Middle-schoolers embrace new roles after fire shuts down school

LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — A fire that started in a janitor's closet has kept more than 400 Andrew Jackson Middle School students out of the schoolhouse for a month now.

[READ MORE: Smoke, fire damage closes Lancaster County school all week]

While their school is being revamped and repaired, they've been sent elsewhere. The eighth-graders went next door to Andrew Jackson High School, the sixth-graders to Heath Springs Elementary School and the seventh-grader to Kershaw Elementary School.

At Kershaw Elementary School, seventh-graders could be found laughing and hanging with the younger kids.

The older students have taken on the roles of mentors, tutors and teachers.

"It's just a great feeling inside to know that you're helping other people," said Cy Blackmon, a seventh-grader at A.J. Middle School.

Blackmon is one of roughly 160 seventh-graders now learning at Kershaw Elementary School.

The fire on March 1 was contained to the closet but the smoke wasn't.

It destroyed the heating and air system, wiring while leaving walls, ceilings and floors blackened.

The fire was caused by one of several small electronic devices, plugged in in that closet.

The total repair estimate has topped $3 million.

When the seventh-grade students moved into Kersahw Elementary School, they quickly stepped up and Superintendent Jonathan Phipps noticed.

"Even though it's a negative, it's amazing sometimes how a negative creates some good positives in our lives," Phipps said.

On Wednesday, the transplanted seventh-grade class put on a Renaissance fair for the younger students teaching them a mix of history, culture and fun.

First-year principal Kelli Farmer told Channel 9 that she didn't panic when she first heard that middle-schoolers would be moving in. She was excited and as it turns out, they've been more help than she could have imagined.

"Reading to kids, editing writing, helping them in some technology. We're working on some engineering, steam projects and they just jump right in with the kids," she said.

It'll be a bit longer than expected before all three grades from A.J. Middle School can go back.  Channel 9 learned Wednesday that a final inspection is set for next week.

If the school passes inspection, its certificate of occupancy will be granted.

However, students are not expected to return until April 24 because power will be cut to the building for part of that inspection.

Cox Media Group