The Grand Prairie school district is helping students in West by sending portable classrooms to the small town hit by a massive fertilizer plant explosion.
The district is donating three portable classrooms for sixth-graders in West who no longer have a place to learn. Lyle DuBus, the Grand Prairie district's chief operations officer, said the classrooms would hold a total of 180 students.
"We were able to round up a lot of furniture, vacuums, other items that we know that they will need," he said. "We've also been able to send some of our electricians to aid in the set-up of the portables as they get down there."
Gay Lynn Broom, director of community and youth program, said three of the West district's four campuses are out of commission after the deadly explosion.
Broom and two district officials went to West to help on Thursday.
"They don't have water, not a lot of Internet access, so we were remotely helping," she said. "We went into Waco where we could get Internet access."
Grand Prairie school officials said their close ties to the West school district kept them motivated to help as much as they could.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
West Superintendent Marty Crawford is a Grand Prairie High School graduate whose father was superintendent in Grand Prairie many years ago, DuBus said.
West schools were closed Thursday and Friday after Wednesday night's blast but are scheduled to reopen for classes on Monday.
The Grand Prairie school district expects to send all three portable classrooms to West during the weekend so that they can be set up and ready for Monday.
H.D. Snow and Son Moving Inc. workers were busy Friday morning preparing to transport one of the classrooms. Owner H.D. Snow said it was a labor of love.
"They're down on their knees begging for these buildings right now," he said. "We're trying our best to get them down there for them."
Snow's daughter wrote a sign on the side of the building that reads, "A School House on the way to the Good People of WEST, Texas. God Bless West, TX."
"That means I believe there is a God Almighty and that's what this country is founded on, and we need to get back to it a little bit," Snow said.
