SALISBURY — Some Isenberg Elementary School students will be able to return to campus on Monday following a week-long closure initiated by a fire on Nov. 8, but some students will have to go to other locations for the remainder of the month.

The Rowan-Salisbury School System Board of Education held a special-called meeting on Friday in which Chief Operations Officer Jamie Durant and Superintendent Dr. Kelly Withers provided an update on the situation that began last Friday after a fire that broke out on the roof resulted in damage to the interior of the building.

The damage was largely contained to one building on campus, with building B remaining in good enough condition for students to return. On Monday, kindergarten through second-grade students will be able to go back to Isenberg, where they can resume in-person instruction in building B.

However, those students will not be able to use the cafeteria right away. Instead, they will be feeding students in the K-2 building with a kiosk and the students will be eating in their classrooms.

Third-grade students will be temporarily be housed in five vacant classrooms at Overton Elementary.

“They were gracious to make that work for us,” Durant said.

Meanwhile, fourth- and fifth-grade students will be in-person at Horizons Unlimited.

“Horizons Unlimited paused any activity that they had going on to accommodate our 4th and 5th graders in those areas,” Durant said. “The entire time also planning behind the scenes we had school food services to (ensure) that we can make sure those students are fed.”

While the fire damage was mainly to the roof, smoke and soot moved into the HVAC vents and throughout the main building resulting in the extended cleanup. Building B was determined to have been unaffected during the fire.

“There was no smoke drawn into that building,” Durant said.

However, TD Environmental, the company in charge of the cleanup process, still cleaned, ozone blasted and tested the entire building to determine it was safe for students.

Teachers were allowed to enter that building on Friday to prep classrooms in anticipation of those students’ return.

“It will be business as usual in that building,” Durant said.

If the cleanup process proceeds as expected, students will be able to return to the main building by Dec. 2.

We have two areas that received the most damage, which will be the two new classrooms inside of the media center and a portion of the media center,” Durant said. “The goal is to block that area off, encapsulate that area and we have an outside entrance available now to get into those classrooms so that work can continue.

“That work looks like removing anything in that classroom that sustained a lot of water damage. They will rebuild that area and hopefully, that will take place within two to three weeks of students returning so by Christmas break we hope that have that area back up and running.

“In the meantime, we worked with (Principal) Dr. Courtwright, this morning, to identify new locations for those students. Within his building, he has two locations we can house those students so that everyone will be back on their campus.”

School was already scheduled to be out on Monday in observance of Veterans Day, but Tuesday and Wednesday were also canceled for planning days. That gave TD Environmental time to clean iPads which were distributed to families on Wednesday for eLearning days that were held on Thursday and Friday.

Students were also offered lunches and a bag breakfast by the nutrition services department’s YumYum Bus during the week.

During the meeting on Friday, Withers said, “You can see that a giant wish of gratitude is out there for a lot of our departments who have worked very tirelessly this week, almost around the clock, to get this work done while continuing to work at our 30 plus other campuses.”

Withers added that she wanted to also thank Communities in Schools and social workers and student services that “really worked to identify those areas” where meals were needed.

“That was a team effort and I really appreciate that,” Wither said.

Other departments rose to the challenge as well.

“Technology has worked as well tirelessly this week and assisted with iPad deployment,” Withers said.

She also commended TD Environmental as having been very thorough in its communication.

“They are sending lots of notes and thoughts and have been very communicative with us as issues arise so we can help solve them,” Withers said.

Meanwhile, Withers said, the communications department has assisted with getting messages out to the families and that the curriculum and instruction team has provided staff and students with supplies for next week’s instruction.