EL DORADO — Members of the Norphlet community and others cleaned and prepared for classes to continue last week after a fire at Norphlet High School’s main building.
Norphlet High School Principal Keith Coleman said that after the April 4 blaze was under control, Assistant Superintendent John Gross started contacting people to help in the cleanup efforts.
“He contacted a disaster relief crew,” Coleman said, “and they were here by 11:30 a.m. that day to begin cleanup.”
Meanwhile, Coleman called others to help.
Their teamwork involved organizing and reassigning teachers to classrooms all across the campus, five of which are in the elementary school area.
The disaster relief team — as well as many community members in the Norphlet area — pitched in by taking items out of classrooms, cleaning them up and getting them organized for classes.
The team collected all items from lockers, boxed them up and labeled each by their locker number. Workers also underwent the process of fumigating each box for students.
“We won’t have school in that building anymore this year … the smoke damage is so extensive,” Coleman said.
As for the school day, students reported to the auditorium for directions on where classes would be held. Coleman said the day went fairly smoothly.
“We changed classes by clocks on our phones, not bells. I even rang a cowbell at lunch for them to come in … We are just doing with what we have,” he explained.
Lyn Jackson, the high school’s librarian, said she is now seeking donations of books, as most of what was in the library was lost.
“I want to keep my kids reading, mostly fiction, magazines — anything appropriate for seventh through 12th grades right now,” Jackson said. “I just need some reading material for them.”
Other items that were lost included the laptop computers. Coleman said it would have cost just as much to clean them as to purchase new ones.
Coleman thanked everyone who helped.
“There were a lot of people that put in countless hours over this [past] Easter weekend to make this thing happen,” he said. “The community helped with cleaning, the First Baptist Church Norphlet and Banderas provided lunch for every teacher in this district today.
“You can look for good in every situation, and it has been a joy to watch the people come together and make this thing work,” he said.
First Baptist Church Norphlet also donated paper, notebooks, pens, pencils and school supplies for the students.
Because of the merger of the Norphlet and Smackover school districts, there were plans to remodel the school next year, which will house sixth- through eighth-grade students, Coleman said. However, they will have a little more extensive remodeling to do, which he hopes will be complete by the start of classes in the fall.