Riverdale: Staff and Students Get a "Royal" Welcome Home

September 2022 was a trying time in Florida’s history. Hurricane Ian had cut through Central Florida, its powerful squalls and flooding waters destroying thousands of homes and causing about 150 deaths in the state. By the time the winds died down, storm damage had cost Florida more than $100 billion, ranking the hurricane as one of the costliest in our country’s history.

Orange County Public Schools was not immune to the heart-wrenching loss caused by the storm. In the days prior to the hurricane making its way through the Orlando area, students and faculty left Riverdale Elementary, the home of the Royals, to shelter away from the storm. When district officials were able to access the school after the storm had passed, they found it had been flooded under four feet of water.

“We were crushed when we saw the level of damage done to our school by Hurricane Ian,” said William A. Charlton, Riverdale’s principal. “The majority of the first floor was washed out and I honestly didn’t know how our school was ever going to be whole again.”

Fortunately, even though Riverdale was waist deep in water, their Royal spirit could not be dampened by the adversity. “A plan was quickly launched by Superintendent Dr. Maria F. Vazquez and her incredible team to save our school, with our students and faculty moving to East River High School for the rest of the school year while our amazing Facilities department swooped in and began the hard work of renovating Riverdale Elementary,” said Charlton.

Rebuilding the school was, “a labor of love,” according OCPS Senior Construction Director Craig Jackson.

“When we understood how much damage had been done to Riverdale Elementary, everyone on our team quickly came together to find the best solutions to fix what had been destroyed,” said Jackson. “Our number one goal was to get everyone from the school back into their educational home as quickly as possible.”

Rebuilding the school required a lot of ingenuity and hard work to complete.

The project took nearly 10 months to finish and cost approximately $8 million.

When all was said and done, the renovation needed:

· 40,000 square feet of drywall

· 350 gallons of paint

· 70,000 square feet of new flooring

· 68,000 square feet of new ceiling tiles

Through combined efforts, over 60,000 hours of labor were exhausted to bring the school back from the abyss to reopen its doors.

And what a grand reopening it was!

On July 26, Principal Charlton welcomed back his faculty to Riverdale Elementary for the first time in nearly a year, cutting a ribbon to commemorate the occasion. Greeted to the sounds of drum lines and cheerleaders, teachers were inspired by Charlton’s words of thankfulness for the fortitude they had shown the previous year and encouragement for the exciting school year that lay in front of them.

As members of his staff held their orange ribbon across the school’s threshold, Charlton and District 1 School Board Member Angie Gallo cut through the streamer and welcomed faculty back into their home!

It was such an amazing moment to see the expressions on everyone’s faces after they saw the fantastic job that Facilities had done to bring our school back,” said Charlton. “We were all inspired by how incredible the school looked and we couldn’t wait for our homecoming to be completed by our students filling the hallways on the first day of school.