Gary students return to class at temporary site after tornado damages school
GARY, Ind. (WLS) -- Students attending a Gary, Indiana school damaged by tornadoes went back to class Monday morning, but at a different building.
Drop-off looked a little different Monday for students attending Frankie Woods McCullough Academy in Gary.
ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch
"It's gonna be different for her, so I'm excited to see what she says when she gets home," parent LaToya Hearns said.
Elementary students returned from spring break to another school after the roof was partially torn off when three tornadoes touched down earlier this month.
"It was something that was put in place pretty fast for the kids," grandparent Shekia Goodwin said. "They had the spring break to kind of put it together."
"It's devastating," parent and paraprofessional Daniel Warren said. "We've got to come all the way from where our old school is to come over here. But they still need their education, right?"
It's about 10 minutes away from the heavily damaged building.
"It's out the way," Hearne said. "To come all the way this way when we stay all the way back there, it's a little bit out of the way."
RELATED: NWS confirms 8 tornadoes in Chicago's south suburbs, NW Indiana, 1 injured; cleanup underway
"It gave them somewhere to go without being without school," Goodwin said.
The district is using the Gary Area Career Center instead while officials continue assessing the damage and planning repairs.
"You're always concerned about safety for students and our staff of course and our overall community," Gary Superintendent Dr. Yvonne Stokes said. "So we went out and assessed the situation from that perspective."
Superintendent Dr. Stokes said they had to pivot to continue in-person learning for students and will remain in this building until further notice.
"We are willing to be here as long as we have to because safety there again is most important," she said. "We don't just want to get our students back into the building. We want to make sure that it is definitely where they need to be in terms of safety and availability of equipment and so on and so forth."
"They'll be here and I'll be coming here every morning until it's fixed," Goodwin said.
Asked if she had to guess how long restoration efforts might take at the McCullough Academy building, the superintendent said well into the summer.
