RICHWOOD, W.Va. — When the 2016 flood tore through the town of Richwood, most of the students who now attend Cherry River Elementary School weren’t even born. The oldest of the student body, those in 5th Grade were mere toddlers at the time. They have no real recollection of the upheaval the flood created. But, those students are now learning what they never knew, the joys of a school to call your own.
“We had lots of classrooms in places that weren’t supposed to be classrooms. We were working out of limited space and then you’re in someone else’s building, so we’re definitely excited to be back,” said Cherry River Elementary Principal Heather Sigley.
Students returned to the newly renovated school after spending a year and a half at Panther Creek which is about a 20 minute drive from the present location. The move was made to allow crews to expedite work on the school. Students were shifted around the old school multiple times as construction was ongoing on the Richwood High School and Middle School buildings. Technically they are all one big education complex on high ground and out of harm’s way for the next 100 year flood.
For Sigley and her students, it’s just good to finally have a place to call home, for good.
“They are very, very excited. They’re constantly, ‘I like this school, it’s nice!’ They like the colors because it’s our colors now,” she explained.
For quite a few of the students, the ride to school now isn’t nearly as long.
“Some of them used to be on a bus for an hour and a half or an hour and 15 minutes, now for some of them that’s five minutes,” she said.
Although not a new building, it has new amenities and ties into the state of the art high school. Still, students are separated. It’s also quiet and isolated, which is something that hasn’t been normal for the Cherry River students in their entire school career.
“When they were working on the building, you had to move all the time around the construction. You heard it all the time, then you’d have to move ahead to a different wing until finally they moved us out last year,” Sigley explained.
Peace and quiet had actually been a foreign concept.
“When it was testing time we wondered if we should move the kids to the furthest wing away from construction, but the kids were so used to hearing it when it was completely silent it caught them off guard for a while,” she said.