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McLane Middle School turns lightning fire into new 'classroom' opportunity

After a devastating fire took down one of their school buildings, McLane decided to convert that space into an outdoor STEM classroom.

BRANDON, Fla. — After weeks of tireless work, McLane Middle School is officially ready for students to return to school.

At the end of July, a lighting bolt struck the building that housed all eight 7th grade classrooms. The fire that broke out destroyed the building and rendered each classroom unusable.

As principal Dina Langston explained, the incident required quick thinking. 

“I think the scariest part was knowing the turnaround time. And we had to sit down and formulate, and that’s where the district was great," she said. "We formulated a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. 

"So depending upon what engineers were coming through and saying, we had options ready to go."

RELATED: Fire that razed school building was sparked by lightning, officials say

They settled on moving the 7th grade classrooms into a different building and converting the computer labs. As for the destroyed building, it had to be taken down safely as to not impact the surrounding classrooms. 

To the naked eye, it now just looks like a field, but it is the newest addition to the McLane Middle School campus.

“This gives us space on this side of the classroom which we never had, to now have an outdoor classroom. So (we're) trying to take that unfortunate situation, but turn it into something really amazing,” Langston said She decided to make the most out of the accident and get creative. 

"(We are going to) grow our STEM program and build an outdoor classroom. And so our key was the sun comes east and west for our solar cars and so we made sure we build the sidewalk at least 70-feet long, 6-feet wide, so that we can make that into a solar track for our students. And not only will they run the solar cars, but we have CO2 dragsters that they compete with."

Langston said the computer labs eventually will be relocated. For now, she is glad that every student will have a classroom going into the new year.

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