Students from four flood-affected schools in Kanawha County won't start the school year Monday as originally planned.
Parents were alerted Saturday evening by robo-call that students at Bridge Elementary, Clendenin Elementary, Elkview Middle and Herbert Hoover High School won't go back to school until Wednesday Aug. 10.
Not long after learning that the damage Clendenin Elementary received during the late-June floods equals about 97 percent of its $3.7 million appraised value, the Kanawha County school board announced the school would close down while another one is built. In the meantime, those students will go to class at Bridge Elementary.
Before that, officials learned that the damage Herbert Hoover High received during the flood equals 70 percent of its $17.6 million appraised value. That school, too, will be razed so another school can be built. Those students where scheduled to share the facility at Elkview Middle until a school could be built.
Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Duerring said Bridge Elementary and Elkview Middle still need time to move in more furniture and to get ready for an increase in the number of students at each facility.
"We just needed a couple of more days to finalize and finish everything up," Duerring said Saturday. "Just putting the finishing touches on it. It took a little bit more time."
Duerring said that those schools will for sure start Wednesday and there will be no further delays.
Parents learned during a special meeting of the Kanawha County school board that students from both elementary schools will share one facility. County officials told parents that students will double up in classrooms until portable classrooms can be delivered to Bridge Elementary sometime after school Starts.
Duerring estimated that the portable classrooms should be there 30-40 days after the start of school, but that it could take longer.
More students under one school will mean class sizes will increase. Whereas both schools normally had a class size between 18-25, now classes will hold up to 40 students each.
Jane Roberts, the school system's assistant superintendent over elementary schools, said teachers from both elementary schools are ready to co-teach their classes and are eager to jump into the start of a new school year.
At a special meeting in Elkview Middle more than two weeks ago, parents learned that Herbert Hoover would never reopen.
At the meeting, the school's Principal Mike Kelly said the county planned to fix the school's athletic facilities to continue to host sporting events there, but that it might be donated back to the community later on.
Herbert Hoover students will temporarily attend classes in the middle school until portable classrooms can be deliver, which Charles Wilson, Kanawha's executive director of facilities planning, estimated could take as long as 100 days to happen.
Middle-schoolers will attend in the morning, and high-schoolers in the afternoon.