BRANDON, Fla. — Teachers at McLane Middle School in Brandon faced a unique obstacle to get their classrooms ready for the start of school on Monday.
- Building at McLane Middle School had to be leveled after lightning fire
- Required re-arranging classrooms with weeks to go
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On July 19, a lightning strike caused a fire in a building at the school. It was destroyed.
"Trial by fire, literally," said Alyssa Weissgerber, one of the teachers's whose classroom was affected.
Weissgerber is starting her first year teaching at McLane Middle School. She said she had gotten her classroom set up early in order to be prepared.
She couldn't salvage anything after the fire so everything had to be replaced.
"I've been preparing, organizing, buying, trying to replace as much as physically possible," she said.
The district gave each of the teachers $1,000 to pay for new supplies. They also received money from community groups and friends.
The building had to be leveled. Grass has been planted there and it was serve as an "open space" at the school.
Principal Dina Langston said she did some re-arranging and made space in another building so she could keep the seventh grade classrooms all together.
"We do teaming, so sixth grade has a building, seventh graders had that building and we really wanted to keep that approach so we had to move some other teachers. It was only seven classrooms but we had to impact a few other people just so we can keep that team concept alive," she said.
Weissgerber said her classroom is looking good and she hopes students will be happy with what they return to find.
"We need to shift that focus away from what you lost to what you have. They have this. Honestly if you walked in to my room three weeks ago before the fire and you walk into it now, I'm only missing a couple of things so they won't miss anything," she said. "That's exactly how we want it."