MOBILE, Alabama – Students at the tornado-damaged Murphy High School won't be able to return to their campus after winter break, due to extensive structural damage and electrical problems, officials just announced.

The 2,250 students will be heading to west Mobile, to the Clark-Shaw magnet school in Alpine Hills. The school, which for decades was Shaw High School, now houses about 700 middle school students enrolled in a specialized math and science program.

"The structural damage was greater than we anticipated at Murphy," Mobile County schools Superintendent Martha Peek said. "We had no option but to find another campus that we could accommodate classes on."

Peek said the school district will "work as quickly as possible to get Murphy back in good condition."

Murphy students won’t return on Jan. 3 as originally planned. Instead, school officials have worked out a schedule where seniors will arrive on the Clark-Shaw campus on Jan. 7, juniors on Jan. 8, sophomores on Jan. 9 and freshmen on Jan. 10.

Each class will have an orientation session at 8:30 a.m. on its designated day to help the students adjust to the new campus.

Students will be allowed to return to Murphy on Jan. 3 to get their belongings from their lockers. Teachers will return to Murphy on Jan. 2 as planned, but to pack up.

An information session will be held for parents on Jan. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Mobile Civic Center.

The two schools will share the campus for at least a quarter, or more likely the entire semester. Officials said the middle and high school kids will be kept separate.

Murphy students will have class every day from 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Clark-Shaw students will keep their schedule, to help differentiate arrival and dismissal for the two schools. Clark-Shaw students will return Jan. 3.

Bus transportation will be provided.

Clark-Shaw is an ideal spot to house the Murphy students, Peek said, because it has high school facilities, such as a gymnasium, locker rooms and athletic fields, even a band room. The cafeteria is large enough to serve a good number of students. The hallways are wide.

One building at Clark-Shaw will be emptied and used entirely by the high school, officials said. And about 50 or 60 modular classrooms have been ordered, some from out-of-state, to accommodate the remaining Murphy students.

At one point, Shaw, built for about 1,200 students, had 1,600.

Starting in January, it will have about 3,000.

“The two principals have met and are doing the planning,” Peek said of Murphy Principal William Smith and Clark Principal Dianne McWain. “They feel like they can make it work.”

Shaw closed in 2008, and Clark moved there from Chickasaw soon after.

Every building of the sprawling Murphy campus on Carlen Street in midtown Mobile was touched by the Christmas Day tornado. About 40 percent of the roof of the auditorium was blown off. The roof to the cafeteria appears to have lifted and returned back into place.

The canopies connecting the buildings are all gone, and those held much of the electrical wiring.

Windows were smashed in on the historic campus, built in the 1920's.

All but one of the portables were demolished.

“We know the Murphy campus is near and dear to everyone’s heart,” Peek said. “We want to make sure the repairs are done correctly, and that we’re not just putting a Band-Aid on it.”

Peek said she'll send a request to the state that the students not have to make up the missed days, between Jan. 3-7.