Repercussions of Katrina on Houston

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m sure I am going to get some negative responses, but I am needing a place to vent, so here goes.</p>

<p>You all remember how Houston opened up its arms and welcomed the New Orleans evacuees, well we are being repaid in spades…</p>

<p>My S’s high school has changed dramatically, unbelievably. I cannot say it any other way. It was a large public suburban hs, with a population consisting of mostly kids from single family homes (mostly white, some asian, latin, african american), with a smaller group of less fortunate kids (but not poverty stricken, mostly african american and latin). Honestly, EVERYONE got along: NO fights, NO armed police, NO metal detectors. Well, it has certainly changed. The school has taken in a large number of evacuees due to the fact that an apartment complex nearby accepted FEMA vouchers. NOW, the school is in lockdown. Luckily, we are not the schools that have been shown nationally on CNN with fighting kids and parents, but only because our district has tried to preempt it before it happens. On a daily basis, my S comes home with stories of the ARMED cops (and we aren’t just talking school district cops, this is HPD) at the school, pulling people out in handcuffs. There are rumors circulating of threats to the teachers and administration by the evacuee kids. There is gang activity, where there was NEVER anything like it before. There was a shooting in the parking lot and the hs shooter took off for New Orleans. Obviously, we are all worried about our kids’ safety.</p>

<p>On a less violent note, these kids are desperately behind academically. The district is in an uproar about what to do to help them. The district is already in a financial bind due to the Robin Hood law. But, they are hiring extra staff to try to tutor and mentor these kids and get them ready for the dreaded TAKS tests. In Texas, the TAKS tests determine the rating of the schools and districts. The school board is freaking out that our district is going to lose credibility. </p>

<p>I am not so worried about my older S, he is a junior and only has one year left, but I have an eighth grader who will just be starting there next year. I really don’t know what to do! He has looked forward to going to this hs because his brother will be a senior and all his friends will be there. We are worried, not only because of the violence, but also about the quality of the educational experience. But, we are going to be in a bind in a couple of years, with two kids in college. It would be really hard for us to be pay for their schooling, pay private hs tuition, and have anything left to put our youngest through college. What a quandry, this stinks!!</p>

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<p>Is there any way the Houston school district could reassign some of these kids when school starts next year? Are most of the schools taking in some of these students, or are they concentrated in certain areas? What is the mayor said about this situation?</p>

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<p>I would not send my 8th grader there. What is the scuttlebutt among the parents, particularly the 8th grader’s friends? Those FEMA vouchers are going to run out, will the apartment complexes be doing evictions? You may be able to wait the chaos out, but that doesn’t seem good enough for the 8th grader.
This is going to sound harsh, but there were a number of people who wanted to be left behind in NOLA, who saw chaos as an opportunity. While I’m not saying they are the parents of these children, they certainly have an influence on the gang activity that the kids participate in.
Ag can speak for himself, but if is like the part of Houston I have family in, there are a number of small suburban school districts - many with only one high school - not the “Houston” school district per se.</p>

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<p>Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought it was a city school.</p>

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<p>Cangel, you are correct, we are not in HISD. The scuttlebutt among the parents is that we are trying to pressure the school and the district to put a lid on this thing. They have addressed it by having the increased police presence, implementing strict dress codes, limiting the amount of time and places that kids can loiter in halls, etc., but it doesn’t seem to have stopped the thugery. The problem with the apartment complexes is that they are designated HUD. As I stated before, we had a number of kids from the HUD apartments before, but they coexisted peacefully with the single family home kids. There has become this H-Town (Houston) black kids vrs. the Louisiana kids issue that has sparked alot of the problems. The principal who came to our school from a rougher part of town, made a comment that it is almost surreal that the white kids can be sitting in the cafeteria oblivious to the fact that there is about to be a gang fight in the courtyard. But, the kids are becoming less oblivious as the police presence increases. My S is in honors classes so really doesn’t have contact with the NO kids during the day. He plays football and has many friends who are H-Town black kids, it is from them that he is hearing of the upcoming fights and threats. They don’t like what is happening at the school either! They don’t want to be having these conflicts. It is bizzare! I am sure that people from other areas of the country have had these issues for years, but it is new (and quite disturbing) to us!</p>

<p>3girls, yes, most schools have taken in varying numbers of NO kids. They seem to be most concentrated in the SW area of Houston. It really depends on where the apartment complexes that took the vouchers are. The mayor and police have addressed the increased crime and say they are working on it. There are numerous articles in the Chronicle about the problems. If you are interested go to chron.com and type in New Orleans evacuees and search in archives. There are daily articles addressing the crime, financial, social, etc., problems that are being faced, not just by Houston, but the evacuees as well.</p>

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<p>Are the NO kids in your school permanently? Has the quality of the educational experience really gone down? What are teachers and administrators --and student leaders – doing to ensure kids can still get a good education? Is your 8th grade son likely to be distracted by all the nonsense? A tough situation and I wish you well.</p>

<p>On the bright side, I see some really good college essay material for your older son.</p>

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<p>It does sound bizarre. Especially, since it sounds like the school has had successful race relations in the past, although it doesn’t sound truly “racist”, in the sense that the other Af-Am kids are the ones bearing the brunt of the problems.
The problem with the school district’s response is that having to take those measures changes the atmosphere of the school for all the students.
There is no easy answer to this situation, and even if the acute violence is contained, flunking the TAKS could take over the whole school could change the agenda of the whole school for years. Sounds like older son will be fine, but I would make some contingency plans for younger son, just in case. When I asked about scuttlebutt, I meant a general run for the exits - that could destroy the school system for the next 10 years, I’ve seen that over and over here.</p>

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<p>My sympathies to you, ag54. “No good deed goes unpunished” for you Houston folks and that is so unfair. FWIW, your comments seem thoughtful about the troubles you are legitimately concerned about and I hope you will not suffer flames for it here on cc.</p>

<p>I have no suggestions, alas, but I am curious. What kind of numbers are you talking about here in terms of original size of the school and # of evacuees recently added?</p>

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<p>Thanks Jmmom for your comments. The numbers are really not that significant. I just did the math and we are talking an increase of about 7%. Somehow, though, that difference although small in numbers has made quite an impact.</p>

<p>SuNa, so far, I don’t see a difference in my S’s educational quality, but he is in all honors and AP, so doesn’t really interact in classes. I do believe that the district and the school are doing the most that they can by trying to preempt the problems before they really flare up. Their hands are tied though, legally, as to the measures they can take to address the increased threat, and financially, as to what they can do about the TAKS. What Cangel said is right though, the biggest bummer is how the entire atmosphere at the school has changed.</p>

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<p>Ag54, you’re not alone.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/02/01/katrina.schoolfights.ap/index.html[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/02/01/katrina.schoolfights.ap/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Yep, that article pretty much sums it up.</p>

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<p>I work at a junior high that has enrolled somewhere between 50-100 evacuees. Tensions have been defused, but there was a point a month or so ago where the students were going through the “anger” phase of grief. It seems to have diminished since then. We’ve also hired a full-time tutor to work with the students to catch them up to the grade level. I believe they will be exempted this year from being included in the schools’ TAKS scores.</p>

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<p>Good news about the TAKS. There’s already enough panic about prep and scores.</p>

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<p>That is true about the TAKS this year. I talked to the counselor yesterday and mentioned this. He said that the evacuees will take the test this year, but it will not be counted toward the scores. Next year, the scores count. Another thing he said was that the school is planning a community meeting to address the issues. Along with the administration, members of the police, representatives of the school board and CAT team will attend. He says that they are implementing a program called something like, “Stamp Out Hate” that the kids will participate in.</p>

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<p>ag54 </p>

<p>I guess you live in Katy or Fort Bend. So what probably looks terrible for you is an everyday life in Inner Loop Houston schools even without evacuees. Welcome to “different” America!:)</p>

<p>Well, sorry, I am not trying to be sarcastic. </p>

<p>I don’t think you can really worry about quality of the educational experience if your children are in preAP and AP classes, they will not mix with evacuees at all. If they are taking regular classes then they are in trouble, and you’d better move somewhere else (there are many places around Houston where evacuees don’t live) or transfer your S to a private school if you can afford it. </p>

<p>The school rating can and will go down, but it’s almost funny, your S can benefit from it. His own rating in school can be better, plus his own academical success will look better in a worse school than in a better one. And just imagine what kind of essay he can write for college admission…:D</p>

<p>The violence is much bigger problem. The best advice is to minimize your S’s social life.
I remember how I talked to one Mexican woman who managed to send 4 of her daughters to college from one of Houston’s worst schools ever, where very few kids had chance even to graduate. Pregnancies, arrests, drop outs etc. She brought them to school 5 min before the 1 period and picked them up 5 min after the last one. No dances, no parties. Minimum contacts with other students on the school’s territory.</p>

<p>Most of these fights don’t start in the classrooms and in the hallways between classes. They start outside the school or in the hallways after school or during the classes (between the students who are skipping classes). So if your S doesn’t skip and if you pick him up right after school, his biggest chance to get in trouble with gangs is on the way to the restroom.
I would also worry about sport activities. This is the place where there is no way to avoid evacuees.
I don’t know how much your S loves to play sports, but things like marching band can substitute sports. Plus I heard that if you are playing sports outside the school on the regular basis you can get credit for it.</p>

<p>From what I have seen in my life most of these fights are just with hands, without knives and guns. A lot of blood, but rarely something deadly. Sign your S for some karate lessons just in case. Karate is a very valuable life skill. :)</p>

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<p>I teach in a school where we have a lot of Katrina kids, too. Also suburban school district, but northside. I had three students in my classes, and they were wonderful, but they came from private schools in NO, not public. The other kids that came from public schools are causing us the same problems the OP stated. They are far behind our kids academically, but what is worse, they don’t care about the rules, and think they are something to break. We have special counselors, tutors, the kids meet once a week to vent and express their concerns, and it still doesn’t matter. The kids are either terrific or extremely difficult, there is no in-between. We haven’t had the fights, etc., that you are experiencing to the extent you have, but our numbers are lower, because we have fewer apartment complexes. I heard an interview with HISD administrators and teacher’s association reps, and the head of the NO teacher’s assn called our head and told her that we were going to be in for a lot of trouble, because their kids are very territorial. The problems in the schools with heavy populations have arisen from the new kids coming in and instead of trying to assimiliate, are telling the kids who were there before that they are taking over, that it’s their school now. HISD is trying to maintain the stance that it is the community’s school, not any one group’s. And yes, gang situations are more overt. It used to be that gang activity occurred primarily outside the schools. The Katrina kids are bringing it into the schools. Interesting discussion. A teacher at a private religious elementary school that took in kids as well, said the same things are happening there. They actually placed all the kids in classes one year below where they were in NO. And the kids are already (1st, 2nd, 3rd graders) disrespectful and difficult to deal with. We all feel for these kids and their families, and we keep helping with donations and effort, but the costs and strain on all of us is tremendous.</p>

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<p>I can understand why the school children are so difficult. Apparently some of their parents aren’t any better. In my community, there are many documented cases of people being followed to shopping/strip centers and being robbed and beat up by Katrina evacuees. I watch out everywhere I go but just knowing that there have been 23 Katrina-related murders since November scares me to death (they’ve arrested a good many of them).</p>

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<p>…I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but as a Louisiana resident, I hope that the nation is finally understanding how far behind Louisiana is in academics and is planning on doing something about it. If students are having difficulty passing the Texas test to simply graduate high school, imagine the lack of education in Louisiana…I will admit that our state was the biggest mess before the hurricanes, and the hurricanes definately haven’t helped a bit. </p>

<p>As for the crime and disrespect and all the negatives, I, personally, am getting the air that only Louisiana kids cause trouble. I won’t lie; TONS of them do, and I will admit that even my own classmates cause tons of trouble. But, I’m not getting reading anything about how the Houston students were and still are causing trouble in some instances…maybe because it’s old news that some students cause trouble, but I still believe that there are tons of problems in the system. </p>

<p>On another note, I hate to say so, for the sake of other states, but I and a ton of my friends agreed with me that we, LA, were simply moving the poverty along…most people who could evacuate tried to or did and ended up around the country with only a fraction in Houston. However, the simple fact that Houson was available transfered the poverty over…what’s the likelihood of FEMA paying for people who want to return to New Orleans? Better yet, what’s the probablity that anyone will want to move out of Houston? I have a feeling that Louisiana’s education standards will rise while Texas’s probably drop…</p>