After fire, W. Babylon plans to keep classes intact

The fire that ripped through South Bay Elementary School in West Babylon last week destroyed the decades-old structure and threatened to split apart a community of hundreds of children and educators.

Despite the uncertainty around the physical location of their school, district Superintendent Anthony Cacciola said Sunday, there is no doubt that the heart of the school has survived.

PHOTOS: Elementary school fire and its aftermath

"We need three elements to build a successful school: good parents, good students and good teachers. And we have that," Cacciola told a crowd of hundreds at West Babylon High School. "We are all going to be together, but at a different location."

District leaders Sunday presented a contingency plan for classes to convene at Our Lady of Grace, on Albin Avenue, Tuesday and continue through the end of the school year.

Officials, mindful that students are shaken by the destruction of the school building Thursday, have replicated many elements of the K-5 school's old routine to encourage a sense of stability, principal Joann Scott said. "When the kids come to school on Tuesday, it's going to be as close to business as usual as we can get," she said, adding that the school will operate as if it's the first day of classes.

Most importantly for many parents and children, classes will remain intact, with the same teachers and students in all the grades.

"I'm happy that everyone's together," said third-grader Imagine Armellini, 9. Added her mother, Alisha Armellini, 28, "She would be traumatized by losing all her classmates and teachers."

Jim Moran, 40, whose daughters Adrianna, 9, and Marissa, 6, attend the school, said, "The biggest plus is that they're going to keep the kids together. . . . This is their family away from home."

Of course, the fire that gutted the 57-year-old school building has created uncertainty about which records survived and forced leaders to make some major adjustments.

The Town of Babylon fire marshal is still investigating the blaze - which officials have said began in a maintenance room with a boiler - so school officials cannot go in to determine what records have been lost.

School nurse Donna Senzamici asked parents of children who took medication kept at school to replace those medicines this week.

A new home for South Bay Elementary School

What's the same

Hours are still 8:50 a.m. to 2:50 p.m. Buses are running on the same schedule and parents of children who walked to school will be contacted and offered transportation.

What's uncertain

The school did not keep academic records on computers until last trimester and officials don't know whether the paper records are intact after the fire.

As for medical records, school officials said the file cabinets containing them appear to have been spared, but they won't know until they have full access to the site

What's changed

The district leased space on three floors from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., so it will have to host evening activities elsewhere. During the day, because church offices near classrooms will be open to the public, the school district will assign hall monitors to ensure student safety.

Although an order for new instructional materials is expected to arrive by Tuesday morning, teachers will have few books on hand in the first several days.

Also, there will be no breakfast and only cold lunches during the first week as staff determine whether they can prepare hot meals in the church kitchen.