Author: peterjang73

“We had a parent go by and check on the chickens. They were fine and Wilson the cat was ok too! I know many people are concerned. What a wonderful community we have.”

For the staff of Wilson Montessori, a public pre-K-8 school in Houston, the days after Harvey meant tracking down members of the community via text, collecting donations for those in need — and reassuring students about the fate of the school’s pets.

Belva Parrish, the counselor at Wilson and a 25-year veteran of Houston’s public schools, says the pet update on the school’s Facebook page was one small way schools can help students heal.

“Trauma stems from not having any control of your situation,” she says. “Banding together, being a place where students feel safe and they know they have a voice to be heard, will go a long way towards helping them.”

Harvey’s toll on the nation’s seventh-largest public school system, as well as schools around the region, was immense. In the Houston Independent School District alone, most school buildings took on some water, and dozens have major or extensive damage.

Houston’s public schools, which open beginning this Monday, Sept. 11, with rolling start dates, are nonetheless being positioned as a cornerstone of the recovery effort.

“Schools have to be central to the recovery,” Superintendent Richard Carranza told me. “One of the things all cities have are students.”

Leaders are positioning public schools as the place to address students’ needs from the physical to the social and emotional. This is in tune with a growing emphasis, in districts across the country, on going beyond the strictly academic when thinking about the jobs schools must do.

In its scope, Hurricane Harvey is being compared with Hurricane Katrina which struck New Orleans in 2005. But when it comes to education, the two cities are following very different paths post-storm.

In the weeks after Katrina, a plan was hatched to close the New Orleans public schools, permanently. Seventy-five hundred public school employees were pink-slipped. Many were members of the African-American middle class and had deep roots in the city.

The administration of President George W. Bush wrote a $45 million check directed specifically at charters, not public schools. Philanthropists gave millions more. New teachers came from out of town. The result was the nation’s first all-charter school district.

Hurricane Harvey struck under another Republican president, Donald Trump, who has strongly backed school choice, in a state with a Republican governor who has repeatedly cut budgets for public education.

Houston’s system is much bigger and hadn’t been struggling nearly the way New Orleans schools were for decades prior to Katrina. And historical comparisons are always complex.

Still, the contrast is notable.

Instead of closing schools for months, Superintendent Carranza committed to reopening starting just two weeks after the storm, with two more rolling start dates in September. Students from the nine most damaged schools will be transferred elsewhere.

He announced within days of Harvey that all students will be eligible to receive three free meals at school for the entire year. Breakfast will be served in the classroom or handed to students as they get off the bus; dinner will be available at after-school programs or packaged for students to take home. The district is giving out free school uniforms and holding a “Parent Summit” to connect parents to information, plus transportation, clothing and school supplies.

And, instead of expanding charters, Carranza told NPR the city will be designating more “community schools” this year. Those are public schools with a particular mission to identify student and family needs for housing, health care, jobs, food and mental health, and to address those needs through partnerships with community-based nonprofits, government agencies and businesses.

“Wraparound services is absolutely part of our strategic plan,” Carranza told me in an interview. “Community schools are going to become an increasingly vital part of what we do.”

Trauma-informed education

Within and alongside the community schools model, a central focus will be helping students recover mentally and emotionally from the trauma of the natural disaster. And here, too, there is a contrast with New Orleans a dozen years ago.

Students returned to school in New Orleans after days and sometimes weeks in shelters far from home. More than 1,800 people lost their lives, and many more their homes — including closures of public housing — and their livelihoods. Thousands of families and extended families were separated by the evacuation.

A higher level of mental, emotional and behavioral issues among children and teens is predictable after such a traumatic event. Yet many new New Orleans charter schools adopted a “no excuses” discipline model. Students were made to “walk a line” of tape in the hallways and to maintain absolute silence in classrooms — policies that, some students told me, reminded them of prison.

The use of exclusionary discipline such as suspensions and expulsions became a citywide political issue. The state repeatedly found that at some schools, special education students were being illegally punished instead of receiving needed services.

Paulette Carter, president and CEO of the Children’s Bureau of New Orleans, a mental health agency for kids and families, has 20 years of experience in New Orleans schools. She says “no-tolerance discipline” can “exacerbate” the impact of trauma. “We need to shift the frame through which educators are looking at this, and bring empathy into the picture.”

These days, schools around the country, including some in New Orleans, part of a collaborative Carter coordinates, are talking much less about “zero tolerance” or “no excuses.” Instead they are discussing “restorative justice” and “trauma-informed education.”

Restorative justice seeks to strengthen school bonds of inclusion and trust. Trauma-informed education seeks to address the root causes of acting out, including the emerging brain science of trauma and resilience. While still enforcing accountability for behavior, Carter says, a “trauma-aware” teacher tries to help students identify their triggers and build skills for managing emotions, and understands that sometimes, “that kid had a bad day and you need to give them a little bit of room to calm down.”

As it happens, before the storm, Carranza announced a big restorative justice program for this school year. And, last year, Houston schools staff took part in professional development on the basics of trauma-informed education. “It was in hindsight a very wise investment,” Carranza says.

Belva Parrish, the Wilson Montessori counselor, says the training will aid the teachers at her school in spotting the different ways children’s stresses may show up in the classroom.

“Excessive daydreaming,” she lists. “Not getting enough sleep because they’re having nightmares, so sleeping in class. You see a flat affect on the face. Or anger — acting out can often be a result of trauma.”

For all of it, she says, “our teachers are our front line.” A front line that, in many cases, is going through the same things as the students.

Parrish says that since she’s the school’s only counselor, and the sole mental-health professional for 600 students, some triage will be needed.

“I’ve identified the kids at the school who have experienced trauma and I will start with them, because this could be compounded trauma for them,” she says.

The bottom line

Carranza says the district will be tapping both public and private funding sources to hire more school counselors. “My philosophy is, you can never have too many.”

There is a reason Carranza talks about private donors and partnerships to address wraparound services and mental health. School budgets in Texas have been cut $5 billion in recent years, and districts sued the state for more money in a case that went to the state Supreme Court last year.

Spending per student in the city is 37 percent below the national average, we reported last year. “I think Houston ISD has been pretty aggressive in trying to get funding,” from outside sources, Carranza says.

Houston’s schools rely primarily on local tax dollars, and that tax base is obviously going to be stressed, maybe for years to come. As federal and state relief packages take shape for communities hit by Harvey, along with philanthropic dollars, it remains to be seen what be will included for education, or what strings may be attached.

In the meantime, educators like Parrish are marshaling inner strength.

“What we plan to do is get the students active in projects that will help the community,” she says. “They can feel some empowerment by doing that.”

Even before school started, the parent-teacher association was calling for volunteers to help sort donations for district students and staff.

And just as important, Parrish says, is “always emphasizing the positive things they have in their lives, the love of their family.”

Right after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, electrician Rocky Breaux, 53, loaded up his airboat in Houma, La. and drove to help rescue people from the swiftly-rising floodwaters.

And now that the waters have receded, the ad hoc “Cajun Navy” has gone airborne: Breaux is now helping out with what’s being called the “Cajun Airlift.” Breaux has his own small plane — a Piper Arrow. When he heard that evacuees at one of Houston’s big shelters needed more supplies, he loaded his plane, tanked up, and flew west, with Andy Cook as his co-pilot. “We’re locked and loaded,” Breaux says.

“We’re gonna do whatever it takes to help out Texas. They’ve always helped out Louisiana, so we’re just returning the favor. We’ve been through Juan and Andrew and Katrina; fought ’em all. Takes a team.”

Working alongside FEMA and aid organizations like the Red Cross are a legion of individual volunteers, some of whom have found themselves unexpectedly thrust onto the front lines of disaster response. That army of volunteers — many from out of state — have scrambled to help in any way they can.

The flyers figure it costs them about $625 out of their own pockets to make the trip, but they didn’t think twice. “We’ve been blessed, and we’re just helpin’ out,” Breaux says.

“Everybody is a brother and sister on the Gulf Coast,” Cook adds. “These storms create the needy and they create the providers. We have a lot of people providing around here. It’s nice to see.”

As night falls, the pilots point their plane back toward Louisiana for the flight home. They and other pilots of the “Cajun Airlift” will be standing by, ready to help out with another supply mission as needed.

With this delivery made, it’s up to Dr. Regina Troxell, a pediatric neurology fellow at the University of Texas-Houston, to ferry the new supplies to the NRG shelter. For the nearly two weeks since Harvey hit, Troxell has spent countless hours and sleepless nights volunteering at the emergency shelters set up for Harvey evacuees, helping with medical needs or just about anything else that needs doing. “In the moment,” she says, “we just do what needs to be done. You know that there’s a need, and you’re there and you’re capable, so you do the work.”

Troxell loads the dozen bags and boxes flown in from Louisiana into her blue Toyota RAV-4. The next morning, she brings them to the cavernous convention center-turned-shelter. The shelter has received so many offerings of clothes and supplies that there are signs posted all around the perimeter: “no more donations accepted.” But Troxell and the other volunteers had crafted a specific wish list of things to help with the smallest Harvey evacuees: portable crib and strollers, so moms wouldn’t have to tote their babies the 1/4-mile length of the convention center.

The Houma pilots brought strollers, as well as lots of toys, games, puzzles, and children’s books. Also on board: a batch of letters and cards of support from kids in Baton Rouge who endured a bad flood a year ago.

As soon as Dr. Troxell brings in the new supplies, another volunteer rushes over: “I heard you guys have some toys!” Barbara Osterwisch says. She’s helping a new, stressed-out family get settled into the shelter, and the kids — who have virtually nothing — noticed toys on some of the other cots. Osterwisch gratefully heads back to the family with some games, a Disney Tiana doll, and a Buzz Lightyear toy, along with one of the cards sent by the Baton Rouge children. It’s written in purplish crayon on bright yellow paper: “Dear friend,” it reads. “I hope you get into your home quickly. Halley.”

By now, 10 days after Harvey hit, the NRG shelter appears to be a small, well-organized city, with separate areas for legal advice, immigration consultations, veterans’ services, and driver’s license renewals. The big disaster response teams are here in force: FEMA and the Red Cross.

Alongside them is Dr. Jennifer McQuade, a melanoma oncologist at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center. The first day of the storm, as Harvey swamped Houston, she made her way to the city’s emergency shelter to donate blankets and socks. When she arrived, she found a chaotic scene. Evacuees were being delivered in the back of dump trucks, soaking wet and sometimes wounded, but, as Dr. McQuade discovered, there was no medical team in place. “There was one table that was set up,” she recalls, “that had some ibuprofen, some Tylenol, a little bit of Neosporin, and some Band-Aids. That’s it.”

So McQuade was spurred into action. She got on Facebook and made an urgent plea for help to the Physician Moms Group, some 70,000 women strong, all across the country (“women doctors, getting it done,” she says with a grin.) Soon after McQuade posted, a doctor from Louisiana — Ashley Saucier — wrote back. “She said, ‘Are you running the medical shelter?'” McQuade recalls. “And I said, ‘No! I’m a medical oncologist! I’m absolutely not running a medical shelter!'”

But Saucier knew from her own experience during last year’s Baton Rouge flood that you can’t wait for the Red Cross or FEMA to take charge.

“Those take time,” McQuade remembers Saucier telling her. “Any time you’re dealing with large organizations, they’re amazing, but it takes time. In the meantime, somebody needs to be taking control, and if there’s nobody else there doing it, it needs to be you.”

So McQuade took charge. Harnessing the power of social media, she enlisted doctors, pharmacists, and nurses to come volunteer, eventually having to turn some away because the response was so great. She also put out the call for medical supplies, and those started pouring in — everything from insulin to anti-psychotic drugs to EKG machines and a crash cart, delivered by a medical supply company owner who drove through the night from Atlanta — some 800 miles away.

Finally, McQuade, laughs, she’s found a good use for Facebook: “It’s something that I’d seen as a frivolous distraction, that I kept on trying to quit but i couldn’t quite make myself quit. I’m really glad that it showed its true value with this.”

Houston’s restaurant community has also turned out in force to volunteer their time and talents in Harvey’s wake. In an industrial downtown kitchen, chef Richard Knight oversees a crew hustling to prepare huge aluminum pans of hot meals for Harvey evacuees and first responders, not just in Houston, but all over southeast Texas. One chef swiftly slices mounds of juicy pork shoulder and douses them with gravy. Another arranges stacks of roasted chicken quarters. When Knight labels the pans in magic marker — mashed potatoes, veggie chili — before he sends them on their way, he draws a heart around the words.

As the scope of the Harvey flooding became clear, Knight says he put out this call to his fellow chefs across the city: “OK guys, come on, now’s the time to show your mettle. If you can get to your kitchens safely, get out there. Start cooking some food.” It’s one way to provide comfort in desperate times. “If I can make people happy for five minutes by filling their bellies, that’s what I’m gonna do,” Knight says.

This kitchen collective has cooked up tens of thousands of hot meals post-Harvey, not to mention mountains of sandwiches prepared by an assembly line of volunteers. To coordinate the deliveries, a volunteer logistics team created a website that lets them match restaurants or suppliers that have food to donate, with those who need it.

Claudia Solis, an eighth-generation Texan, works on logistics. She’s exhausted from the effort and emotionally frazzled, but gratified by what she’s seen. “There’s a kindness in Houston,” she says. Her voice catches, and she pauses to collect herself. “We’re just kind,” she goes on. “They’re your neighbor, and you have to help, and it’s beautiful. But it’s also that it required this tragedy for us to see it.”

Now, as Hurricane Irma approaches Florida, these Houstonian volunteers are offering guidance to the restaurant community there, sharing what they’ve learned from Harvey:

Organize as much as you can ahead of time.

Line up kitchens and transport and volunteers.

Social media will be your best friend.

Above all, they advise, don’t wait.