School’s back but far from normal

Houston ISD’s fate may hinge on how it recovers

Many students in Houston ISD lost everything — their homes, their school supplies, their clothes, their toys.

Some are staying in the mega-shelters at the George R. Brown Convention Center and NRG Park. Others were flown by military helicopter to Dallas and San Antonio, where they have already started school. Still more are shaken after being plucked from their flooded homes by boats and Humvees.

With more than 600,000 Houston-area students set to return to the classroom Monday, teachers and school officials wonder how many will show up — and if they’ll be ready to learn.

And at some schools, business as usual will be a

distant memory.

“It’s hard to focus on the lesson of the day when you’re worried about, ‘How is my home? How is my family?” said Ezemenari Obasi, associate dean for research in the University of Houston’s College of Education. “Those questions and worries become more salient than the lesson plan at school.”

Around the Houston area, school districts are busily putting together lesson plans and repairing buildings damaged by Hurricane Harvey, which dumped almost 52 inches of rain on the region.

In the Pasadena, Texas City and Humble ISDs, damage to schools has displaced about 1,600 students at each of the districts.

In Houston ISD, about 80 of 280 schools will likely not start the school year until Sept. 18 or 25, giving workers more time to complete repairs. Students at nine of these schools will be relocated to other campuses, possibly for the school year.

Similar situations are playing out in the suburbs as Harvey scrambled start schedules.

Some districts had recently started fall classes when the storm made landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast on Aug. 25. Others were gearing up to welcome students when the storm hit.

Sheldon ISD — which sustained heavy damage to four of its eight schools — has delayed the start of fall classes at all of its schools until Sept. 18, though it will begin providing free breakfast and lunch to those 18 and younger on Monday.

As floodwaters receded, a handful of districts — including Conroe, Pearland, Galveston, Tomball, Barbers Hill and Waller — opened their doors shortly after Labor Day. Larger districts that in many cases were harder-hit — HISD, Cypress-Fairbanks, Katy, Pasadena and Fort Bend — scheduled a Sept. 11 return.

Long list of obstacles

If the late start weren’t problematic enough, the future of the entire Houston ISD could hinge on how potentially traumatized students perform on a standardized test: the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. Before Harvey, the Texas Education Agency, citing a 2015 state law, had warned the Houston ISD that it faced a potential state takeover because of schools that had repeatedly not met standards.

If 10 long-struggling schools don’t show improvement on the exams, state education officials said, the state could appoint a board of managers to take over governance of the Houston ISD or close those schools.

The TEA has not hinted at whether it will relax or postpone some of its accountability measures after Harvey devastated the

region from Corpus Christi to Orange — an area that, according to Children at Risk, covers more than 1.4 million Texas public school students.

“The Education Commissioner is aware of the situation, but that’s a discussion still to come,” said DeEtta Culbertson, a TEA spokeswoman. “Right now, we want schools to focus on getting their buildings ready, getting students back in school and making sure that their students are safe and in a healthy environment.”

Another challenge facing the Houston ISD involves staffing.

At least 300 teachers have told the Houston Federation of Teachers union that they will not be able to return to work Monday, which will likely force the district to dispatch hundreds of substitutes.

Superintendent Richard Carranza and school leaders are also unsure how many students will show up at their home schools. Some have fled the area and may enroll in school districts hours away. More may be in temporary housing situations that took them to another local school district. Some teens, whose families lost their homes and are struggling financially, may feel like they have to drop out in order to earn money.

For now, getting back to school — and relative normalcy — could be one of the most powerful healing tools for HISD students.

Many have not seen friends since May and do not know how their classmates fared in the floods. They have been unable to commiserate with peers about the hardships, their families’ struggle store build and the uncertainty that clings to their futures.

Obasi, who has studied stress’ effect on students for more than 10 years, said educators must ensure floodaffected students are able to ease back into their routines and feel comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities.

“Rather than just showing up on Monday as if nothing ever happened, there may be healthy ways in classroom to check in, see how everyone’s doing, see how everyone’s holding up,” said Obasi. “Those little conversations could go a long way.”

Return to normalcy

While school can help provide some sense of normalcy, Obasi said paying attention to lessons and the stress of standardized tests could prove much more difficult for flood-affected students.

He said the brain’s ability to focus can be severely hampered after experiencing significant anxiety, especially for children and teens’ whose brains are still developing.

“It’s really difficult to assess a person’s capacity when they’re not 100 percent available to focus and attempt the task,” Obasi said. “Many things we measure in schools involve students having to focus. … If you can’t focus, it’s going to be extremely difficult to do anything, let alone ace an important standardized test.”

Obasi said stress can cause a host of physical and mental ailments, from sleeplessness and an inability to concentrate in the short-term to addiction and diabetes in the long-term.

Exhaustion is a real concern, Obasi said, as many have issues falling asleep and staying asleep during times of significant stress. On top of that, anxiety can hamper the brain’s ability each morning to re lea sec or tisol, a hormone that helps people get out of bed and going, making such tasks exponentially more tiresome for students.

Carranza said the district is already planning to bring crisis counselors and social workers to as many campuses as HISD can afford, and all teachers will receive crisis and trauma training.

“Now this is an important part of our preparations as we receive students back into our school system. We know many of our students witnessed trauma — many of our students have been exposed to trauma by the sheer nature of the catastrophe that happened with Hurricane Harvey,” Carranza said. As a result, he said, all district teachers will receive training in helping students re-integrate.

Carranza, too, is unsure what will happen with accountability and the potential penalties hanging over the district.

“Our students will have lost two weeks of instructional time — what will that do to the STAAR testing schedule?” Carranza asked, before adding that conversations about accountability have taken a back seat to other more pressing issues. “It’s not like it’s fallen off the agenda, but our priority is when do we get back in school, and based on when we get back in school, we’ll have specific dates, specific information to engage in a conversation about some of those waivers and accountability issues.”