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The first thing that came to Kierra Bobbitt’s mind when she saw photos of the tornado damage at her middle school was whether she would have to switch schools.
“I remember just being really nervous,” Bobbitt said. “We were not even a full month before school, and I was like, there’s no way we’re going to be able to do anything with almost half the school caved in.”
Bobbitt, a student at Springfield Middle School in Wilson County, was looking forward to her eighth grade year. After an elementary school experience disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Bobbitt wanted to enjoy a normal year and experience the privileges of being the oldest in the building, including the eighth grade formal.
She didn’t know if that was going to happen after an EF-3 tornado with 140 mph winds tore through her school in the early morning of Aug. 8, 2024, just weeks before school was supposed to start.
Sixth grade science teacher Elizabeth Viverette remembers waking up to the sound of text notifications on the morning of Aug. 8 as news got around that the school had been hit by a tornado. Many of the teachers, Viverette included, had already started setting up their classrooms for the year.
“We were all very emotional. We’re a really tight knit community,” Viverette said. “All of the blood, sweat, and tears, so to speak, that you put into teaching and into your classroom and into the preparation for it — it’s kind of like a gut punch.”
First thing that morning, Principal Kelly Thomas held a virtual all-staff meeting. The number one thing she heard from her staff was that they didn’t want to go virtual and they didn’t want to be split up. She heard the same thing as she checked in with families and students over the weekend, including from her daughter, Mackenzie, who is a seventh grader at the school.
“I wanted to make sure that all of the students could be at school, not just for my own child, but to make sure all of them could be here and be together because we are close knit. The kids really do support one another in all grade levels,” Thomas said.
When Thomas shared those wishes with Superintendent Dr. Lane Mills and his team the following Monday, they listened and asked how they could help make that happen.
“Our principals lead their schools. They lead their buildings,” said Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services Dr. Ben Williams. “So when we are in the process of making decisions about things, they are at the table having those conversations with us, especially in a situation like this.”
An initial assessment of the damage revealed that the sixth and seventh grade wings were completely unusable, so Thomas and her team set about looking for a way to utilize the undamaged spaces to house those two grades — 282 students in total.
Once she was able to get back in the building and walk through the space, Thomas landed on housing the sixth grade in the auditorium and the seventh grade in the media center. Elective teachers gave up their classrooms to house some of the classes, and those elective classes were moved to whatever empty space could be utilized — including a hallway.
“There were definitely some moments of, I don’t know if this is gonna work,” Thomas said. “It was everybody around the building really, truly helping move stuff, make your room set up, … and game planning with each other to come up with solutions.”
While Thomas and her team were coming up with these solutions, district administration started working with the North Carolina Department of Insurance to get modular units to house the sixth and seventh grades longer term while those wings are rebuilt.
The modular units were delivered the last week of September, and students will move into them on Monday, Dec. 2nd.
Collaboration and creative problem solving
When asked what he is most excited about this school year, sixth grader Carlos Ramirez said without hesitation that it was moving into the modular buildings. While the students are glad the school found a way to keep them together, they are getting a little tired of all being in the same room, whether the auditorium or the media center.
Thomas decided to put the sixth graders in the auditorium because she knew her sixth grade teachers could handle what the plan would require.
Rather than having classes rotate through different classrooms, the whole sixth grade — all 134 of them — take each subject together in the auditorium. Each class sits in its own section, and when the teachers are not actively teaching the lesson at the front, they are working with their section, answering questions and assisting the lead teacher. It’s taken a lot of collaboration and teamwork to pull this off, Viverette said.
“We’ve got five women sharing the same space,” she said, laughing. “We all do things a little differently, and so we’ve had to learn to truly co-teach.”
Viverette said that while challenging, the situation has had some silver linings.
“A lot of times, especially in middle school, you get stuck in your own space, so it’s been a wonderful opportunity to see other teachers teach, to see strategies and different things that they use for behavior management, instructional strategies,” she said. “So that’s been a bonus.”
There’s been another bonus for students, Viverette and Thomas said. Springfield Middle School feeds from two different elementary schools, and adjusting to a new school and new peers can make sixth grade hard. This experience has really bonded the students and created a social cohesion that has been beneficial for the new sixth graders.
“Half of your grade level knows each other and half doesn’t, but this has put them all to learn and know each other as well, too, so I think that’s been a blessing for sixth grade coming in,” Thomas said.
Communication and overwhelming community support
When asked what he’s learned from this experience, sixth grader Ramirez said, “That problems can be resolved.”
There isn’t a playbook on what to do when your school is hit by a tornado, Thomas said. However, they have learned some lessons throughout this process that they will take with them should this, or anything like it, happen again.
Thomas, Williams, and Viverette all emphasized how important open communication between all parties has been.
That first morning after the tornado hit, Thomas met with all her staff and then talked with families and students. Viverette emphasized how important that initial staff meeting was to allow them all to process and grieve together, and Ramirez said he was thankful for how everyone had communicated with the students.
Students, teachers, and administration emphasized how grateful they are for the support they’ve received from their community, other schools in the district, and the county as a whole. This experience has shown how much the community supports their school, Thomas said.
Thomas gave the example of community members cleaning up the remaining debris from the tornado the Friday before school started because they didn’t want students to see any remnants of the tornado on their first day.
“The community is extremely supportive of anything that happens here at school,” she said. “They have stood behind us 100% to make sure whatever is needed is happening.”
The school has raised over $30,000 in donations and countless more in donated supplies, said Wilson County Public Relations Director Amber Lynch.
Williams also emphasized the close partnerships the district has across the county.
“You think of an agency or a group, and we have close partnerships with them that they’ll do anything for us and we’ll do anything for them,” he said. “That is what really lifts up and carries us through various things that we see — it’s those close partnerships. It really matters.”
Groups like the Wilson Education Partnership have donated lunches for staff. Two signs reading “Welcome Back Wildcats,” one for the front of the school and one for the back entrance, were donated, and Thomas had every student go take a picture with the sign that first day.
“Everybody really showed how much they care,” Bobbitt said. “It was just really nice to see we are supported as a school.”
