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School
Bells Ring For Children Displaced By Hurricane Katrina |
Posted:
09.07.05
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For thousands of children displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the
new school year means finding safe, familiar experiences in strange
new surroundings.
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When Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last month, hundreds of
thousands of people had to flee their homes with little or no
belongings. Within hours, they lost any semblance to normal lives.
Now, government officials are encouraging evacuated families to
enroll their children in the nearest schools.
"The children in our state are too important, and we're
not going to let anything prevent us from moving forward,"
Jeanne Burns, an associate state commissioner for teacher education,
told Education Week.
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School open
doors to evacuated students |
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Schools in New Orleans, Louisiana are expected to be closed for
several months. An estimated 125,000 New Orleans children will
need schooling.
Schools from around the country have offered help. The Houston
Independent School District in Texas has welcomed close to 900
students and expects to enroll 5,000 more. Other students are
entering classrooms as far away as Detroit, Ohio, Georgia and
Wisconsin.
Some students have met new friends and look forward to a new
school.
"I'm pretty open, so that will make it better, and we've
already met a lot of nice people," Paige DiMacco, a senior
from suburban New Orleans who will be starting school in Arkansas,
told the Seattle-Post Intelligencer.
But for many, the changes have caused great stress, and students
are anxiously awaiting the day that they can return  home.
"I'm shy and I have to start at a new school," Dedrionne
McCarvy, 12, who was registering at a center in Baton Rouge, La.,
told The Charlotte Observer.
"I'm gonna have to make new friends, but then I'm gonna
have to go back to New Orleans, once they flush the water out.
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Extra supplies,
classrooms and teachers |
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The federal government is creating a plan to help schools pay
for the extra supplies, textbooks, classroom space, uniforms and
additional teachers, but many school leaders say their first priority
is getting all students into classes.
"I think districts will keep taking the students and figure
it all out later," Paul Houston, executive director of the
American Association of School Administrators, told the Seattle-Post
Intelligencer.
Schools are also hiring some of the teachers displaced by Katrina.
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Getting back
to normal |
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Mental health and disaster relief experts say that creating a
sense of normalcy is essential to rebuilding lives.
This was especially important after last year's Asian tsunami
displaced hundreds of thousands of school-age children, explained
Save the Children spokesman Mike Kiernan, whose organization hopes
to open after-school programs for Katrina's victims.
"We want to create an environment as close to normal as
possible - where kids are doing things -- riding a bike, throwing
a football, drawing, etc. -- fun activities that allow kids to
process what they've experienced," Kiernan said.
Parents hope familiar school routines will help children recover
from the terrifying ordeal of  escaping
the storm and floods.
"They'll have to concentrate on their books, homework and
lessons, instead of the water we walked through," Brandon
Roberts, parent of a New Orleans kindergartner, told The Charlotte
Observer.
Safe places for children are essential, especially when their
parents are struggling to find jobs, homes and to reconnect with
families and friends, experts say.
"I'm depressed, I'm stressed out," Selika Thomas, a
30-year-old mother of two who worked as a hotel chef in New Orleans,
told the Associated Press.
"It all happened so fast. We see this every day, homeless
people living in the streets, but I didn't expect it to happen
to our whole city."
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Reuniting
children and parents |
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Many children in the Gulf Coast area are still waiting to be
reunited with their families.
 The
U.S. Department of Justice has asked the U.S. National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to coordinate a process
to unite missing children and families.
Names, descriptions and photos, when available, of missing children
and adults are being posted to the NCMEC Web site at www.missingkids.com.
According to a NCMEC spokeswoman, more than 729 children across
the region have been reported as missing due to Katrina as of
Sept. 6.
Families looking to be reunited can call the NCMEC Katrina Hotline
at 1-888-544-5475 for more information.
Volunteers armed with mobile phones, digital cameras and scanners
are fanning out across the region to help families find images
for the Web site.
--Compiled
by Annie Schleicher for NewsHour Extra
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Like many Californians, I live in a town where teenagers drive to school in gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks just because they want to look powerful and extravagant.
