Districts don’t see big dip in students after Harvey
But schools work to welcome many of the displaced
Antwon Patrick started third grade just a month ago, but he’s already been enrolled in two schools.
His family’s first-floor Houston apartment flooded during Harvey, causing mold concerns. On Sept. 11, the day after his 9th birthday, Antwon began school in Alief ISD’s Outley Elementary.
“It’s cool because at my old school they didn’t have this type of playground,” he said. “They just had soccer fields, but here they have slides and everything.”
During the height of Hurricane Harvey, school district officials worried enrollments would plummet as thousands of families fled Houston for Dallas, Austin and other drier regions. While many families lost their homes, it seems most relocated within the region and often within the boundaries of their existing school district.
Houston ISD, the state’s largest school district, saw only 1,186 fewer students
enrolled on Oct. 2 than on the same date in 2016 — a less than 1 percentage point dip. The district does not yet have estimates on the number of students affected by Hurricane Harvey, as the Texas Education Agency is not collecting much of that information until the end of the month.
In Clear Creek ISD, enrollment is up about 240 students compared to last year, even after 261 students in school the first week did not return after the storm. Katy ISD, which saw widespread flooding and tornadoes, saw enrollment rise by nearly 2,500 students at the official 10-day count mark, but more than 2,800 students are now considered homeless because of the storm.
Guy Sconzo, executive director of the Fast Growth School Coalition and former superintendent of Humble ISD, said it’s surprising so many students were displaced but still managed to stay in Houston-area schools.
“It’s absolutely incredible, because areas of Katy were hit hard,” Sconzo said. “Obviously people wanted to stay, and I think that speaks volumes to the communities and school districts.”
The ‘unknown variable’
It’s in stark contrast to the deluge of students who left New Orleans after Katrina and never returned. That’s not to say that all Houston-area or Harvey-affected students stayed in southeast Texas. Dallas ISD enrolled 276 students from Harvey-affected areas stretching from Rockport to Beaumont; Fort Worth ISD took in 112; and Del Valle ISD outside of Austin has 67. Seven storm-affected students went as far as El Paso ISD.
The Texas Education Agency has asked school districts to tally the number of students who enrolled in another school district after Hurricane Harvey; enrolled in a different school within the same district after Harvey; or are now homeless but remain enrolled at their home campus after Harvey.
Those classifications may fall short of capturing the variety of situations. Friendswood ISD said the TEA’s categories only cover about 34 percent of its 465 displaced students. One in 13 Friendswood ISD students are now considered displaced due to Hurricane Harvey, although enrollment is only four students less than on the 10th day of school last year.
Clear Creek ISD has enrolled several students who moved to the district from Hurricane Maria-devastated Puerto Rico, and several students from southwest Florida enrolled in Alief ISD after fleeing Hurricane Irma.
Kim Smith, a spokeswoman for Alief ISD, said her district expected to receive a lot of floodaffected students because Alief was relatively spared by the storm and had a lot of available housing units, while large swaths of nearby Fort Bend County, Katy and Cypress-Fairbanks were heavily flooded. They ended up with about 185 Harvey-affected students, but their overall enrollment at 10 days fell by nearly 200 students compared to last year.
“I don’t know that there was an expected number,” Smith said. “It was just kind of this unknown variable, but we were ready to welcome them regardless of how many were going to come in.”
During all of last school year, Katy ISD’s homeless liaison helped about 800 students who were without a regular or adequate place to sleep. In the first two months of this school year, the office has served more than 3,178, requiring 14 additional staff members and a slew of teachers to dedicate their days to helping newly homeless families find resources and settle their students into school.
Kim Lawson, executive director of elementary curriculum and instruction in Katy ISD, said families left homeless by natural disasters are often lacking even basic necessities to stay healthy, let alone return to normalcy.
“A lot of times, people affected by floods have lost everything — textbooks, clothes, furniture,” Lawson said. “And, in this case, the sheer number of students affected who needed support was also different. But so many people organized school-supply drives, clothing drives and donations. Those supports have been able to help families get back on their feet. Again, it’s a long journey, the whole community was affected, but those drives helped.”
Some schools have made adjustments to better accommodate families and help students make the transition back to school.
After a majority of students at Beck Junior High were displaced, including almost all students who lived in the Canyon Gates neighborhood, the school adjusted its academic day so displaced students’ longer commutes would not interfere with their academics. When one teacher found out her student would be displaced to a new elementary school, she contacted the teacher and left a letter of encouragement on the student’s desk on her first day back.
Providing comfort
Sometimes, the best help teachers can give is to listen to their students’ experiences.
Stories began to pour out of students at Alief ISD’s Outley Elementary, where about 20 students enrolled from other areas after Harvey and about 25 percent were somehow impacted by the storm. Circle time, a 20-minute period during social studies classes where students discuss issues they may not feel comfortable talking about at home, is often where teachers learn of students’ situations.
One student revealed that their family lacked toiletries. Some students sat silent in the circle, too frightened to speak.
Deborah Nichols, a Communities in Schools program manager at Outley, walked one terrified kindergartner out of class after he began shaking during a recent storm. It took 20 minutes before he began to relax and open up.
“Is there about to be a hurricane again? Are we not going to come to school?” Nichols recalled him asking.
She explained that even light rains can cause street flooding in Houston but that hurricanes are rare.
“That can happen again, but we have to calm ourselves,” she told him.
Kristin Hicks knows the kindergartner’s fears well. The Outley Elementary counselor was trapped overnight on a freeway during Tropical Storm Allison and still winces whenever she drives through as much as a puddle.
“It helps me to talk about it, and it helps the students,” Hicks said. “You have to have some self-reflection, have to have some other things you call on. So I pray, and then I’m able to start working with someone else, and it helps me.”
School officials believe Harvey will continue to bring challenges daily for the foreseeable future. Some homeowners are just learning what is hidden in their walls. Others may move after their flooded homes are bought-out by government agencies. And — perhaps most troubling — hurricane season is not over.
“We know this is just the beginning,” said Smith with Alief ISD. “There is going to be another three to four months where things will just start to pan out.”