HISD to remain closed through next week as cleanup continues

Houston ISD schools will remain closed until at least Sept. 11 as district officials continue to clean up and catalog damage at hundreds of campuses, Superintendent Richard Carranza announced Thursday.

At least 190 of the district’s more than 280 schools suffered some damage from Tropical Storm Harvey, Carranza said. Other campuses remained unreachable Thursday, blocked off by water-covered roadways.

“We are eager to get our students back into the classroom and learning. We want to provide the stability of a routine, as well as the three nutritious meals a day that so many of our families depend on,” Carranza said. “But we also need to be sure that our campuses are safe and that Houston’s infrastructure and roads are ready to handle transporting our students safely to school.”

Carranza asked principals to report to work on Tuesday and teachers next Friday.

HISD is one of dozens of Houstonarea districts grappling with when and how to reopen schools after Harvery dumped unprecedented amounts

of water on the region, sparking widespread flooding that left water still standing in some places.

The majority of schools in Sheldon ISD, for example, sustained flood damage, with a spokesman saying many buildings took on “lots of water.” Sheldon officials said they hoped to have a more detailed assessment on Friday, and then a decision about when to start school during the weekend.

In Alief ISD, officials said they found no sizable damage to the district’s campuses, other than some small roof leaks. Principals, however, were reaching out to teachers to see if they will be able to return to their classrooms on Tuesday.

In Cypress-Fairbanks ISD — the third-largest district in Texas — Superintendent Mark Henry said he was surprised that more of his district’s schools did not take on water.

“We haven’t discovered anything just disastrous,” Henry said. “Obviously, some need to be cleaned up, have water removed from the building, but so far, so good for us. No major damage as far as we can tell.”

At least one school, Moore Elementary, will require “significant renovation” after flood damage. Henry said the school will relocate to the Matzke Elementary School building, which was supposed to be closed this fall for renovations of its own. Henry empathized with the difficulty relocating a school can place on families, but said it was the most viable solution.

More Cy-Fair schools could be in a similar situation. Like Houston ISD, Cypress-Fairbanks officials have not been able to inspect campuses still surrounded by water.

Henry said he will make a decision about when to open schools by 3 p.m. Friday.

“One of the things I really believe, I believe going to school, kids getting back to school, provides that normalcy children and families need,” he said. “We’re going to go back to school at the earliest possible date, but we don’t know what that is yet.”

In Houston and elsewhere Harvey’s path of damage was sometimes random, bringing calamity to some neighborhoods while leaving others only blocks away virtually unscathed.

Carranza said of the roughly 190 HISD campuses inspected, only 3 or 4 percent suffered extensive damage, while about 60 percent had more moderate damage. The rest escaped Harvey’s fury with minor issues.

Kolter Elementary was among the unlucky ones. Water in the Meyerland campus was knee-deep at one point during the storm, washing away Legos, damaging wooden desks and leaving dirt and water marks along the walls.

Leaning against an exterior wall Thursday was an orange extension ladder. That was the route a cleanup crew had to take to safety on Sunday.

“The guys that work here, they had to go to the roof,” said Elisabeth Trinidad, a supervisor at Blackmon Mooring, which has been hired by the HISD to help repair several schools. “There was so much water. And someone from our company had to come rescue them by boat.”

Inside the elementary school where 658 students were supposed to begin another school year this week, workers were sifting through the damage, flipping through books and carrying out wooden bookshelves and desks. Any items that got wet had to go.

Inside Spanish teacher Benchomo Gonzalez’s classroom, the smell of acrylic paint and ripening must filled the air. Cleanup crews searched through drawers before dragging out the waterlogged teacher’s desk and moving on to the next classroom.

Down another hallway, colorful building blocks and soggy boxes of markers littered a classroom floor and a teacher’s handmade decorations wilted in the humidity.

Tiny red and blue chairs sat atop short round tables, just barely out of reach of the water that had risen at least 2 feet inside the school.

Over at Liberty High School near Sharpstown, workers on Thursday slit sheetrock at the 2-foot mark to rid the small school of damage caused by about 6 to 8 inches of floodwater.

“Before we cut it out, there was leaves and just debris all around the walls,” said Cody Leonard, a crew leader at Blackmon Mooring.

Leonard drove in to The Woodlands from Amarillo on Sunday with his team, but was not able to reach the school for 11th- and 12th-graders until Wednesday because of lingering high water.

He expects to be in the Houston area for about two months.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, and a lot of schools we still have to visit,” co-worker Mary Pinales said. “We’re supposed to have one person visit at least 10 schools a day. But it’s hard.”

At Liberty, the damage is minimal, with no leaky roofs or windows.

“This is the third year we’ve come to this school, and every year they’ve gotten better at getting it ready for us, and so there’s less work we have to do,” she said. “We came last year, and the year before that.”