Classroom Fire at Bent Elementary School

Many of you are already aware of a tragic event that took place at Bent Elementary School Saturday, February 21st. For those of you who aren't aware... Bent Elementary School was broken into and a classroom was vandalized and a fire started. Due to this senseless act, Mrs. Koch and her 26 students have lost all their materials and supplies for teaching/learning. The class has been temporarily moved to the music room at Bent School unil their room can be restored. (For more on this story see The Pantagraph)

However... the loss for Mrs. Koch and the students is significant. Mrs. Koch has been teaching for 25 years... She had accumulated a tremendous amount of materials, resources, books, supplies, etc. for her teaching. Student records, lesson plans, portfolios, pictures, bulletin boards, carpets, etc. have all been destroyed. Daily worksheets already copied for the remainder of the school year, workbooks and reading books are gone.

Many tears were shed on Saturday and Sunday when the tragedy was reported to teachers, parents and students. But, when I took Savannah to school on Monday morning (she asked me to walk into the school with her)  I was very impressed with the setup of the "music condo" (what Mrs. Koch and the students are calling their temporary home). Wall decorations, pencil/crayon boxes on every desk, computers... it appeared to be a completely supplied classroom. Mrs. Koch was smiling and eager to start their day.

However, there is a lot missing from this classroom and it's an incomplete learning environment... The parents of the students effected by this incident want to make sure the environment, supplies, resources and materials are returned to normal or better as quickly as possible with as little learning loss to the students and burden to Mrs. Koch. But, we're going to need some help in doing this.

Two things are being organized:

1. Collection of donations for supplies, materials, resources and room decorations through a local school supply store
   
2. Bookfair/gift card purchases through a local bookstore
   

All of this is having to be planned quickly due to the complete loss of supplies, materials, resources and books. Like I said before, we want to return the classroom to as normal a learning environment as it was before, or better. Mrs. Koch had 25 years invested in her classroom... she had the "daily operations" down to a loving routine. But that routine has been severely interupted.

As we finalize the above plans I will pass on the information for how the community (and beyond) can help.