Schools across the U.S. welcome 'Katrina's kids'
09/13/05 -- Thousands of public school students from New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, forced out of their homes by Hurricane Katrina, have enrolled in schools across the United States. The total number of displaced students is not known but is expected to be more than 200,000.
The evacuation of New Orleans due to the flooding, as well as extensive damage in Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss., and other communities in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, led to the largest resettlement of schoolchildren in U.S. history.
Many schools in New Orleans are still under water, and the Louisiana education department announced Sept. 7 that the entire Orleans Parish school district, which has 128 schools, will likely be out of service for the entire school year.
The Houston Independent School District could see more than 10,000 new students. Large numbers of displaced students have gone to Baton Rouge, La., and other communities throughout the South, but others have gone to schools across the nation -- from Howard County, Md., to Mesa, Ariz.; from Chicago to Orange County, Calif.
School officials in districts enrolling students say their first priority is to provide some normalcy for children who have been traumatized and possibly left homeless by the hurricane -- and that means getting them into a classroom and ensuring they have access to free meals, counseling, and other services.
In the weeks ahead, policymakers at all levels of government will deal with a range of school-related issues stemming from Katrina, including the need for additional funding for both districts with hurricane-damaged schools and districts accepting large numbers of displaced students and the need for waivers from federal and state laws and regulations.
NSBA issued a statement Sept. 2 urging school districts to “welcome all hurricane-displaced students,” reminding school officials that “accepting these students is required under law even where proof of residency, vaccination records, education records from previous districts, and other documentation are not readily available.”
NSBA also is working with the state school boards associations of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi to coordinate relief efforts for students and schools affected by the hurricane.
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings convened a meeting of leaders of national education groups, including NSBA, to explore solutions for assessing the needs of schools affected by Katrina and providing more flexibility in such areas as NCLB, highly qualified teachers, and the reallocation of funds. “On a case-specific basis, the department will relax certain reporting requirements for certain states,” Spellings told the group.
Deputy Secretary of Education Raymond Simon announced earlier that this “unprecedented tragedy” will prompt federal officials to be flexible in granting waivers from federal and state regulations. “You can be assured that the red tape will be put in a drawer.”
The U.S. Agriculture Department waived some of its rules to ensure that displaced children have access to free school meals.
Spellings established a task force of national and state education leaders to coordinate resources for schools affected by the disaster and appointed Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Henry Johnson, the former state superintendent of Mississippi, to lead that effort.
The White House announced a new website called Hurricane Help for Schools (www.ed.gov/katrina) to serve as a clearinghouse of resources for people who want to make contributions and donations to schools accepting large numbers of displaced children.
Many states issued directives in the days following Katrina stating that schools must treat displaced children as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act, which requires homeless children to be enrolled in the district in which their family is staying.
The Ohio Department of Education, for example, says students from areas affected by Katrina “may not be denied admission because they lack academic records, proof of residency, proof of guardianship, birth certificates, school records, or medical records, including immunization records.”
The Texas Education Agency went a step further, stating that districts “with a significant influx of students due to the hurricane” may seek a waiver of student/teacher ratio requirements, update their enrollment for textbook ordering purposes, and seek increased state funding.
The Houston school district had enrolled 445 displaced students taking temporary shelter in the Reliant Park complex, which includes the Astrodome, a new stadium, and the convention center, as of Sept. 7, says district spokesperson Norman Uhl. The district also enrolled 1,440 other evacuees staying in hotels or with relatives.
Uhl expects there will be thousands more. Many families in the complex are waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide them with housing so they can register in schools near where they will be living.
Uhl says the district has room for 13,000 new students, but doesn’t know if it will receive that many, although “it could be close to that.”
Houston also has begun hiring new teachers, many from Louisiana, reopened two new elementary schools that had been closed due to low enrollment, set up a hotline to help hurricane victims register for school, launched a fund-raising drive, and sent 142 school buses to New Orleans to evacuate stranded citizens.
So far, about 3,000 displaced students have enrolled in the Lafayette Parish, La., school district, just 170 miles from New Orleans. Deputy Superintendent Burnell Lemoine says the new students are being spread out among the district’s 45 schools.
Lemoine expects the displaced students to stay for several months. He hopes to be able to obtain their school records soon from the state education department and says he is “grateful for the many organizations and individuals who have contributed school supplies, textbooks, school uniforms, and financial aid.”
As of Sept. 2, 200 displaced students had registered at the Memphis, Tenn., school district’s central office, and additional students had registered directly at individual schools, reports district spokesperson Vince McCaskill.
The Memphis school district provided four recently closed elementary schools for use as shelters, he says. The district’s first priority is to make sure these students are in school and learning and are receiving two meals a day, “because this is traumatic for them,” McCaskill says.
In the coming days, the district will address such issues as the need for waivers to NCLB mandates and student-teacher ratios.
Katrina destroyed or damaged schools in at least five parishes in Louisiana, in addition to the extensive damage in New Orleans, reports state Superintendent Cecil Picard.
Most schools in Jefferson County Parish, a suburb of New Orleans, aren’t expected to reopen until mid-January. Almost all of the schools in St. Bernard Parish and six of the nine schools in Plaquemines Parish were still flooded on Sept. 6.
Picard urged school districts across the state to take in displaced students and urged businesses and churches to provide space for temporary classrooms.
“We will worry about school records, funding, payrolls, and waivers,” Picard says. “Let us work out those details. Right now, I need parents and school systems to make sure these children have the stability of a classroom as soon as possible.”
Picard encouraged displaced teachers, cafeteria workers, custodians, and other employees to apply for work in the school systems where they have relocated and to apply for temporary unemployment benefits if they can’t find jobs.
He says Alvarez and Marsal, the company that had been hired by the state to assist with finances for the New Orleans school system, is working on getting the payroll online so employees can receive health insurance benefits, including those who recently received layoff notices.
Preliminary data for Mississippi indicates that Katrina has affected 271 school in 44 districts, representing nearly 160,000 students, the state’s education department announced Sept. 7. Many schools won’t be open for months.
The department says it will work with affected districts on such issues as transportation, class size, residency, funding, and immunizations and will dispatch damage assessment and recovery teams at the request of local superintendents.
Two brand-new elementary schools in Biloxi, Miss., were flooded with seven or eight feet of water from the tidal surge and “are not usable this year,” says Tim Havard, director of administrative services for the Biloxi school district. The district’s nine other schools had relatively minor damage and should reopen in October, Havard says.
The district is trying to see how many teachers are still in the area and is developing a plan for reassigning students.
Because so much of Biloxi was destroyed, Havard expects enrollment to be down considerably. District leaders have begun talking to state education officials about the long-term consequences for funding. With nearly all the businesses in town shut down, including the casinos, “we won’t have a tax base,” Havard says.
In Mobile, Ala., 25 schools sustained severe damage due to high winds and flooding, says school board President David Thomas. Another 50 of the district’s 105 schools had minor damage, including missing roof shingles, windows blown out, or leaks.
Thomas estimates the facility repair cost at $26 million, which doesn’t include the cost of replacing furniture, books, and equipment.
Grand Bay Middle School will have to be demolished, Thomas says. Its students will be transferred to another school, which will have to implement a double shift schedule to accommodate them.
Thomas estimates that Katrina left 5,000 Mobile students homeless. Meanwhile, the city is sheltering evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi, many of whom became stranded in the Mobile area after they ran out of money and gas.
Mobile registered 100 new students Sept. 6 and was expecting another 100 or so a day for the foreseeable future. The district is providing these students with school uniforms and other clothing from its warehouse and also is making sure they have access to social workers and other services.
“We want to do all we can to make the transition for the evacuees as comfortable as possible and to ensure that they are treated with respect and dignity,” Thomas says.
The school board has directed the superintendent to relax some of its policies and procedures for the new students, he says. The district will revise the calendar to make up for the lost school days, discuss a request for waivers for some of the NCLB testing requirements, and work out a plan for addressing the needs of special education students without proper documents.
Mitch Edwards, a spokesperson for the Alabama Education Department, says the state has taken steps to keep track of all incoming students from Mississippi and Louisiana so state and district officials will know whether displaced students are having an impact on adequate yearly progress goals.
Repairing the damage from Katrina could cost the U.S. economy well over $100 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in the United States, dwarfing the $43 billion clean-up costs following Hurricane Andrew.
Congress already has approved a $10.5 billion aid package, and President Bush requested an additional $51.8 billion Sept. 7. These funds, provided through FEMA, can be used for school reconstruction, temporary educational facilities, and student transportation costs, as well as other disaster relief.
No one knows how much it will cost to repair hurricane-damaged schools and address the needs of displaced students. But it is becoming clear that extensive assistance will be needed, not only for immediate school repairs, temporary classrooms, and aid for districts serving displaced students, but for addressing the long-term school financing needs in districts that are facing a loss of tax revenue and declining property values.
| Reproduced with permission from School Board News. Copyright © 2005, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |