Schools Help Shrimping Town Recover From Katrina

The people of Bayou la Batre, Alabama, know the shrimping business. Made famous by the movie Forrest Gump, Bayou la Batre is the town where Forrest's friend Bubba grew up. If you know Gulf shrimping, you know hurricanes. But most people in Bayou la Batre have never known a storm as devastating as Hurricane Katrina.

The shrimpers, along with the thousands of Bayou la Batre residents who supported the seafood industry in processing plants, ice houses, netting companies and shucking factories, have lost everything familiar -– their jobs, their homes and their routines.

"The livelihood of so many of our residents is gone," said Sarah Horton, president of the Mobile County ESPO and NEA Board member. "Our community sustained life changing damages."

Around the Bayou, many of the battered one-story houses are tagged with red "condemned" signs, so families are putting a roof over their heads wherever they can find one -- in shelters, with relatives, in campers, even in tents outside their demolished houses.

Schools Become a Rallying Point

As residents struggle to put their lives back together, the schools are becoming the focal point for the community.

"The schools have become islands in all of this chaos," said Rhonda Waltman, NEA member and Assistant Superintendent for Student Services for Mobile County Schools. "Two days after the storm, parents came up to help us clean, wanting to do something to get their children away from the overwhelming stress of the disaster and back into the routine of school."

But the schools in Bayou la Batre and other parts of Mobile Country have a tough job ahead. Not only are they struggling to provide comfort and support and routine for displaced students in their own communities, they are also enrolling evacuated children from other parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. And that means helping students with even the most basic needs, such as dry shoes and clean clothing.

Addressing Emotional Needs

With a donated washer and dryer, Alba Elementary in Bayou la Batre is providing a change of clean uniforms for the displaced children, but educators know that the needs of children go far beyond uniforms. Having their lives turned upside down by Hurricane Katrina has put an enormous emotional strain on children.

"We're making sure we meet the physical needs of the students, and are providing them safety and security, but for the long term we have to think about their emotional needs," Waltman said. "With the help of the Mobile County Mental Health Center, every out-of-state displaced child is assigned a social worker and every in-state displaced child is assigned a social worker."

In Alba Middle and Alba Elementary, everyone has a hurricane story. Educators encourage the students to tell theirs through journals, drawings or short essays. In one essay, a young Alba Elementary student observed that Hurricane Katrina left many people with nothing but their names.

Educators are also on the lookout for signs of aggression, acting out, clinginess or other indicators that a child isn't coping. And though every effort is made to help the students express and handle their feelings, no one can say how long it will take before the children start to heal.

"This is a first for everyone," said Waltman. "It's just a big unknown."

--Cindy Long, NEA staff writer

September 21, 2005