{"id":69302,"date":"2016-08-22T12:43:46","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T17:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=69302"},"modified":"2016-08-22T13:12:32","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T18:12:32","slug":"lessons-from-hurricane-katrina-for-the-child-victims-of-the-louisiana-floods-of-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2016\/08\/22\/lessons-from-hurricane-katrina-for-the-child-victims-of-the-louisiana-floods-of-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Hurricane Katrina for the Child Victims of the Louisiana Floods of 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

The great Louisiana Floods of 2016 have led to the closure of at least 22 of the state\u2019s 70 public school districts<\/a>, with additional districts calling off classes as a precaution given the immense devastation. This means that as many as one-third of the state\u2019s public school students were out of school last week ,and potentially for many weeks to come. That equates to more than 241,000 children who are not in classrooms where they belong; and these figures do not even account for the many thousands of private and charter school students also out of school across the water-logged state.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Almost exactly 11 years ago, Hurricane Katrina disrupted\u00a0some 370,000 school-age children. For our book,\u00a0Children of Katrina<\/a><\/em>, we\u00a0spent nearly a decade examining how their lives unfolded in the years after the catastrophe. We focused on education as a key \u201csphere\u201d of children\u2019s lives.\u00a0It is a special sphere in that it is unique to children and youth and it has specific time parameters: when the window for schooling is gone, children cannot get it back. Missing school means missing\u00a0critical stages in cognitive and social development and likely suffering\u00a0irreparable harm in terms of their intellectual growth, development, and future educational goals.<\/p>\n

The school sphere, as with the other spheres of children\u2019s lives, is marked by inequality, with some students having access to greater advantages than others. Some school districts, often segregated by race and class, have more resources and support than others; some families have the ability to enroll children in private schools that require tuition or arrange to be in a high-quality school district, while other families do not have those options.<\/p>\n

Keeping this in mind, and recognizing the importance of education during displacement and recovery, there are many things that can and should be done, to support disaster affected children and youth and their educational process. These include:<\/p>\n