RICHMOND, (WRIC) – After a fire caused major damage to William Fox Elementary School, the playground and field have been reopened to the community.
The playground and field were closed several times throughout the year to allow for construction, in order to keep community members safe.
The school is located in the heart of the Fan neighborhood, and former Fox Elementary parent and neighbor, Shannon Heady, says residents use the school as their backyard.
“People would come and hang out and have picnics and friends would socialize, and even people who never had children at Fox would come just to meet and hang out and have that sense of community,” said Heady.
Heady and her family live down the street from the school and recalled late night in Feb. 2022 when it went up in flames. Despite a months-long investigation, the cause of the fire was never determined.
“I called a couple of Fox teachers whose cell phones I happened to have. And they came and it was just, you know, this disbelief, but also significant amounts of pain,” said Heady.
It was not just the families of students and faculty that felt the loss – the fire devastated the whole community.
At the Richmond School Board meeting on Monday, Sept. 11., Dana Fox, Chief Operating Officer, presented new updates on the reconstruction of the elementary school – one being the reopening of the playground and field.
Roof installation and weatherization updates included the following:
- All roof framing has been completed and inspected.
- The auditorium window openings will be closed this week.
- The final inspections report was submitted to the City for approval on Aug. 31
- All the exterior wall bracing has been removed and the remaining jersey wall barriers will be removed within the next two weeks.
Heady said these new updates are huge milestones and is excited to see the building come back to life.
“The school system really understands how important it is to the neighborhood and has worked really hard considering they have lots of other pressing issues to deal with,” Heady said. “So they’ve been really accommodating to the neighborhood and allowed people to come back.”
