Jefferson City Public Schools kicked off summer school Tuesday, and arrangements have been made for children staying at the shelter set up at a middle school following last week's tornado to attend summer school - even if they had not previously been enrolled.
JCPS Director of Communications Ryan Burns said Tuesday that 3,390 students were enrolled in summer school, but Burns said that number would likely grow as additional students are enrolled in the coming days.
JCPS Chief of Learning Brian Shindorf said May 13 that the goal was to have 3,400 students enrolled.
Burns added in addition to reaching out to families at the Thomas Jefferson Middle School shelter to get their children enrolled in summer school, transportation was also being provided for students at the post-tornado shelter at Thomas Jefferson to attend summer school.
JCPS has reported it will continue to host the Red Cross shelter at Thomas Jefferson, with the shelter spaces separate from areas of the building being used by students for summer school.
Both JCPS middle schools are hosting summer school this year for incoming freshmen, and Lewis and Clark Middle School is also host for summer school for JCPS students in grades 10-12, following the tornado damage to the district's Simonsen building on East Miller Street.
Burns said Thorpe Gordon Elementary School is open for summer school, too. Thorpe Gordon is also located in the heart of some of the neighborhoods that were the worst damaged in last week's storm.
Burns said if school buildings weren't already going to have a counselor on hand for summer school this week, they would now, especially at Lewis and Clark for former Simonsen students, and at Thorpe Gordon.
In terms of the storm's effects on student transportation, JCPS has said First Student would do its best to get to bus stop locations as close to on time as possible, but delays were possible.
The district encouraged families today to continue to wait 30 minutes after their student's expected afternoon drop-off time before calling their child's school with transportation-related questions and issues.
The district posted on its website that it would work to notify families within that 30 minutes via phone call, email, text and in a bus delay post on its Facebook page.
Burns said Tuesday that First Student was also monitoring flooding in the area and especially the road closures across the Missouri River in Callaway County.
More information on storm-related updates to JCPS summer school programs is available at www.jcschools.us/Page/1, through the "Summer School 2019 - Storm-related Updates" link.
Future of Simonsen?
Burns anticipated it would be "certainly a few weeks" before JCPS has any answers on what Simonsen's future may look like.
Simonsen 9th Grade Center closed its doors last Wednesday afternoon to its last class of freshmen, as ninth-graders will attend both Jefferson City High School and Capital City High School in the fall instead.
Last week's EF-3 tornado roared through and caused considerable damage to Simonsen.
Burns said the district's insurance company had done assessments on the building last week, but she didn't think JCPS had gotten anything back yet.
JCPS' then-director of facilities Bob Weber told the district's Board of Education in November that while Simonsen was structurally sound - as determined by consultants in 2015 - it would cost an estimated $5.8-$6 million to address all of the building's issues before the district could continue to utilize it.
That amount would be approaching half of the value Simonsen was insured for, Weber said.
He said in November that in addition to the money, it could take up to three years to address the building's needs: a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system; a new elevator; remaining sections of roof that then needed replacement - the roof was considerably damaged in last week's storm; plaster repairs; painting; asbestos abatement as it would arise from HVAC replacement; new windows - many of the building's windows were broken last week; restroom renovations; an upgrade to LED lighting; and plumbing and electrical work.
The school board did not make any decisions in November on Simonsen's future.