Fire-Damaged Frost Elementary Bounces Back With Community Support

Two Hillsborough County commissioners and representatives of the Mosaic company were in attendance Aug. 16 at the open house greeting for parents and students at Frost Elementary School, where a fire earlier this month destroyed the kindergarten classrooms of teachers Holly Cover and Jamy Daily-Herman.

Following the July 28 fire, Hillsborough County Commissioner Al Higginbotham, through his aide, Deanna Hurley, sent out an email to media, chamber and business interests to help raise support for the teachers who lost their supplies.

On hand to meet with the teachers in their temporarily reassigned classrooms at the open house greeting were Higginbotham, commissioner Lesley "Les" Miller and representatives from the Mosaic company —  Chris Smith, Larry Jackson and Debbie Winebarger.

• For photos then and now, visit .

The Mosaic company issued to the school a $5,000 check while employees from the Riverview plant and FishHawk offices raised school supplies for the students, which were delievered in part Aug. 16.

"At first it was devastating and now it's just been great all the support from everybody," Cover said about her reaction first to the fire and then to the events in its aftermath. "We couldn't rebuild without it."

Daily-Herman, whose classroom connected to Cover's, issued a similar sentiment.

"When it first happened I was completely devastated, it was terrible," she said about the Saturday, July 28 fire and its aftermath. "We actually met with Mrs. Bates on Sunday, so she could show us pictures, to lessen the blow."

The teachers saw their classrooms on Monday, "and it was very depressing to see," she said. "Now? I'm over the moon with how concerned the community's been."

Principal Marlou M. Bates said she, too, was struck by the fire's damages.

"It was devastating, of course," she said. "Very sad, very sad for my teachers and their loss. But the district's been wonderful, as well as the outpouring of support from all our teachers and the community."

Higginbotham said the majority of students who attend the school live in his District 4 jurisdiction. The school sits in District 3, which is represented by Miller.

"A  lot of times there's talk about how commission members don't get along and work together but we do and this is one example," Higginbotham said. "We heard about the fire and we made several calls and Mosaic was one of the first calls we made."

Chris Smith, community relations manager for the Mosaic company and its FishHawk offices and Riverview plant, said the company quickly decided to issue a $5,000 donation to the school.

Moreover, she said, employees every year participate in a back-to-school drive to collect school supplies for area schools and this year decided to help out the teachers at Frost.

"We had a weeklong school supply drive and today we brought some of the supplies with us, with more to come," Smith said at the Aug. 16 open house.

Linda Cobbe, a spokesperson for the Hillsborough County School District, at an Aug. 1 press viewing at Frost, said fire- and smoke-damages could be as high as $400,000. The school is insured, she added, but not for the school supplies and books the teachers bought for their classrooms over the years.

"We can't replace the supplies that the teachers bought for themselves," Cobbe said. "Teachers are always spending money on their own for supplies for the kids."

The fire remains under investigation.

In all, 17 classrooms were affected in a two-story wing at Frost, with the bulk of the damages in the connected classrooms of Cover and Daily-Herman. That's where the fire started, but smoke and soot damages were spread throughout the wing.

Ceiling tiles from all classrooms — the eight kindergarten units on the lower level and the fifth-grade classrooms upstairs — were removed and complete wipe-downs are being conducted, Cobbe said.

Teacher Melissa Stoevsand, in support of Cover and Daily-Herman, posted word of their ordeal with a plea for support, on the Adopt-a-Classroom platform.

"These ladies have been teaching for 17 years combined, thousands of dollars worth of personal materials were lost and the school district does not cover personal loss," she noted.

Tina Bell, Cover's sister, posted a comment to an earlier Brandon Patch report, .

So glad you got the information out there. My sister, Holly Cover, is such a wonderful teacher. She has spent thousands of dollars purchasing books and educational aids over the past ten years to enrich the lives of every student she has the privilege of teaching. She and Jamy have been co- teachers for the past three years and have put their hearts and souls into their students.

Frost Elementary School is a Title 1 school, which means it serves a large number of students who qualify for free- and reduced-price meals because of their families' incomes. The school, at 3950 Falkenburg Road, sits in Riverview but serves as well the Brandon area south of State Road 60 and north of Causeway Boulevard/Lumsden Road and west of Lakewood Drive/Providence Road.

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