Joplin School District
The Joplin School District is located in Jasper and Newton Counties in the City of Joplin, Missouri. It serves more than 7,700 students in the school district.On May 22, 2011, an EF5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri. In the path of the tornado, Joplin High School, Franklin Technical Center, East Middle School, Irving Elementary, and Emerson Elementary were destroyed; Cecil Floyd Elementary, Duquesne Elementary, Eastmorland Elementary, and Kelsey Norman were damaged as well. In the months after the tornado, plans have been made to rebuild all schools that were destroyed in the tornado. The school district re-opened its Middle and Elementary schools on January 9, 2014; and Joplin High School and Franklin Technical Center re-opened in August 2014.
Tornado outbreak of April 6–9, 1998
The April 6–9, 1998 tornado outbreak was a large tornado outbreak that started on April 6 across the Great Plains and ended on April 9 across the Carolinas and Georgia. A total of 62 tornadoes touched down from the Middle Atlantic States to the Midwestern United States and Texas. The outbreak is infamous for producing a deadly F5 that tore through the suburbs of Birmingham, killing 32 people. The Birmingham tornado was one of only two F5 tornadoes that year. The other hit in Lawrence County, Tennessee, on April 16, as part of the same outbreak as the 1998 Nashville tornadoes. This tornado outbreak was responsible for 41 deaths: 7 in Georgia and 34 in Alabama.