ZMM is proud to be a part of this project. The article below originally appeared in The Charleston Gazette-Mail on August 16, 2024.

By Sierra Marling

Thursday marked a new beginning for an Elk River community as many gathered to open the new Clendenin Elementary School, calling the new school a significant achievement after flooding devastated the community in 2016.

“I am so proud to have this school back in our beautiful, beautiful town,” Clendenin Mayor Kay Summers said, arms motioning toward the building. “Out of some badcame some good, and this is our good.”

‘Kindred spirits’
While it was certainly a day of celebration, it was a chapter happily closed for Ami Palmer, who has served as a teacher at Clendenin Elementary School for 25 years. She and Principal Angel Gurski recalled the events that transpired before the unveiling of the new school, beginning with the devastation that occurred along the Elk River eight years ago.

“2016 was the worst year of my life,” Palmer said, recalling the loss of her home and workplace. “It was a lot … . It was hard to process the total loss.”

After the flood destroyed the building, Clendenin students were schooled in “portables,” small buildings clustered together.

“We were just glad to have classrooms,” said Gurski, who noted that educators had to get creative in the space.

“The kids couldn’t go out for gym, so they had PE in their classrooms, and they ate lunch in their classrooms. They basically came in the classroom and stayed there all day,” recalled the principal.
“There was a lot of trauma and fear,” Palmer said. “I remember there was one time in the portable when there was a severe thunderstorm. Several kids broke down and cried because they thought we were flooding again.

“My own girls … emotionally, that time changed them.

“I’d say 75% of our staff members’ houses flooded also, so we just all feel like kindred spirits because we’ve just experienced the same trauma.”

Then came COVID-19.

The children were seated six feet apart within the already crowded portables and placed behind clear, trifold partitions, in addition to being masked.
“Third-graders at that age need to feel the love and support of their teachers,” Palmer said. “Not being able to give that to them, sitting behind my own trifold, masked. It was very difficult for me.”
Palmer admitted that Thursday was a “very emotional day,” her voice breaking as she said, “Today, I am super proud to walk through these hallways and call this my school, and I am excited to welcome our students into this building and get to work teaching. I am proud to say that I will one day retire as a third-grade elementary school teacher from this magnificent building.”

New year, new features
According to Gurski, the school will welcome 330 children on Friday, an increase in enrollment from 280 a couple of years ago.

“We’re rising,” Gurski said. “Last year, we got a lot more students anticipating this [new school], I believe. A lot of people who live in the community and needed to attend our school actually went elsewhere because of the portable situation, so a lot of them have brought their kids back.”
The children will be welcomed back to school with a state-of-the-art facility, designed by ZMM Architects and Engineers.

According to Architect Adam Krason, the new Clendenin school shares some innovative traits with some of their other recent work, in Charleston, including the Exploratorium model seen at Edgewood Elementary School, focusing on technology integration and hands-on learning.

He said this will be achieved by providing different areas within each classroom, including a dedicated outdoor instructional space and smaller pods for more individualized instruction.
“It’s just changing the design of the classroom to reflect how students are taught and learn in today’s educational climate,” Krason said.

There also are significant design changes the architect said reflects the community’s ties to the oil and gas industry and the outdoors, including integrating many windows to allow natural light. And there’s a column outside the front doors structurally reminiscent of an oil derrick.

“They said they didn’t want this to be a traditional red brick elementary school,” he said. “They wanted it to reflect the community and its history.”