Meredith Barnes, a 1993 graduate of Bethel High School and former Spanaway Lake High School Teacher, was in the eye of the storm when Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on Oct. 29. Since then she has helped oversee relief efforts for students, teachers, and school support staff who were displaced both in their personal and professional lives.

Barnes is a UniServ field representative for the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), which promotes public education for the state’s student population and represents the interests of the state’s public school teachers and support staff. While NJEA is headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey’s capital, Barnes works in a field office in Toms River, N.J., close to the shore communities most devastated by Sandy’s wrath.

“I’m proud that NJEA has taken a central role in making sure that students and school staff have what they need to return to some sense of normalcy in their lives,” Barnes said. “I’m thrilled and humbled to be a part of that effort.”

Barnes shares the office with her colleagues Mary Novotny and Joan Szlaga who have also been at the center of NJEA’s response to the storm.

Within days of the storm, NJEA formed a staff committee tasked with organizing the association’s response. First on its agenda was assessing the needs of its members, particularly those whose schools would be closed and the classes held in alternate locations.

Five Ocean County, N.J. schools situated on barrier islands near Toms River will not open for many months in the towns of Seaside Heights, Long Beach Island, Lavallette, Beach Haven, and Bay Head. In neighboring Monmouth County, N.J. schools in Union Beach and Monmouth Beach, as well as several schools farther north suffered similar fates.

Schools throughout the state were closed for more than a week either due to power outages, flooding, or because the schools were used as Red Cross shelters.

On Nov. 8, teachers and support staff representing nearly every school district in the Toms River area met at Barnes’ office to report on the status of their schools, their colleagues, and their students. They had spent the previous days trying to learn which of their members had been displaced from their homes, while teachers in devastated communities had spent those days attempting to local their students. They learned that many students’ families and school staff members had been moved from one shelter to another several times over.

As plans were made by school district officials and the New Jersey Department of Education to hold classes for displaced schools in alternate locations, no one was quite sure who would show up for school when those locations opened. Schools have been temporarily relocated to spaces in area high schools, churches, and other sites where room has been made for them.

NJEA members and staff, including Barnes, have gathered materials to help make the reopening of schools in unfamiliar surroundings as smooth as possible. At Barnes’ office in Toms River and at NJEA headquarters in Trenton they filled new backpacks with supplies for each returning student.

Each displaced teacher received a large plastic tub of supplies, notes of encouragement, and gift cards to assist them as they face the challenging tasks they faced. In addition to materials purchased through a relief fund set up by NJEA, school-supply donations came from NJEA affiliates from communities around the state.

“This tragedy has brought out the best in our members,” Barnes observed. “Teachers who lost their own homes are reaching out to help their students. Local NJEA affiliates from all over the state have mounted an overwhelming response, adopting displaced schools so that they can provide them with what they actually need whether it’s school supplies, personal items, or  financial assistance.”

NJEA established the NJEA Hurricane Sandy Relief Effort to help its members restore classrooms and schools so students can get back to school and back to normal as soon as possible. The association seeded the fund with half-a-million dollars. Donations have since poured in from NJEA members, NJEA’s sister associations in other states, and the general public.

 “Every year, our members spend hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket buying books, supplies, decorations and other necessities not provided by their school districts,” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said. “They have spent a career creating a unique classroom and school environment, only to see it destroyed overnight. We want to help those members as quickly as possible, so that when students return to their schools they have not just a classroom but a school home.”

For more stories about NJEA’s response to Superstorm Sandy visit njea.org

 

[Editor note: This story and photo were provided by Meredith Barnes]