![]() ![]() 6, nearly one month from the district’s planned start date of Aug. The building opened for the new school year on Tuesday, Sept. The other is painted purple, for Buckhorn. One wing of the school is painted blue, for Robinson. … It was so important to keep everyone together, we would have done anything,” Hall said. “We have had volunteers, our classified staff … has come in and worked even when they didn’t have to. However, the school required repairs before it could be used. I said, ‘This might just work,’” Jett said. “We drove down there, walked around the building, looked at things. The building was once the largest elementary school in Perry County and held more than 700 students. Combs Elementary campus, a building empty for the last half-decade after school consolidations. Jett said one district leader mentioned the idea of using the old A.B. Perry County Superintendent Jonathan Jett aimed to provide students with some sense of normalcy at school, but with damages to the facilities, he was unsure how to go about it. To see it full of mud and everything you’ve worked for and everything the people that you love have worked for, underwater … it was heart-wrenching.” “I graduated 8th grade there, taught there, grew up in that building. We dug through the mud to try to get pictures, just anything,” she said. “Mud up to your knees, everything in my classroom was overturned, gone. Many of the building’s doors were ripped from their hinges, its fence pulled from its posts and classroom items caked in mud. Piles of debris lined the Buckhorn School campus for weeks after the flooding. When Hall left the school building in May, she said she could not imagine the scene she returned to after July’s flooding.Īn educator like generations of her family before her, Hall had planned to inherit a classroom from her aunt, who retired after four decades of service in Perry County. The flood recovery effort in Perry County is expected to take years. And that’s going to be my next focus,” she said. “I still have a lot of families who need a lot of work done, like in their homes. She has now shifted to long-term needs, working to establish stability in her students’ lives. ![]() She started by focusing on immediate needs, like clothing, food and hygiene products. Judy Eversole, Family Resource/Youth Service Center coordinator at Buckhorn School, continued to serve her community without a building. So I knew that if it had gotten that high in the school, then we had kids who were homeless,” she said. “The first thing I thought about when I saw (the building) was ‘What about our kids?’ We have so many kids that live on the riverbanks. 30 and 31, said her focus was not on the damage to the school building where she teaches, but rather on the families and students she serves. Glass during his visit with eastern Kentucky school districts on Aug. There was no way out of there,” Napier said.Ĭourtney Hall, a 2nd-grade teacher at Robinson Elementary who talked with Kentucky Commissioner of Education Jason E. We were climbing over mudslides, greeting people … everybody was trying to get out. “The water finally came down, and my dad walked our holler, miles down the holler, to come get me. She found her father – who was looking for her – and safety. It was still raining, and we were trying to get out,” she said. “We stayed near (our property) for about 24 hours. In a different community in Perry County, Kylie Napier, a senior at Buckhorn School (Perry County), lost her home that night. Families, communities and schools pulled together to survive. ![]() Far removed from major cities and resources, and deep in the mountains in coal country, many in eastern Kentucky have learned to rely on themselves, and each other. “We had to save my family out of a second story window.”įugate’s home has now been stripped to the studs and his school building deemed a total loss.įugate’s story and that of others in eastern Kentucky school districts during the flooding show the grit and resilience that part of the state has long been known for. Then she called about 15 minutes later, and she said it was in our home,” said Fugate, principal of Robinson Elementary. “My wife called me around 2:00 that morning. 31, 2022.Īs floodwaters began to quickly overtake his community on July 28, Jamie Fugate found himself some three hours away getting panicked phone calls.įor Fugate, a principal in Perry County, the Kentucky Association of School Administrators (KASA) conference in Louisville ended abruptly and ahead of schedule. Hall’s focus is now on building stability for her students. Courtney Hall, 2nd-grade teacher at Robinson Elementary, greets a student on their first day of school at the A.B. ![]()
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