GREETINGS, SCHOOLMATES
Students relocated after Harvey adjusting to their new campuses
When Leila Herrera started classes the morning of Sept. 14, the fourthgrader walked the hallways with middle schoolers who towered over her.
No, the Robinson Elementary student hadn’t advanced academically beyond her years or enrolled in a special program.
Instead, her school had sustained heavy flood damage in Hurricane Harvey, forcing the district to relocate students like Leila and her 8-year-old brother, Julian, to Holland Middle School, about 7 miles away.
The family, whose home flooded, ended up moving to JR Harris Elementary, which is closer to where they are temporarily staying. “I’m trying to make it easy for them, but it’s hard,” said Arlett Herrera, who struggled to transport her kids to school after her car flooded. “They already met their teachers at Robinson and all that, and we made every effort not to move them. But it was just chaos — we couldn’t handle it.”
Robinson Elementary is one of six Houston ISD campuses forced to relocate temporarily after their schools sustained heavy damage during Hurricane Harvey. The other affected campuses were Braeburn, Hilliard, Kolter and Scar-
borough elementaries as well as Liberty High School.
Five of those schools, along with two others not as heavily damaged, will start the school year Monday — almost a month after the originally scheduled first day and two weeks after the majority of Houston ISD schools welcomed students back.
For the past couple weeks, Houston ISD has held informational community meetings for parents of those affected schools, offering details on the logistics and trying to provide a sense of stability. But as principals and district leaders offered assurances, they could not answer one of the most frequent questions of parents: When will students be able to return to their home campuses?
“As of right now, we do not know if and when the campus will be going back to Kolter,” Rebecca Brown, a Houston ISD area superintendent, told Kolter Elementary parents gathered for a meeting on Monday.
Kolter Principal Julie Dickinson agreed it was premature to talk about the campus’ reopening.
“We have not heard from the superintendent or anyone that you won’t go back to your campus,” Dickinson said. “What we do know is that because of the flood, you are displaced now. When a decision is made (about the future of Kolter), we will definitely have another community meeting.” ‘Not a perfect situation’
On Houston’s east side, Area Superintendent Jorge Arredondo said the old Robinson Elementary building may not reopen until January. He said the district tried to find a closer campus to accommodate all of Robinson’s nearly 700 students, but none had room. The closest the district could get was to put half of Robinson students in Pleasantville Elementary and half at Holland Middle, two campuses that are less than a block away from each other. At a Sept. 13 meeting with parents, Arredondo asked for patience.
“It’s not a perfect situation,” he told parents. “But we’re hoping you’re going to be flexible and you’re going to be able to work with us.”
Parents at the Robinson meeting said school officials called them days after the storm to say how badly the school was damaged and to stress that district officials were working to get their students back in a classroom. Bored at home
Marchell Bourda, whose 4-year-old grandson King will start prekindergarten at Robinson’s temporary location at Pleasantville, said the whole experience has been unsettling.
“He hasn’t been to any school before, so we have to put him on a bus for the first time,” Bourda said. “It’s going to be so difficult for working parents and single parents.”
Quincesa Carroll, whose 10-year-old daughter Kali Sanders attends Robinson, said she was anxious about the transition but that the school’s informational meeting helped ease her mind.
Kali was more concerned with getting out of the house than where her classes would be located. She said she had grown bored of sitting at home during summer and even more so as summer stretched on for an additional two weeks after Harvey, which dumped as much as 51 inches of rain on parts of the Houston area.
As she walked around Holland Middle, Kali said she felt like she was years older.
“It feels like I’m in high school,” she said before excitedly turning to her mother. “Are we going to have lockers? We only had cubbies last year.” ‘We’ll get through it’
For some parents and students, Robinson’s relocation was a small inconvenience in the grand scheme of their suffering.
Herrera, Leila and Julian’s mother, said his family lost almost all their possessions after Harvey sent about a foot and a half of water gushing into their east Houston home. After enrolling her children in JR Harris, she said she hoped her family would be back in their repaired home by January and that her kids would then be able to go back to the newly repaired Robinson.
As the weeks continue to stretch on with little word from insurance adjusters or FEMA, Herrera said that timeline has gone out the window.
In the meantime, Leila is making the most of her time at JR Harris. She’s reading dictionaries to study for the school’s spelling bee next month and has joined the soccer team. She’s already made some friends, too.
And she’s eager to go back to her home campus to finish out her elementary-school experience.
“I’ll be happy to go back to Robinson next year, to be able to spend my last year there with friends and all the people I know,” Leila said. “It’s OK, though. I mean, stuff happens, but we’ll get through it.”