Abbott Elementary EPs Preview The Chaos As The School Moves Into A Mall (!) — Get An Exclusive Sneak Peek

The "Abbott Elementary" teachers are going to the mall... but they're not there to shop.

In case you missed the latest school bulletin: In the fall finale of ABC's schoolhouse comedy, the school's furnace finally gave out and exploded, forcing the faculty to find a temporary location to hold their classes while a new furnace is installed. So they turned to an abandoned mall — and unfortunately, this isn't just a fictional dilemma.

"It's actually a thing that has been happening at different places within the U.S., especially with flooding, things like that," co-showrunner Patrick Schumacker tells TVLine. "It just happened here in L.A. with the fires," he points out, with Palisades Charter High School relocating to an old Sears. "Every season on 'Abbott,' we try to show something that teachers go through that maybe people don't know. So this was one of them." 

As you can imagine, it's not exactly an easy transition for the "Abbott" staff. "They do, immediately in the first episode, have the problem of: Where do we put everybody?" Schumacker hints. "Not only is it a labyrinth, but it's also in disarray because it was an abandoned mall, and there's literally, like, dangerous s**t that we have to make sure we remove. So yeah, it's just a logistical nightmare that they're dealing with."

TVLine has an exclusive sneak peek at that logistical nightmare, too, with a new promo for the "Abbott" midseason premiere — airing Wednesday, Jan. 7 at 8:30 pm — which you can watch above. In it, Janine tries to be upbeat (of course), but the rest of the staff is overwhelmed by the transition, especially when the kids start thundering through the mall like a wild stampede. "Mall school is crazy," one kid observes... and yeah, he's not wrong. 

Don't worry about gym class: "A lot of the kids are just getting their exercise from running rampant through the mall," Schumacker adds. "That becomes another issue: How do we keep tabs on where these kids are at all times? Because this place is such a behemoth, and because there are entrances and exits all over this place that we didn't have to deal with at home."

All this chaos will put a lot of extra strain on the "Abbott" faculty, but there may be a silver lining to it. "There are some personal relationships that come from it," co-showrunner Justin Halpern teases — and we have our eye on "Shrinking" alum Luke Tennie, who recently joined the cast as new teacher Dominic. So maybe working out of a mall isn't so bad after all.

Press PLAY above for a first look at the "Abbott" midseason premiere, and then drop your thoughts and predictions in a comment below.