NEW ALBANY, Ind. - Hundreds of children returned to the business of reading, writing and arithmetic on Wednesday for the first time since a tornado tore through their school nearly three weeks ago, beginning the day with a 20-mile bus ride through the southern Indiana countryside to the rented church building where they'll finish off the semester.
"Welcome back to school!" volunteers exclaimed as they welcomed the nearly 700 displaced Henryville Elementary School students to the Graceland Baptist Church's educational building in New Albany. Some students raised their arms in triumph when getting off the bus, while others giggled trying to avoid the soap bubbles volunteers blew at them as they entered the building.
Principal Glenn Riggs insisted that the kindergarten through sixth grade students were thrilled to return to school, although some students showed the excitement one might expect of children returning to their studies after a long break.
"Today is like Christmas Day - it's a wonderful, exciting day," Riggs said outside the building, which abuts a small pasture where horses were grazing. "There's been a lot of sacrifices to make this happen in this short a period of time. We feel blessed to be here."
The students had been idle since March 2, when a powerful line of storms pushed through a wide swath of the Midwest and South, spawning tornadoes, including the one that heavily damaged the Henryville school complex, that killed 13 Indiana residents. Nearly all of the students had left for the day when the tornado struck, and no one still in the school was injured, but the homes of about a dozen students were heavily damaged or destroyed.
Riggs said the district had to start from scratch to restart classes by getting donated desks and other schools supplies because so little could be salvaged from the storm-battered school.
"The teachers are starting classrooms from nothing. But we have all the lives and all the creativity and all the wonderful folks, the staff and the children," he said.
Seventeen school buses that followed their normal routes, with the exception of a longer trek to New Albany in adjacent Floyd County, delivered most of the students to the school, but dozens of others were dropped off by their parents.
Brad Fogel, of Sellersburg, drove his 9-year-old daughter Jacqueline, to the school and walked the third-grader inside.
"Nobody asks for their school to be blown up by a tornado - except maybe on test days," he said with a laugh. "But I think they want to be back and see their friends. That's what school is. When you're a kid you want to hang out with your friends, even at school."
Jacqueline said she had been spending time with some of her classmates since the storm, but was looking forward to seeing others and to her favorite class, art. She said she had spoken to her teacher on the phone once since the storm.
"She asked me if I was OK and if I was practicing math," she said, adding that she had not paid as much attention to that subject as she should have.
Teaching assistant Marie Butts, whose 12-year-old son Jacob and 8-year-old daughter Jessy are Henryville students, said she was eager to see her students.
"I want to give them all a big hug and let them know that I love them and I'm still here for them," Butts said. "I just want them to know that it's all OK."
Jacob said he wasn't too excited about the return of tests and school work but was eager to see his friends. He said he didn't get bored during his time away from school because he was busy helping his father repair the roof of their Henryville home.
"We had bad damage from the hail, so I've been helping work on that," he said. "But I'm hoping to see all my friends today."
John Reed, the assistant superintendent for West Clark Community Schools, said the students will finish out the school year at the New Albany site but that the district hopes to have the Henryville school complex rebuilt by the Sept. 1 start of the school year. Middle and high school students whose classrooms were also damaged March 2 will resume classes April 2 at a site in Scottsburg.
Reed said Wednesday's return to school was an emotional moment of relief for the staff.
"I have to say that the best sounds I've ever heard were inside there - 700 kids, all of them yacking at the same time because they're so excited. The chatter - I don't think I've ever heard sounds like that. There's lots of excitement," he said.
The students will attend three days of classes before going on spring break, and Riggs said counselors would be on hand and teachers have been prepared for emotional students recounting the terrifying storm.
"We're going to let children tell their story. Everybody has a story, that's what we found out even with our staff. Everybody has something that they saw, that impacted them. So we're going to allow that on an individual basis, with their teacher, where their comfort zone is," he said.
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