August 17, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The public schools in Houston, and the children whose families moved from New Orleans to Houston because
of Hurricane Katrina, are both struggling through an adjustment period.
On average, the displaced children are scoring far lower on standardized exams than other students in Houston schools. Several fights broke out last year, some pinned to a clash between the Houston and Louisiana cultures.
Meanwhile, the federal government, which provided $890-million during the 2005-6 school year to assist school districts across the country that took in Katrina students, says it will not provide such aid this year. That’s likely to cause budget problems in several Houston-area districts.
America’s Promise, the youth charity founded by Gen. Colin L. Powell, has started a program called Katrina’s Kids to help the estimated 500,000 young people displaced by the hurricane.
The program will cost $3.5-million over two years, and is supported primarily by a grant from Atlantic Philanthropies.
The program began its first major project in Houston this summer, working with the Alief Independent School District, where 60 percent of the students come from low-income families.
The district has 2,800 displaced students, roughly 6 percent of its enrollment — a higher proportion of evacuees than any other Houston district.
Working with organizations like the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast and the local YMCA, America’s Promise is providing summer school for 400 hurricane victims in elementary school, and 50 each in middle and high school.
“These kids have really lost a lot, and they’re poised to fail unless somebody helps them,” says Richard Wells, a vice president at America’s Promise who is overseeing the Katrina’s Kids program.
The charity has committed to supporting summer-school and after-school programs for youths displaced by Katrina in the Alief school district through the end of the 2007-8 school year.
“It will help them transition from the short-term recovery needs, so that they can develop a long-term plan,” Mr. Wells says. “Schools are struggling with budgets for next year — they’re guessing who will stay, and who won’t.”
