BILLINGS — The practice field west of the fire-gutted Huntley Project High School was swarming with activity Sunday as workers readied eight trailers for use as classrooms today.

“We’re not quitting until it’s time for the kids to get here. That’s it — no matter what it takes,” said Tynie Mader, Huntley Project principal.

Construction crews ran water, power and fiber optic cable to the eight trailers located on what’s been dubbed Devil Avenue after the school’s mascot. Inside the trailers, contractors removed walls to turn the trailers into classrooms, and the school’s custodial staff worked alongside dozens of volunteers to clean the rooms and ready them for students.

“It’s something for us to do to keep our minds busy,” said Dianne Green, a custodian who came in to help with the transition.

Green is a graduate of Huntley Project High and so are her three daughters. Her granddaughter is a sophomore who will be starting classes in the trailers today. If plans to rebuild are on schedule, she may graduate in a new high school. Two years is the earliest estimate for construction of a new building.

Each trailer has a long narrow classroom and a small storage/office space. For now, the trailers are equipped with a white, dry marker board, tables and chairs and a desk for the teacher. Waiting on the desk is a box of new office supplies with a class list to take attendance on the first day back.

According to Mader, all of the school’s attendance data and grades were backed up on a server in the career and technical education center. Teachers were encouraged to back up files such as lesson plans and assignments on the district’s server, but anything that was saved only on individual hard drives has been lost, she said.

All the displaced teachers have new computers and by the end of the week they’ll each have an Internet connection and a printer. All that’s missing are textbooks and other teaching materials.

“We’re waiting to see how many of the kids had their books at home,” Mader said.

She is hoping that about 60 percent of the books students need will have been spared because they were with the students. But Wednesday was only a half day of school to provide teacher training, so homework was probably light, she said.

One of the trailers — a double-wide — is set aside for band class, and another is the “main office” along with a copy center and workroom for teachers. Two more trailers are on order for a library, study hall and computer lab, which are all being temporarily set up in the multipurpose room, Mader said.

One of the trailers has restrooms, and students have access to restrooms in the career and technical education center. P.E. class will be held in the elementary school gym.

The gym is much smaller, but P.E. teacher Iona Stookey said she feels lucky, because she teaches both elementary and high school P.E. so the gym is available during the day for the older students.

As for extra-curricular sports, Stookey said Huntley Project teams will practice at the Lockwood Middle School gym. Administrators have yet to decide where they will play their home games.

“Everybody’s offered us places but we’re not sure at this point,” Stookey said, adding that they’re looking into the Al Beedo Shrine Auditorium Gym on Broadwater Avenue as an option.