In the Wake of Hurricane Rita, Some Schools Remain Closed

Rhonda Schell, president of the Beaumont Teachers Association (TSTA/NEA), weathered Hurricane Rita in a cabin by Toledo Bend Lake in eastern Texas after evacuating her hometown of Silsbee. She figured the lake was far enough from the coast to be protected from the storm, but as it raced inland, the hurricane soon knocked out the power. For hours, Schell and her family sat in the heat and the dark, listening to 100 mph winds howl outside.

"I thought for sure the house would come down," Schell said. It didn’t and, fortunately, neither did the family’s house back in Silsbee, but some of her neighbors weren’t as lucky. As of September 30, they hadn’t been back home, but Schell spoke with a neighbor who told her that several houses behind the Schell’s were completely flattened. The neighbor suspected a hurricane-spawned tornado was to blame.

A special education teacher at Martin Elementary in the Beaumont Independent School District, Schell is eager to get back to work. “I just need to be in a classroom,” she said. “It feels so odd not to be at school with the kids. Just as school children need to get back into a routine, so do adults.”

But some Texas schools may be closed for a month as utility companies struggle to restore power and clean up wind damage. Schell knows that breaks will be shorter and the school year will stretch longer into the summer. What remains unclear is the impact on testing.

“We’re missing critical instruction days,” said Schell. “We had evacuated children from Louisiana and Mississippi in our schools, and now we have our own evacuated children scattered across the region. What will we do about their testing?”

The U.S. Department of Education announced September 29 that schools and districts severely damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will receive automatic waivers for the school year from sanctions under NCLB testing mandates, formally known as Adequate Yearly Progress, while others will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

However, while the flexibility is welcome, NEA is pushing for more waivers, extensions and relief to meet the pressing needs of all teachers, education support professionals, students and schools affected by the hurricanes, including schools taking in displaced students.

Whether or not her school will receive a waiver, Schell plans to use the experience of the 2005 hurricane season in writing exercises once classes resume. “When we get back, boy will we have some stories to share,” she said. “Some of these children who had to evacuate had never been outside of Beaumont. We’ll all have some new words in our vocabulary after this.”

--Cindy Long, NEA Staff Writer
September 30, 2005

Related Links:

• NEA Applauds Department of Education's Policy Changes
• Texas Education Agency School Closings and Openings
• Texas State Teachers Association
  U.S. Education Department’s “Hurricane Help for Schools”