Blog # 5- Educating Children of Katrina

The article "Educating Children of Katrina" lists multiple problems that this natural disaster caused. Hurricane Katrina displaced at least 372,000 students. Louisiana had more than 247,000 public and private school students displaced with 489 school closings. Mississippi had more than 125,000 displaced students. 226 schools across 30 counties were closed and 30 schools were completely distroyed.
These children had to attend schools somewhere. Fortunately, school districts in Texas opened up their doors to these displaced students. But, with this surplus of kids, there was a possibility that there were not going to be enough teachers to properly educate these children. This article suggests that mathematicians and scientists should be allowed in the classroom without training or a teacher certification in order to help fill the void.
This article also indicates that parents who were victims of Katrina should be able to make their own choice as to where their child should attend school. But, how do parents decide this? For example, if a displaced family moved to Texas because of Katrina, they would probably wish their student to attend a private school, or a wealthy school district. However, this article suggests that this thinking may be a mistake because some wealthy or private schools do not necessarily give the best education to minority students.
For instance Harrell Budd Elementary School contains many 6th grade students who come from low SES background and/or minority backgrounds. The school also has less money to spend per student than other schools. Yet, Budd is one of the best schools in Dallas because it excells with every type of student.
Even though I have never experienced a disaster to the extent as Katrina, the school I work for, Waverly Elementary (WES), got flooded during the May 1 rains. Although the school was not destroyed, it was considerably damaged, and school had to be let out for the remainder of the year. This made for these students to lose 10% of their academic year. This disaster will also, inevitably, cause them to be behind at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.
Funding and insurance has become a major issue with this whole ordeal, and I am still not sure what the outcome will be. All I know is WES is still expected to open up come the first day of class.
The flooding in my county was a drop in the bucket (literally) compared to what happened in Nashville. I could not imagine the stress and financial difficulty the school disctricts in Nashville have faced. The flood has affected countless amounts of people. The flood caused many school districts to lose facilities, teachers to lose materials and personal items, and children to miss out on a significant part of their schooling. But, like people from Katrina have triumphed...so will people in Tennessee.


https://elearn.mtsu.edu/d2l/orgTools/ouHome/ouHome.asp?ou=1439730