How Good is It?

The school cafeteria served corn dogs today, and most of the munchkins were very excited. When I asked them if it was good, my favorite response came from Fernando: "It's so good, it's ROCK STAR good!" Followed by some air guitar on his half-eaten corn dog. My guess is "Rock Star Good" is pretty amazingly good, indeed.

Misnomer

I was helping to create a spreadsheet today at school and, as I went through the class rosters I discovered we have a student enrolled whose name is Maybe. Now, I'm sure her parents/family pronounces it MY-bay (which is how you'd say it in Spanish), but still.....maybe that wasn't the best idea. ;-)

Fire Update 2

Highlights:

• SJFD has determined the fire was deliberately set and are conducting an active arson investigation.
• Other than the foundation and concrete pillars, the old building is completely demolished and the rubble has been cleared.
• The majority of the portable classrooms (all 1st and 2nd grade classes, a library, and a cafeteria) will be across the street, on Hoover Middle School's field.
• Three portables (for 3rd grade) will be on the Trace site, along with the resource room, ELD coach room, RSP room, speech room, and another library.
• Construction started last week to prepare space for the portables. We are guaranteed to be in by August 14 (though here's hoping it's sooner, since two days before school starts is NOT much!)
• Insurance will cover/reimburse "everything". When that actually happens, and whether or not everything actually means EVERYthing, we still don't know. Making the list for the insurance agency is HARD. Every time I work on it I remember more things I held dear and have now lost. Sigh.....I know it will be better in the future, but it's still difficult at present.

Some GOOD news:

• One of my former students contacted me and donated 20 or 30 of her own books to help rebuild my classroom library.
• Shaine's sister-in-law, Jen, used to teach and gave me a box full of really good teacher books - hooray!
• My mother-in-law and husband found a garage sale with a bunch of children's books in Spanish (and they bought all of them, of course.) ;-) Plus, Diane found some sweet book-related fabric and is making a pillow cover for my class.
• The Friends of the Library is holding a book sale to raise money for the school, and they let us come through and pick out any books we wanted before the sale.
• Various friends have what and how to donate, including Shaine making me into a service project for her former single's ward. Sweeeeet.

And so it goes - onward and upward. Thank you for all of your help and support, and happy rebuilding!

School Fire Update

I should probably call this "Update #1", as I'm sure there will be more information forthcoming. For the moment, however, this is what I've got for you:

The school is still in the Fire Department's possession and is a crime scene. The FD should complete their investigation within the next two days, at which point the school will be turned over to SJUSD. Once the district is allowed to access the campus, salvage crews will go in to save what they can (most likely nothing), as well as to mitigate any smoke damage in the remaining buildings. We're told the rest of the school - even the six classrooms twenty feet away from the main building - have only very minor smoke and water damage.

At this point I have to interject with a giant HOORAY! for the San Jose Fire Department. They were on-site within five minutes of the first call, and at the peak of the action 30 of the city's 35 engines and 100 firefighters were working to safely put out Building A and keep the surrounding buildings, trees, and homes from burning. They did an amazing job - as you can see, the trees right outside my classroom door are still alive, and this was a six-alarm fire that completely destroyed the 25,000 square foot building and which is, in fact, still smoldering 36 hours after the fire started. Thank you, SJFD, for your efforts on behalf of the Trace/Rose Garden community!

Returning to the timeline as it now stands: after the district's salvage crew goes in we will decide (rapidly, as we only have SIX WEEKS until school starts), the footprint and location of the new building. Once that is determined portable classrooms will be installed. We (the teachers) are all hoping against hope the portables will be in place at least a week before school starts. The school district is dedicated to keeping us on-site, so we'll see where they squeeze 16-20 portable rooms.

We were informed today that insurance will cover furniture, materials, and some of our education-related personal purchases. This means that eventually (hopefully by August 12!) we will have replacement desks, tables, chairs, computers, projectors, document cameras, paper, pencils, etcetera. We may or may not have the money to replace the items we've purchased on our own (classroom library books, literacy kits, science and social studies realia, etc.)

Fortunately, the community is already asking how they can help us, many teachers throughout the district are offering materials and time, and at least one school has volunteered to adopt a classroom. I'm doing okay at the moment, but I know my stress level will go up and up at least until I have a classroom. Once I have a room and an insurance reimbursement I can start to get back on my feet. It should be interesting, going back to how things were when I first started teaching.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE OFFERED TO HELP, you can:

a) wait until I find out exactly what I need (six weeks or so), and pitch in then,
b) watch for Donor's Choose posts to go up and then donate online,
c) send Target or Amazon gift cards, and/or
d) any combination of the above.

If you go for option C, you can mail things to our home address or to Robb's work address:

Robb Thurmond

Trace Donations

46269 Warm Springs Blvd.

Fremont, CA 94539

Thank you all for your support. You can't imagine how helpful it is to know you care and are ready and willing to help.

Playtime's Over...

So I had a fantastic time in Spain and then at the Santa Cruz beach house with the Klima/Davis clan. We tore ourselves away rather reluctantly, and arrived home around 3:00 pm. After ten days away from my laptop and cell phone I settled down to check my school e-mail and listen to my voice mails.

The first message I saw in my school inbox was titled "Trace Fire". My initial thought was there had been a room fire or something of that nature. The reality, however, is that half of my school burned to the ground early this morning. My classroom, along with fifteen others, our school library, four resource rooms, and a mobile laptop classroom (30 laptops) went up in flames.

I didn't have a large collection of personal items in my classroom, but as I try and list what I lost it becomes more and more real to me. Things will be rebuilt and replaced, and in the meantime I'll do my best to remind myself to be grateful most of what was lost can be restored.