Two days after she watched fires consume Lahaina, first-grade teacher Mindi Cherry stood in the ashes of her classroom. King Kamehameha III Elementary School, where she had taught for 13 years, had burned to the ground, only its aluminum roof left behind.
As a teacher, she feels helpless. She doesn’t even know where most of her students are right now. And as a Lahaina resident and mom of a seventh grader, she says she’s also in limbo.
“She can’t go to school,” Cherry, 46, told NBC News. “She’s already lost her home.”
As September approaches, families who lost everything to the fires are trying to regain a sense of normalcy. A big part of that is getting their kids back in school, and so far, they say their options are limited.
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There’s state-backed online classes, but many families say they can’t afford to replace the computers that burned in the fires. Parents can enroll their kids in school on the other side of the island, but many don’t have cars or even an address they can put down when registering.
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