School Board News

Is Wilma as bad as Florence or Jeanne or Katrina? Florida schools are seeking to answer this odd-sounding but necessary question this week, as they assess the affect of the latest in a string of big storms to directly blast through that state. Many schools on both coasts are shut down. Collier County, on the Gulf Coast, experienced its most powerful direct hit since 1960, inspiring the “Lucky no more” headline in today’s Naples Daily News. Read more here.

Across the state, Atlantic coast schools were slammed as well. The area surrounding the Broward County schools administration building in Fort Lauderdale resembles “a war zone,” reports the Miami Herald. All the 14-story building’s windows are blown out, with “all manner of school district paperwork strewn around streets near the building.” That county’s public schools are closed the rest of the week, mainly due to power outtages, as damage is assessed. The school district was just getting around to gearing up its support for those affected by a previous hurricane.

As of this morning, six million Floridians are without power. Long term power outtages is a major reason for another debilitating and often very expensive condition impacting schools affected by hurricanes: mold. And now, schools in Northeastern Atlantic states are getting ready, such as this school district in Connecticut.

Two weeks after we wrote this, little has changed. The Senate has not moved on substantive relief legislation for schools impacted by the recent hurricanes, bogged down by the insistence of some that vouchers, or similar payments to private schools, be included in any package. NSBA has said for two months that we oppose turning needed relief aid into a vehicle for creating the largest, costliest voucher plan in U.S. history. Here is our statement and letter on the latest proposal, S. 1904, put forward by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

NSBA has suggested lawmakers follow existing federal law, specifically the equitable participation component of Title I that provides private schools with educational services (but not the thorny issue of federal dollars), in order to provide private schools with hurricane relief. “By taking such action the Senate could overcome the current stalemate that has delayed the help that school districts, especially those in the Gulf Coast, desperately need, would ensure that all students impacted by the hurricanes continue to have access to the quality education they deserve, and that taxpayers have the clear accountability they deserve for how their dollars are spent,” NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant said.

In the House, the chair of the education committee, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) has introduced H.R. 4097, which includes a private school voucher proposal tied to a hurricane relief package for public schools. Here is NSBA’s letter on that bill.

The school board at Louisiana‘s Ascension Parish Public Schools recognized 70 of its district’s bus drivers this week for their efforts evacuating residents of the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina. Drivers carried more than 1,000 residents to safer and drier areas, after overcoming logistical and security challenges. “One even had a gun pulled on her,” a school official told The Ascension Citizen. The school district’s superintendent details here other examples of the district’s reaching out to help. The Ascension Parish school district is also coming through in one other big way: About 1,500 students from hurricane-affected areas now attend Ascension schools.

Relief legislation for schools and students impacted by Hurricane Katrina remains stalled. Though multiple bills have been introduced and proposals floated, nothing has moved very far, and Congress is on recess this week.

One reason for the delay appears to be the issue of private school vouchers. A bi-partisan bill put forward some time ago by Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) did not include vouchers. However, following the administration’s suggestion that taxpayer dollars be sent to private schools in a relief package, the bi-partisan Senate bill has stalled. A new bill that may include vouchers or a similar payment plan to private and religious schools could be introduced when Congress returns next week. Several relief measures that do not include vouchers also have been introduced in the House.

NSBA is on record opposing vouchers as part of any relief legislation. The need to provide assistance to public schools that are educating hundreds of thousands of displaced students should not be derailed by efforts to create the nation’s largest, costliest voucher program ever. Some have suggested that this would merely be a one-time aid program to private schools, but voucher advocates who began pushing the controversial approach shortly after the hurricane seem to have different motivations.

New efforts to divert potentially hundreds of millions in tax dollars to private schools is the wrong move, especially as recent Congressional action clearly points to a brewing battle over long-term funding cuts for public schools and programs for low-income students.

For more details on NSBA’s views on relief efforts and our own recommendations, first put forward Sept. 2, go here.

State school boards associations in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama have established hurricane relief efforts in their states. Read all about them here. NSBA‘s NewsStand continues to collect articles on hurricane issues related to schools. A couple of examples: A school in Alabama is aiding the effort to re-establish schools in Pass Christian, Miss. Three of that city’s four schools, educating 2,000 students, were obliterated by Hurricane Katrina. And affects of the 2004 hurricanes together with a hot housing market in Florida are combining to increase the costs of building new schools there.

Also: Students are writing about their hurricane experiences and reactions. They need blogs! We recommend contacting her, him, or him. A very smart bunch who teach and use blogging in the classroom and out. “Out” meaning in such astonishing places as the principal’s office. (And this book sounds like a must read when it comes out next year.)

Good site here from the Centers for Disease Control about health-related hurricane information for schools. It says “Katrina” but the info is applicable to the hurricane of your choice. The site provides a link to immunization guidance for schools hosting displaced students. CDC’s site for disaster mental health resources has important info as well.

And here is the U.S. Department of Education Hurricane Help for Schools site, which includes a link to the What Schools Need page, with each school in the affected areas having its own page to list specific needs.

Browsing through the list of schools and school districts reveals many tales. Galveston Independent School District in Texas reports that as of September 15, it was hunting for supplies to assist 440 students recently enrolled who were displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina. This, of course, is before that entire city was emptied in advance of Hurricane Rita. That district and others also list needs such as clothing and personal care items. Plenty of high-ticket items such as computers and printers are needed by schools in flood-zone areas. The site lists e-mail addresses, U.S. mail addresses, and phone numbers for each school. Now is a great time to adopt one. And philanthropists of the world: Now is your moment to step up for schools.

“Every day kids are not in school is a lost academic opportunity,” Houston Independent School District spokesman Terry Abbott told the Houston Chronicle. “We’re hurting kids if they don’t get back to school.” The Texas Education Agency has set up a Web site to track hurricane-related school news such as school closings and openings. And Texas educators pitched in to evacuate affected communities. Read about it here.

And a sobering sentence in an AP article here on the tragic bus fire that resulted in the deaths of 23 who were fleeing Houston: “The company had contracts with schools to drive students to athletic events but made most of its money driving seniors to gambling spots such as Las Vegas … ” The piece details a bus company riding on the legal edge. School districts across America who hire charter transportation take note.

The checks are still in the mail for almost $4 million that the federal government and others owe South Florida’s Broward School District for expenses connected to last year’s hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, reports the Sun-Sentinel.

At least $2.3 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been bogged down in micromanaging, minutia-laden paperwork, rolls of red tape and confusion, school officials said, even though those storms only grazed the county, the paper reports.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has informed state schools in jurisdictions not already evacuated to contact their local officials in order that they can provide shelter and transportation to those residents evacuating from Hurricane Rita. This comes on the heels of TEA establishing a website dedicated to provided resources to those Texas schools that have enrolled students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

It took two hurricanes, but the annual meeting of the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School Administrators, slated to start Friday at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, has been postponed until later this fall, reports the Houston Chronicle. Here is TASB‘s statement.

More than 10,000 participants had planned to discuss, among other topics, how to cope with the sudden influx of Louisiana students who fled Hurricane Katrina. The conference was almost canceled when the venue was used for housing displaced Gulf Coast residents.

Hundreds of Texas schools that opened their doors to Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the past month have decided to close their campuses for the remainder of the week to give Gulf Coast families time to evacuate as Hurricane Rita approaches, reports the Chronicle:

“More than a dozen districts south of Houston, including Galveston and Pasadena, opted to close until at least Monday. They’re copying student records, boarding up windows and relocating buses in preparation.”

And in Alabama, evacuees are still enrolling in that state’s schools, and are having a “significant impact.”