The day after a two-alarm fire engulfed the roof of the KIPP Ways Academy charter school, no one had yet tallied the damage in dollars and cents. The computers. The desks. The books.
But for Panya Evans’ son Dezsjon, 14, the loss of one object was felt most sharply: his saxophone.
“I was mad about that,” he recalled Saturday. “I felt like some of my memories were gone.”
But following a hastily called meeting Saturday for families of students, Dezsjon knew where to go to class Monday and his mother was volunteering her help setting up classrooms in the new location, at the former Turner Middle School. Things were looking better already, he said.
Dezsjon and hundreds of other students and parents came to the closed-door meeting at Turner in Atlanta to check out their new school and hear KIPP officials talk about what happens next. Officials said the fire struck an emotional blow.
No one was injured in the fire that broke out Friday morning at the school at 80 Joseph Lowery Boulevard. The Atlanta Fire Department said Saturday it was an electrical fire that began in the heating and ventilation system on the roof.
David Jernigan, KIPP Metro Atlanta executive director, said KIPP Ways leases the building from Atlanta Public Schools. The structure is old, he said, perhaps dating back to the 1930s.
The setback comes at a time when the national KIPP program is riding a wave of good publicity brought by successes recently highlighted in the documentary about public education, “Waiting for ‘Superman.’”
Supporters of KIPP, or the Knowledge is Power Program, say it takes long days, hard work and high expectations to boost the achievement of lower-income students and vault them out of poverty.
Students in KIPP schools are in school for more hours than their public-school counterparts and sometimes even attend class on Saturdays.
In 2010, 98 percent of eight graders and 99 percent of seventh graders passed math standardized tests.
The program, a darling of education reformers, has opened 99 schools nationwide. Four are in metro Atlanta, with a fifth — a high school — planned for next school year, at Turner.
KIPP Ways Academy is a middle school for 320 students in grades five through eight. On Monday, those students will also attend classes at Turner, which Atlanta Public Schools recently vacated. Another charter school uses space on the first floor, and KIPP students will move into the second and third floors.
School officials don’t expect the location to be permanent.
Buses are being rerouted, new tables and desks are being found, and the goal, said KIPP spokeswoman Jill Joplin, is for the school day to seem as close to normal as possible.
“Business as usual,” she said.
Dezsjon’s mother Payna was upbeat about the last-minute transition to a new school.
“I think it’s going to be OK,” she said. “I think we’re going to survive this and everything will be all right.”
She credits KIPP with helping her oldest son excel academically. Now in 10th grade, he’s second in his class, she said. Dezsjon and her other son attend KIPP now.
“They push kids,” she said, praising KIPP teachers.
Parents lauded the school Saturday not only for the top-level academics it offers students, but also for how quickly officials sprung into action after the disaster. They said officials kept them updated throughout the day Friday, bringing news of the devastation but also of plans for next week.
The loss of the building is tragic, parents said, but they were heartened that KIPP officials worked so quickly to get students back into classrooms.
Nyshelle Daniel said she heard about the fire around 7 a.m., after her daughter Jade Kemp, 13, had caught the school bus. The mother went by the school about 45 minutes later. She received updates throughout the day and was reassured by what she learned.
“I was worried,” she said. “But once I kept getting the phone calls, I was like, they’re on point.”
KIPP has been great for her daughter. “I can see the difference in her grades,” Daniel said. “I’ve loved it.”
Freida Nichols, who waited for the meeting to start with her grandson, a seventh-grader, said he has thrived at the school, too.
“It’s the best school,” she said. “It was a great loss to us.”
For parent Tamyra Pride, the charter school’s male teachers have provided solid role models for two of her sons.
“I like the idea of everything is earned,” Pride said. “That has been very helpful, being a single mom raising three sons by myself.”
Her son Devin Pride, 12, said students had frequently participated in fire drills. But when the real thing happened, he said, “I was like ‘wow.’”
Parent Elgin Andrews said that while the fire was a tragedy, students such as his daughter were also looking forward to a change of scenery.
“She’s excited about going to a new building,” he said. “So it should work out.”
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