Fire and Bus

The first couple weeks of school have been an eventful one for our kiddos.

On the first day of school, at 5:30 a.m., we received an automated call from the school district. There was a fire at the middle school—do not come to campus today.

The night before, a microwave in a classroom caught fire and damaged a wing of the school. The fire likely started due to the power cord coiled under the microwave. No one was in the building and no one was injured.

Photocredit: Austin Fire Department

All said and done, the fire cost one week of classes, five classrooms still out of commission, and a lot of new paint, new ceiling tiles, ruined classroom supplies, probably hundreds of air filters, and air scrubbers working non-stop for a week.

The Texas Education Agency granted a waiver to the instructional minutes requirement so students will not have to make up time. If they hadn’t, the school day would have been five minutes longer just for this campus. I’d be okay if they had said no to the waiver.

The community response was beautiful. The PTA raised $20,000 in two days to provide immediate funding to the school to buy replacement classroom supplies, including “mobile carts” that the teachers from the impacted classrooms would use as nomads until returning to their classrooms. While only five classrooms were offline on the return to school, many more had smoke or water damage, requiring a quick refresh of the classrooms once the District completed the significant repairs.

Various businesses donated food and drinks to the teachers as they worked during the closed week to reschedule activities, provide an alternative experience for kids without a place to go and prepare the remaining classrooms for the school. I’m sure I’ll miss some, but be sure to patronize Tacodeli, Tony C’s Pizza, Red Bud Ice House, Thundercloud Subs, East Side Pies, Voodoo Doughnuts, Rockstar Bagels, Clean Cause, and, as always, H-E-B.

Most businesses donated food or drinks to support the teachers. H-E-B also brought their mascot Buddy for the first day of school—middle school is that age where kids act too cool for school, but they’re still kids, cupcakes for the students, and $100 for each teacher plus $250 for the teachers whose classrooms were impacted.

Then, on August 29th, my high school band kiddo had the first football game of the season! This is a big game in Austin. Two rival high schools that have kicked off the season for the last couple of decades as the “Taco Shack Bowl”. The team didn’t look too hot last year, but the game was competitive this year.

On the way back to campus after the game, a drunk driver hit two of the buses transporting band students. The driver clipped the first bus, and then she hit my kid’s bus head-on.

Photocredit: Me

Thankfully, only the driver of the sedan was seriously injured. She has since been discharged from the hospital and arrested by the Austin Police Department. The bus driver and a handful of students had minor injuries, but all were able to be cleared by EMS without transport. My kiddo wasn’t part of that set, only having a busted lip. We’ll see how the kids do tonight with their first band bus ride since the crash.

I am glad my kiddo could text and call me before I heard about it. I had left the game before the bus and was at the school waiting when she contacted me. The crash closed the roadway, and with the topography, I could see the flashing lights 20 blocks away. Scary, but it could have been a lot worse.

At the scene, football coaches stopped to assist, including one who brought a bus to bring our kids back to campus. Multiple assistant principals were on the scene to help as well. The Anderson HS band, the rival we had just played, sent flowers and notes to our band.

So far this week, there have been no fires, bus accidents, or other incidents of this sort. The worst thing was that the elementary school PTA’s “First Friday Coffee” had an equipment failure, so they only had “emergency” cold brew coffee that someone quickly ran over from H-E-B.

I’ll take that.