ‘grab & go’ meals until we are able to get drinkable water coming through the pipes,” Dechant told CPP. “Lunch and breakfast are definitely compromised.”
Plus, Asheville City Schools are working with the city’s Department of Transportation to rework bus routes. Due to extensive damage to roads in the area, many traditional routes are no longer available. The system is moving to community stops, or centralized stops serving a larger area. The city’s transportation team worked to finalize the new map and notify parents of their new bus stop locations.
On Monday and Tuesday, lesson plans at Asheville City Schools are focused on addressing students’ storm trauma.
“Teachers, staff, social workers, and counselors are working collaboratively to plan group discussions and connect students and employees with resources,” Dechant said.
The situation in Asheville is a microcosm of what schools are going through in wider Buncombe County, where Buncombe County schools serve areas not included within the Asheville City Schools.
Buncombe is one of the largest school districts in the disaster zone, with more than 22,000 students across 45 schools. While Mecklenburg County and Gaston County are both home to larger districts, damage from Helene was much less widespread in those counties.
After the storm, Buncombe County Schools initially predicted students would be back in classrooms by Oct. 6. Nineteen days later, on Friday, Oct. 25, they actually reopened.
Schools across the district were impacted by flooding and loss of utilities, though none sustained serious structural damage, Buncombe County Schools superintendent Rob Jackson told CPP. As of last week, power, internet and nonpotable water flow have been restored to all school buildings.
With power restored, the system restocked freezers and refrigerators in order to prepare for students’ return. Breakfast and lunches will be cold until school cafeterias get access to potable water. Buncombe County Schools also had to redraw routes for county school buses, which travel more than 15,000 miles daily, according to Jackson.
Two-hour delays are in place each day this week at Buncombe County Schools in order to allow bus drivers and families adequate time and daylight to navigate damaged roads.
“We’re grateful for the opportunity for students to see their smiling bus driver, or walk into school and see their favorite cafeteria staff member, their counselor, their principal, their favorite teacher,” Jackson told CPP.
Still, students’ mental health is top of mind.
“We recognize there have been vastly different personal experiences for our families over the last few weeks,” Jamie Johnson, Buncombe County Schools assistant superintendent, told CPP.
“Some families have experienced devastating losses. We know all of our students have been impacted by not being in school and not having that structure.
“They’ve not seen their teachers and friends. That has an impact on students. We are committed to reconnecting with our students, renewing their feeling of security, and renewing what school looks like. We are working to look forward, while not minimizing what they’ve been through.”
Other WNC K-12 schools
In Avery County, students will not be back in classrooms until at least Nov. 6. The main obstacles to reopening are damaged roads and lack of potable water and working sewer systems.
“All mountain counties are built differently, as are different areas within the same county,” Avery County Schools spokesperson Megan Pollard told CPP. “Parts of our county probably would have been ready to roll a week ago. Some, not so much.”
The school system is avoiding opening on Tuesday, Nov. 5, because the county is considering using some schools as voting sites, according to Pollard. The county normally tries to avoid using schools as voting sites, but may be forced to, due to the damage regular voting sites sustained.
“As of two weeks ago, we only had three roads in the county that a school bus could run on safely,” Pollard said. “If there is any part of the shoulder that’s broken off, or any other part of the road that’s compromised, we cannot put a school bus on it.”
Like Asheville City Schools and Buncombe County Schools, the county’s transportation department has been working on new bus routes for Avery County Schools. Some families will have to ride ATVs to get to their pickup points, Pollard said.
One of the two roads leading into Avery High School and Avery Middle School was “completely gone,” according to Pollard, leaving sewer lines exposed.
Originally, the county said it would be months before roads into schools could be repaired or schools could expect potable water. The school system repeatedly pitched their case and got those timelines expedited, according to Pollard.
“You can’t run a school without water and sewer,” Pollard said.
Some portable, outdoor wash stations and restrooms could be a good solution for schools without water, if it wasn’t getting so cold in the mountains, Pollard said. “It’s hard to tell small children to go outside to use the bathroom and wash their hands when it’s 30 degrees outside,” she said.
Some Avery County students and staff members are also still without power or internet at home.
“It will take time for some of these kids to get to a place where they can even learn at all, given the experience they’ve just been through,” Pollard said.
Teachers are doing some home visits for students this week. However, a number of students do not have a home at all.
Avery County Schools runs a homeless education program that usually serves about 60 kids, according to Pollard. Now, because of the storm’s impact, that program is serving more than 300 students.
UNC Health and UNC Charlotte are both providing mental health resources to the Avery school system. They are organizing therapy play groups, therapy dog visits, and boxes of therapeutic supplies.
“We’ve got information out to our staff regarding trauma in the wake of natural disaster, as well as the stages of trauma,” Pollard said.
“We’ve connected with local therapists that will do private, pro bono sessions with families and staff members.”
Discussion groups led by Summit Wellness Centers and Daystar Counseling Ministries were available for students at Avery, Yancey, and Mitchell County Schools at Grassy Creek Baptist Church last week.
Yancey County Schools superintendent Kathy Amos announced that they are closed the week of Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, but she hasn’t announced a reopening date.
“Our schools are transitioning from shelter and donation sites so we can begin to focus on cleaning and our future inspections soon as we prepare for a reopening date in the future,” Amos said in a statement. “The National Guard is moving from the high school to another location in the county so they can continue their service to our community.”
College students
UNC Asheville is continuing the rest of the semester remotely, a decision made by the university’s new provost Yvonne Villanueva-Russell. Those courses resumed virtually on Monday.
“On Oct. 14, the deadline I gave myself to make the decision, there was no water in the city, no water on campus, and based on our surveys, a large majority of students, faculty and staff not only lacked electricity and connectivity, but had actually been displaced,” Villanueva-Russell told CPP.
“Students had gone back home to live with their families, far outside the range of Asheville.”
One UNCA faculty member went to stay with family in Minneapolis after the storm because his apartment building was destroyed.
“He’d like to come back, but he can’t, because the city of Asheville is dealing with an affordable housing shortage, even before the storm,” Villanueva-Russell said. “There’s really no place for him to come back to.”
The university doesn’t want to penalize students and faculty who don’t have the means to return in-person, Villanueva-Russell said. However, now that nonpotable water has been restored to much of the city, they are working to welcome students back to residence halls.
Keiser, the UNC Asheville education professor, said she is concerned with finding a balance between flexibility in deadlines and also providing the structure to help students feel like things are finally returning to normal.
Community colleges in the region are also returning to their semesters as best they can. Asheville-Buncombe Tech’s first day of classes was Monday, with most students attending virtually. A-B Tech is working with the Red Cross to relocate the 60 people who remain at the emergency shelter at the college.
“Until the Red Cross decommissions that shelter, we’re going to be learning at a distance,” college president John Gossett told CPP.
“Another problem is getting drinkable water. Our culinary program, and our cosmetology and barbering programs, depend on it.
“But, it’s hard to teach welding at home, so a lot of students need to be on campus in labs to learn. There are four buildings on campus where students in fields like machining, automotive construction, and electronics, can come learn in person. It’s a hybrid situation, and we want to protect our early college students most of all.”
Blue Ridge Community College, which has campuses in Henderson and Transylvania counties, resumed classes virtually on Oct. 14.
The Henderson County campus sustained major flooding and severed internet lines, college president Laura Leatherwood told CPP.
All roads into campus were impassable for a long time following the storm, and even when roads were partially restored, the campus was being used solely as a FEMA basecamp.
“Who are the kinds of people working to restore our region after the storm?” Leatherwood said. “Electrical linemen, electricians, plumbers, construction workers, HVAC folks, road builders, engineers, masons, heavy equipment operators, first responders, and welders.
“If you think about it, all those people were trained by your local community college. I cannot overstate the importance of community colleges like Blue Ridge as we recover and rebuild from this disaster.”
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