MURRAY, Utah — Remote learning for students and staff at Murray High School has been extended by another two weeks following last week's fire that forced an evacuation.
The Murray City School District announced Monday that remote learning will continue until March 16, when the school will be ready to reopen. Friday's fire was started in a dust-collecting system located next to the school's wood shop room.
Although a sprinkler system contained the fire to the area where it sparked, smoke filled parts of the school building, prompting evacuations. School was canceled for the day, and remote learning was originally scheduled for all of this week before the extension was added due to smoke and water damage clean-up.
Attendance will be taken daily, and students will be expected to complete their assigned work through the Canvas platform.
"We appreciate the patients of our students, families, and educators as we continue to navigate these changes," the district wrote.
The news was deja vu for some students, like Noah Ulibarri.
“Yeah, it was pretty weird, going back into distance learning. Didn’t think I would ever do it again," he said.
The last time Ulibarri and most of the other 400 students at Murray High had done distance learning was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they were still in grade school.
But short-term? Ulibarri said he’s OK with that.
“It can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but yeah, I like it," he said. "For 3 weeks, I feel like it’s very doable, very doable.”
Fellow student Liza Jorgensen said she has mixed feelings about it.
“I’m excited to sleep in and have that free time. I am not too excited to not be able to see, like, my friends and stuff.”
Another student, Annika Jeppsen, said some things will be more difficult, but added that everyone knows what to expect this time.
“I’m taking some AP classes, and some of those are definitely harder to do online," she said. "But I think a lot of teachers do a pretty good job of having, like, explanation videos and stuff online to make it less hard than it could be. I think we’re a little more prepared now.”
District spokesperson Doug Perry said they’re all making the best of an unusual situation.
“We’re experienced with that," he said. "We don’t like it, we don’t necessarily think that’s the best way to do things, but we also know how to pivot. We also know how to move quickly, and it doesn’t hurt that we are a small school district.”
