East Palestine Schools put a new twist on an old math theory by proving, while the rest of the world watched, that just one negative can make a whole lot of positives in a year that was trying, transformative and triumphant.

Like a true educator, East Palestine Superintendent Chris Neifer chose to focus on the lessons learned from last year’s Norfolk Southern train derailment and the opportunities presented in its wake.

“We’ve taken advantage over the course of the last year and all the positives over the last 12 months. The accident is what it is, but we’ve taken advantage of as many educational opportunities as we could get for our students, starting with the opportunities to interview the different politicians and the different important people who have come to town because of this. Our kids have gotten a lot of opportunities to sit with those people, ask the right questions and talk about the impact that it’s had on them and make sure their stories are getting told,” he said. “We’ve had kids down in the creeks water testing with the EPA and they ran their own citizen science experience with the EPA and air quality testing. Those are experiences that kids across the country just don’t have. And our kids, because of this awful thing that happened here, have taken full advantage of it.”

Neifer doesn’t dismiss the severity of the derailment or the initial ripple of fears the rail disaster sent throughout the community. When the train went off the tracks on that blistering cold Feb. 3 night, nobody, including Neifer knew the implications or what lay ahead.

“When I got that call Friday night that we were going to open for the Red Cross to do their thing here, I grabbed some clothes because it was a cold night out and told my wife ‘I will be back in a few hours’. I got home about five days later,’ he said. “I had no idea how big this was and exactly what we were dealing with.”

In the days after the derailment, the school shut down, an evacuation was ordered and families became displaced. It was uncharted territory for the village, let alone the district, but Bulldogs band together, and together they got through those scary first few days.

“Our administrative teams and staff did a wonderful job. We shut the school down for a week, but we never lost sight of our kids and our families. Our teachers were reaching out and setting up experiences for our kids. We had movie days and we had athletic time at the athletic complex, and we had groups of teachers that were going to hotels just to deal with families that were displaced, just to let them know we didn’t forget about them,” Neifer said “They collected their own money and took care packages to these families and we never lost sight of that. Our Bulldog family really pulled together, and I was really proud of those pieces but it was a real tough time.”

Times were tough but so are Bulldogs. Neifer, of course, knew that, but what happened when the doors of the school reopened, reinforced it.

“We’ve tried to do our best to be proactive and provide a positive environment. When things first happened, we had a team of counselors here to just try to support kids, but we really didn’t see problems and we, for the most part, were able to dismiss those counselors after just a couple days,” he said. “It was great to see kids that following Monday. We put the counselors in place. We had 18 counselors here, a group of six in each building but these kids didn’t care about it. They just wanted to be back with their teachers and their friends. They just wanted to get back to business. I think in some ways the kids handled it much better than we did as adults to be honest with you.”

Some students bounced back quicker than others.

“When you just talk about the kids and the impact that it’s had on them, it’s typically positive or they talk it not having much of impact on them, but we certainly see from a certain stand point, the pressures, the anxieties and the stresses that these types of things can create in the community and for families, and that unfortunately comes out in kids sometimes,” Neifer said.

Counselors remain at the campus — just in case.

“We still have on-site counseling because again we are trying to be proactive and these things don’t go away in a week. They can have very long term impacts,” Neifer said. “That’s one of the changes we’ve made here, to make sure we have people here to support those kids.”

Ultimately, Neifer said, the students have written their own story and controlled their own narrative. The Principal Advisory Councils, a group of students who meet with the administration to keep the lines of communication open, provides a voice to the student body.

“We have a good infrastructure here where kids have the ability to have their voices heard. We have Principal Advisory Councils at all three of our buildings, all the way down to our elementary school, where those kids get to meet with their administrators on a monthly basis and share their concerns, thoughts and ideas,” Neifer said. “We do get an opportunity to really hear what they have to say and how they are feeling about things and it really has been a positive year. And it’s been really refreshing for me to go to these meetings and listen to the kids and hear how they want to make it a positive thing. We wanted to establish a culture of not being victims here. The students have, one, taken that on, and, two, been a part of promoting it. We are going to come out the other end better than we were before.”

Being better than they were before the derailment is the approach Neifer and his staff took from the beginning of the ordeal. He also took an honest approach when he met with Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw following the derailment.

“The first time I met with Alan Shaw, we talked about some of the immediate issues we were having and how they could help support us. His mantra that day was ‘I want to do something to help make this community thrive again’. And I was very honest in the conversation. On Feb. 2, we weren’t thriving. We had our struggles,” Neifer said. “The conversation was about helping us get that turned around, and seeing some positive things come out of this.”

In the early days of the rail disaster, Norfolk Southern donated $300,000 to the district, with $40,000 set aside specifically for the athletic department. At last tally, $38,337.82 of the earmarked $40,000 has been spent on equipment and uniforms, while $10,650 from the open donation was spent on event materials. That left a balance of $251,012.19 to be spent with the help of the community’s direction.

Shaw later made a personal donation of $400,000 to establish an endowment scholarship at the high school. The Bulldog Legacy Scholarship will be awarded to four soon-to-be graduates every year.

Other Norfolk Southern donations to the village schools included $100,000 for track cleaning and repairing, $75,000 to repair the elementary school parking lot that was damaged during the derailment response, $100,000 for costs accrued during online learning necessary following the disaster, and $52,000 in gift cards distributed as to the district staff as part of an appreciation event. Neifer also said several teams and clubs have approached the railroad directly for donations and since those donations did not come through the district office, he has no record of the exact number but estimated to be another $20,000.

In November, the railroad committed another $750,000 to the district — $75,000 a year for the next 10 years to establish a Communications and Marketing Supervisor position which was filled by East Palestine native Allison Oltmann, who has deep ties to the Bulldog Community.

Oltmann resides in Unity Township with her husband Eric. The couple owns Bush Heating — a business located on East Taggart Street and what was ground zero the night the train derailed. Her three daughters attend school in the district and her mother is a retired East Palestine School teacher.

Oltmann fit seamlessly into the new role, sharing the district’s philosophy of forward progress and bouncing back.

“That’s the key,” she said. “Our job here in the district is to really create a positive environment and I feel that’s been successfully done throughout this entire year and entire ordeal, and these kids are ready to do great things.”

Neifer explained the idea behind the creation of Oltmann’s position was to help foster better communication between the district and the community and to help attract new families into the district while helping keep the families already enrolled.

Losing students to the derailment was a real concern for the district, but the numbers simply don’t reflect a mass exodus. The district has just five fewer students than it did this time last year.

“We certainly tracked that and we work in gains and losses, and when you look at even the county numbers people are leaving the county and have been for the last 15 years,” Neifer explained. “Going into the school year, the first day of school, we had a net loss of 28 students. That doesn’t mean they were all train derailment-related. We’ve had those who have moved in and moved out. Did we lose some families because of the derailment? Absolutely we did. But we’ve also had families with kids move in so our net losses are not that bad.”

One year removed, Neifer can look back on the derailment with a bit of sorrow that his students and the Bulldog community as a whole had to experience the trauma attached to it. But he insists it’s not a sad story, just a sad chapter. The ending, he said, is a happy one.

“The accident was a terrible thing and I am not denying that, but if we can find a way to turn this into a positive experience for our kids and for our community then we’ve taken something that happened to us and made it work in our favor. That’s certainly been our goal and I feel we met that goal. It will continue to be our goal moving forward,” he said. “I am proud to say that is part of our story and we made it a positive part of our story.”

(sleverd@mojonews.com)