Reporter’s Note
How are you coping with school closures? Are you a teacher? A parent? A student? The Times Free Press would love to hear your stories. Email me at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com.
– Meghan
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THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION NEWS
Books littered what’s left of the high school building on Grace Baptist Academy’s campus last week.
J.R.R. Tolkien. Thornton Wilder. A biography of George Washington.
The books scattered the gymnasium floor – in puddles of water, buried underneath clots of fuzzy insulation, trapped underneath rows of lockers that fell from the second floor.
And above it all is the blue sky overhead, the sun pouring in from where Easter’s tornado tore the roof off the gym as it churned through the campus’s 17 acres and across East Brainerd.
Grace Baptist Academy, along with East Brainerd Elementary School, were among more than 1,000 structures damaged or destroyed in last week’s tornado that killed at least ten people in the Tennessee Valley region.
Now, Grace is looking toward the future and how the school can use the tragedy to transform.
Keep reading for this story, and more.