Buncombe County Schools continues to work toward reopening

Schools remain closed in Western North Carolina’s largest school district as officials scramble to get portable toilets and hand-washing stations shipped to Buncombe County Schools’ 45 campuses.

Buncombe County Schools Superintendent Rob Jackson could not give an exact timeline for reopening his district at a media briefing Oct. 9, instead saying officials are working to bring schools online “as quickly as possible.”

The key holdup is the availability of running water for students to use the bathroom and wash their hands, and for cafeteria staff to use to prepare meals.

“We’ve looked at every viable option we could imagine for the safest and quickest solution to get students back in school,” Jackson said, including temporarily merging school populations into fewer buildings, operating on partial-day schedules, moving 5,000-gallon tanks of nonpotable water to campuses and using flush brigades of volunteers to carry nonpotable water throughout the day to help flush toilets.

Just 13 of the district’s 45 schools have running water, and two of those — Leicester and Barnardsville — operate on wells, Jackson said. Nearly 15,000 students are served by schools without water as of Oct. 9.

“Our school system has truly tried to come up with any work-around to safely bring our students back. After meeting with state and local officials and with our principals, we believe the best option to safely open our schools as quickly as possible is through bringing in portable restroom trailers with built-in hand washing stations,” he said.

To open all of BCS schools, the district will need 939 portable toilets and 391 hand-washing stations, Jackson said, and that request has been made of local, state and federal emergency management authorities. To arrive at that number, the district used a formula that emergency managers use that factors in the number of students, adults and locations.

Meanwhile, the district’s nutrition team plans to prepare grab-and-go meals for students when school reopens, he said. The district’s transportation team is remapping the county’s bus routes, as some roads remain inaccessible or unsafe.

Complicating matters is that many schools are serving as hubs to distribute resources to people still without water or power.

Jackson promised to provide parents and students with 72-hour notice when a reopening date is determined. When schools do reopen, Jackson acknowledged that there will be significant mental health needs for students who have suffered loss from Tropical Storm Helene.

“Our families and neighbors have suffered incredible loss and trauma. We know that our schools will play a big role in helping our students cope and we will meet those needs. We’re working with school systems across the state to have additional school counselors and school social workers available for our students and staff when we return to school,” he said.

In the meantime, Jackson encouraged parents to make use of Little Free Libraries to keep their children reading until school reopens.

“Encourage students to write, to perhaps write about their experiences, or to write about what they’re most looking forward to as they return to school and prepare to turn to school, we’d encourage them to spend time in conversation, to be allowed to share in their own words what this experience has meant to them and what they’ve experienced. Those conversations with parents and loved ones are invaluable in the life of a child,” he said.