MOSES LAKE, Wash. — Hundreds of elementary school students in Moses Lake are getting used to new schools and classrooms following the shutdown of Groff Elementary for the rest of the year.
“They’re still with their same class, their same students, their same teachers,” said Nikki Mackey, the principal of Groff Elementary.
The Moses Lake School District said Groff had to shut down because of electrical issues in the building. Before being assigned to the new schools, all 425 students spent two weeks doing remote learning.
MLSD said its goal was always to get each kid back in the classroom, but that’s turned out to be many classrooms in different schools.
“Everyone in our district, all the directors came together and we came up with a plan together,” Mackey said. “We looked at where do we have space and where could we put 425 kids outside of our school. It was chaotic.”
The students are happy to be back in person while the teachers seem to be having the hardest time adjusting.
“It was a little bit of a shock. We were used to doing the online stuff every once in a while but it was a shock to have to say ‘We have to go to different buildings now,” said P.E. teacher Logan Brown.
Brown has to rotate between a few different buildings to continue teaching all of the children from Groff.
Almost every grade is in a different school, but keeping each grade together was very important for the district.
“The school is beautiful, I’m just really grateful that we have such a beautiful alternative to Groff,” said fifth grade teacher Liz Crowell. “They think it’s really cool being in the high school. They feel like they’ve got extra privileges even though they don’t.”
The district says there is no timeline for when Groff Elementary will open again. The district needs time to fix any electrical problems with the building and make sure it’s safe for students.
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