District prepares for next year

? The city’s school district has nowhere for children to attend class, nowhere even to put books and supplies that charitable people want to send to the town devastated by a deadly tornado.

Still, Superintendent Darin Headrick says the district will be ready for the first day of class on Aug. 15.

Temporary buildings for 28 classrooms, four offices, a gym and a cafeteria are on the way and will be set up over the summer, Headrick said. Meanwhile, he’s asking people who want to send supplies to hold off for now.

“Now just be patient and let us get some space and then send things,” he said.

All of the district’s buildings were destroyed in the May 4 tornado, which leveled 90 percent of the town of 1,400 and killed 10 residents.

Headrick said it’s particularly important for schools to reopen in this time of uncertainty for the south-central Kansas town.

“As displaced as they are, we thought that we should establish school as quick as we can,” he said.

And the schools aren’t just important to the children.

“Greensburg is no different than any other rural town,” he said. “It’s just like any community; a lot of what we do revolves around the activities that kids are in.”

The district has figured out where staff and students have been living since the tornado. Now it must figure out how to get students to school and provide them with food, books, tables and chairs.

“We’ll just identify what we need and write a check,” Headrick said, adding that the district was just “blessed that we have all of our kids and that they’re alive.”

Within a year, Headrick said, the district will start construction of a new school building, which could be open by 2010.