Woodfin Elementary rebuilds routines, restores trust after Hurricane Helene

At Woodfin Elementary, Miranda Wheeler and her staff are trying to turn a storm break in the school year into a literacy comeback, using small-group reading instruction to help students regain lost learning time and rebuild the routines families rely on.

The work is happening at 108 Elk Mountain Rd. in Asheville, where Title I funding helps pay for reading teachers and, at Woodfin, small-group reading instruction. The school’s roster includes a Title I Reading Specialist and a Reading Support Specialist, a sign of how much of the recovery effort is centered on reading fluency and steady daily practice.

That urgency traces directly to Hurricane Helene’s disruption across Buncombe County Schools. The district reopened for students on Oct. 25, 2024, exactly four weeks after the storm hit, after weeks spent repairing infrastructure, restoring water, electricity and internet service, and rerouting transportation. Eight Buncombe County Schools buildings suffered substantial flood damage. In the reopening period, some campuses relied on grab-and-go meals and hand-washing stations because potable water was not yet available.

The wider policy response showed how much time western North Carolina schools had lost. North Carolina lawmakers approved $644 million in additional Helene recovery funding on Oct. 24, 2024, including calendar flexibility that allowed affected school districts to miss up to 20 additional days of class. For Woodfin and other schools, that meant the challenge was not only reopening doors, but making up instructional ground before early reading gaps hardened into larger setbacks.

Community support has also become part of the recovery. After Helene, Woodfin students received donated books and plushies from a New Jersey author and retired teacher, a small but visible reminder that the school’s youngest learners were still surrounded by care as they returned to class. Woodfin’s annual 5K also supports literacy programs, keeping local fundraising tied directly to reading help for students.

For a neighborhood school still working to steady itself after the storm, the stakes are plain: if the reading push works, students can recover ground that was lost in the weeks after Helene; if it falls short, those missed days can echo through the rest of the school year.