Moore Elementary Students Go Back To School On Tuesday

Tuesday morning, students from two elementary schools destroyed by a tornado in Moore, will start the year in a brand new school.

We're talking about Briarwood Elementary School and Plaza Towers Elementary. Tuesday is a new start for more than 1,000 students in those two elementary schools.

8/12/2014 Related Story: First Look Inside New Plaza Towers Elementary

On May 20, 2013, a tornado destroyed the previous Plaza Towers Elementary School, and seven students lost their lives. Having a proper memorial was important to parents and staff at the school. The memorial will be in the entry of the building and feature life-sized silhouettes of seven students.

Those marble figures won't arrive until October.

There will also be seven benches, and each has been customized for the seven students. The benches should arrive in September.

The school is state of the art and roughly the same size as the previous school. The school cost about $12 million and is virtually new. But not everything is new, the wall on the original school featuring the school's mascot, a panther, was saved.

It will be the first thing students see when they walk in to class on Tuesday.

Students at Briarwood Elementary will have a new playground. It has monkey bars, swing, slides even a zip –line. A team of 225 people from Moore schools, Nike and KaBOOM, along with Kevin Durant built it.

7/12/2014 Related Story: Volunteers Build New Playground For Briarwood Elementary School

We will have more throughout the day on News 9 and News9.com as kids head back to school here in Moore.