It's the first week of school for kids all over Manitoba, except for students at J.A. Cuddy in Sanford.
A fire ripped through their school last week.
"It was really sad and I haven't seen it until today, but it was really devastating," said Aiden Houge, as she stopped by her school on Wednesday to see the damage in person.
The place Houge was expecting to come back to for Grade 7, hardly looks like a school at all.
Last Thursday’s fire tore through the building, causing $2-million in damages. No one was injured.
"Going up through the grades, making new friends, a lot of memories and stuff that just burned," said Isaac Ringash, a Grade 8 student at J.A. Cuddy.
Now students are scattered at around the community. According to the school’s Facebook page, Grade 7 and 8 students are being sent to the community’s high school, Sanford Collegiate, where students in Grade 3 to 6 will study in portable classrooms.
Grade 1 and 2 students will be going to school a few blocks away at Etech Centre.
"It's a new community pretty much, whole new system, bunch of stuff to get used to that's new," said Jayden Ayotte, a Grade 7 student forced to start school at a high school.
"People are working very hard to pull this together, we have a strong team,” added Pauline Lafond-Bouchard, CEO & Superintendent of the Red River School Divison.
“It's been a different kind of start but once they got over the total shock, they are working really hard and pulling up their socks and we'll make it happen."
While her school is being rebuilt, Aiden Houge hopes she can finish elementary school like she imagined.
"My hopes are that everything will be okay, I know that it definitely won't be the same but it will be okay," she said.
J.A Cuddy School’s Facebook page also said half the building could be opened in about four to eight weeks, but not all students would be able to go back at that time.
