Guest Viewpoint: Team will focus on rebuilding hurricane-hit schools

Questions of vital importance on this issue abound: How do you plan and rebuild schools that are damaged or destroyed? How can you leap as far as possible into the future, ensuring that the new schools are equipped to provide 21st century skills? How do you provide support for displaced students? How do you support educators and administrators? How do you fund these efforts?

Given the intense competition for funds, how do you make sure your project is a top priority? And whom can you turn to for guidance and support?

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left the Gulf Coast education world in a terrible position, with about 700 schools damaged or destroyed. More than 370,000 students were displaced to other parts of their state or even to other regions, causing a trem­endous overload for existing schools and staff.

In response to this problem, Intel and a team of government agencies, nonprofit foundations, education companies, and other businesses and organizations have created the Hurricane Education Rebuild Operation (HERO) team to accelerate the restoration of learning environments and education infrastructure. The mission of the HERO team is to help schools affected by the hurricanes rebuild or renew learning environments for the 21st century and to determine the best method to help education systems around the world rebuild and recover after any type of disaster.

The HERO team includes some of the country’s most experienced education leaders, including Melinda George, executive director of the State Education Technology Directors Association; Cathilea Robinett, executive vice president of the Center for Digital Government; and Mike Hall, Georgia’s deputy superintendent of schools.

Education officials from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, and Florida are also part of the team, as well as a number of leading technology companies with expertise in the education industry.

Through this effort, we believe that the schools that emerge from the rubble of these devastated areas can provide a superior learning environment rich with multiple types of technology integrated into the classroom and curriculum. We hope these rebuilt schools will provide the best learning experience for students and teachers.

The HERO team is planning an outreach program to contact foundations and businesses that might want to support these efforts. Communications is vital to any project. This team plans to publish regular updates to the education community that track the progress being made toward the team’s goals.

As the work of the team progresses, we will identify the hurdles facing schools systems affected by hurricanes or any other other type of disaster and develop recommendations on how to overcome them -- no matter where you are in the education world.