“Welcome back to TJ! You got this! We are so, so happy you are here today!”
On Wednesday, Oct. 23 Thomas Jefferson High School Principal Sandi Massey enthusiastically greeted and dished out high-fives to every student as they showed up for their first day at Thomas Edison Learning Center. Sunday night’s tornado did serious damage to TJ, causing students to attend Edison this school year while a replacement campus is built.
“Words can’t express how happy I am to see these students show up here with smiling faces and great attitudes,” Massey said. “We are going to make this building feel more like TJ than even TJ did.”
Meanwhile, students from Walnut Hill Elementary School, which was also severely damaged by the storm, got off to a great start on their first day at Tom Field Elementary. Principal Phillip Potter said the outpouring of support from parents and the greater Dallas community positively overwhelmed him.
“Today has been incredible,” he said. “Overall, the message we want to send today is even though we lost our building, we didn’t lose our school.”
At Alfred Loos Field House, 1,000 students from three campuses–David Burnet, Leonides Cigarroa, and John J. Pershing elementary schools–successfully held class at the arena. The students are expected to be back at their home campus by Monday, Oct. 28.
