Photo by Erin Nelson.
Crystal Phillips, production tech and crew chief for ServPro of Birmingham, lays down the first layer of wax on newly installed tile in a classroom on the kindergarten hall at Oak Mountain Elementary School on July 11. Over Memorial Day weekend, an air conditioning unit in one of the kindergarten classrooms caught fire and damaged the hall of classrooms.
Two days after Oak Mountain Elementary kindergarten teacher Wanda Dye closed up her classroom for the summer, she got a call from the principal that there was a fire at the school and her room had received the most damage.
“Principal [Debbie] Horton called me after church and said there’s a fire at the school and I wanted you to hear it from me first that it’s in your classroom,” Dye said. “I headed to the school and prayed all the way there that I would have grace to handle it well.”
Once she saw her classroom, Dye realized there was hardly anything that could be saved. She said the saddest part is that the reading loft her husband built years ago was gone and she lost the majority of the books she had collected in 21 years of teaching. But she was able to see the bright side of the difficult situation.
“The great thing is the cleaning crew had moved some of my things out in the hall, so they were salvageable, or else all of [my] things would’ve been inside the room,” she said.
The cause of the fire was electrical, coming from an air conditioning unit, and 15 classrooms received smoke damage. Had it not been for school resource officer Deputy James Sellers and his daughter Jayven, things could have been much worse.
They had stopped by the school on their way to the movies that Sunday so he could measure a table. His daughter saw the bushes on fire in front of the building. Sellers used three fire extinguishers to try to combat the blaze and called 911 for fire department assistance.
Horton said Sellers being at the school at just the right time was divine intervention. It was a Sunday, he entered through a door he normally does not use and had he been even 15 minutes later, the fire could have spread rapidly.
“He was in the right location at the right time,” Horton said. “We could be looking at having classes at whole different location when school starts.”
As the cleanup process began at OMES, decisions had to be made about what could be salvaged and cleaned and what had to be thrown away. ServPro came in to assist in the cleanup and Horton said they have done an amazing job.
“The teachers all had to come in and take everything down off the walls in their classrooms,” she said. “Walls had to be cleaned and repainted. Everything was put into boxes and labeled to be cleaned and put into an area for cleaning. We had to clean out the kindergarten hallway to begin renovation, reconstruction and cleanup.”
Dye said she spent several weeks taking photos of things that couldn’t be salvaged and cleaning the things that could. She spent an entire week packing and unpacking, as well as shopping and painting furniture.
“I am so thankful and grateful we had just gotten out of school and my babies were not in that classroom and no one was hurt,” she said. “I just want to give God all the glory for His hand in this. He has been so incredibly amazing to provide the things for us that we need and protecting our school.”
The community responded with an outpouring of support, donating classroom items and money. Mrs. Dye has set up wishlists on Amazon and Scholastic of items and books she needs for the new school year.
“Mrs. Dye has been such a trooper,” Horton said. “Her spirit and attitude have been above and beyond what anyone can expected to do. She is using donated items so she can be a good steward of the insurance money to buy curriculum and supplies to replace what she needs for her students.”
For his service, Sellers was recently honored with the Journey Shapers Award from Superintendent Lewis Brooks, who said without his service, this event could have been much worse. The award is to honor adults who help shape the community and children.
With school starting back on Aug. 8, Mrs. Dye’s room will be ready for the kindergarten class of 2019-20.
“It has been a collaborative effort with our district office and ServPro and support parents to make it possible to get the students in the classroom,” Horton said. “God has a better plan for the beginning of our school year than ever imagined and it will happen in his time and it will be perfect.”
Dye is accepting donations of new and used children’s books for her classroom, and she has an Amazon wishlist at a.co/1glHhP8.
