NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — North Little Rock’s Crestwood Elementary is having a stressful start to the school year.
In June, the school flooded, damaging an entire wing of classrooms.
"You spend your whole career slowly accumulating books to build up your classroom library, and all of those are gone,” said Maddy Barker, Crestwood Elementary teacher.
Barker has been teaching for 5 years and she’s collected more than 400 books for her students.
The flooding caused damage to thousands of dollars’ worth of supplies.
"Carpets, corkboards, any paper, so any of the curriculum that we had, markers,” said Barker.
While work is still going on, time is ticking.
Barker and other teachers impacted have not seen what their rooms look like and still can't get into the building to begin setting up.
"It was just another thing, just another stress for us,” said Barker. “We are having to start at ground zero on that hallway, which also has our special ed., our speech, O.T., and P.T.,” said Barker.
Barker said teachers typically begin setting up their classrooms mid-July, especially since COVID-19 requires more restrictions, but for Crestwood teachers, they are hoping for even a few days to prepare.
"We should be back, fingers-crossed if everything goes well, by August 20, which gives us four days to get things ready for our students,” said Barker.
The community and other districts have helped replace destroyed supplies, but Barker said more help is needed.
If you want to help Crestwood teachers, the largest need right now is books.
They have links to their Amazon Wish Lists on the school's Facebook page.