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» Hurricane Katrina - Work Still Not Over
(This story was published in the winter edition of the Simmons Magazine) What Katrina Left Behind (All photos by Jocelyn Augustino, a Simmons graduate of the class of 1989)
Katrina caused storm surges that destroyed the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama. The broken levees in New Orleans resulted in 80% of the city being under water. Three weeks after Katrina, Hurricane Rita hit the Texas-Louisiana border, leaving an already devastated area even more impaired.
It's hard enough to begin school after a summer of lazy days and play. It's impossible when your schools have been flattened, your teachers missing, and all of the materials scattered for hundreds of miles. After Katrina, many people across the country worried how children would continue their education. Simmons Professor Theresa Perry took action. A professor of Africana studies and education, Perry became increasingly concerned about the state of public education in New Orleans. In an effort to raise awareness about educational disparities in New Orleans due to race and class, Perry and several other nationally known experts founded The National Coalition for Quality Education in New Orleans.
After Katrina, the state of Louisiana mandated that 102 of New Orleans' 117 public schools would reopen as charter schools with federal funding in order to improve the schools' accountability standards. Perry and the coalition saw this as an opportunity to advocate for students - especially special education students - and for the city's 5,000 predominantly African-American teachers.
"We are concerned that the federal and state government used a national tragedy to remake public education without significant input from the people who are the major recipients of that education," said Perry. Perry hopes the coalition will serve as a watchdog and a resource for students, families, and educators in New Orleans. She also hopes that her Simmons students are able to learn from the experience by incorporating her work into the class "The Black Struggle for Schooling in America."
"It was too hard to watch and not do something," said Tomaceski, who along with her husband, Frank Stasiowski, formed the non-profit Gulf Coast Rebuilding Fund, Inc. The fund is supported by Stasiowski's company PSMJ Resources, Inc., a training, consulting, and publishing organization for the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. The purpose of the fund is to raise money and connect architects, engineers, and construction professionals to assist in the long-term redesign and reconstruction of these communities. The fund is now in the initial stages of a $4 million fundraising campaign to rebuild the Bay St. Louis community center and the city hall in Waveland. In September, Tomaceski and her husband traveled to Mississippi and presented two $50,000 checks to the mayors of each town to help pay for design fees to construct the new buildings.
With so much news coverage on the destruction of personal property and homes, people may not have realized the damage to other public facilities, like libraries. For Em Claire Knowles, a 1988 graduate of the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) who is now an assistant dean there, the potential damage to the area's library resources prompted her get involved.
Knowles says her experience in New Orleans was powerful, and she hopes that others will not forget the devastation and the people that still need help. "I am greatly concerned that as other events in the world begin to replace the New Orleans devastation, people will forget," said Knowles. "I do not want to forget. It was a natural disaster that could happen anywhere."
"I had a strong desire to help," said the international relations major, who has focused her studies on Africa while at Simmons. "I thought that I could contribute most by volunteering."
The problems left behind after these storms cannot be solved in one year. But if people like Perry, Tomaceski, Knowles, and DeLuca have anything to do with it, those who call the Gulf Coast home will have the help they need to rebuild their lives and communities, no matter how long it takes. Katrina fact: |
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Hurricane season is over now, but it is hard to forget the images burned into our memories of September 2005. The roof of the Louisiana Superdome peeled off. Putrid floodwaters waist-deep and rising through the French Quarter. Residents floating on makeshift boats and rafts, homes demolished, families separated, children begging for water, for days.
After these destructive storms, thousands of Americans including many from Simmons, and continue to support rebuilding efforts today. Some offered to help rebuild homes and businesses, others offered shelter to refugees or provided counseling services. This is the story of how members of the Simmons community responded.
"We are working together to ensure excellent education for all children in post-Katrina New Orleans. We are especially focused on children who have historically been least well served - those from low-income communities and communities of color," said Perry.
The coalition is working to ensure that charter schools don't discriminate or create educational inequities. They have provided educational summits in New Orleans where students, teachers, elected officials, union leaders, parents, and professors have come together to examine educational issues, such as the plight of special education students who have been denied admission to charter schools, and how to make charter schools accountable to the families and community.
Rebuilding school systems is just one part of the massive undertakings in the Gulf Coast region. In some cases, entire towns need to be rebuilt. Joan Tomaceski, a 1991 graduate of the Simmons School of Management, watched coverage of Katrina on the news and was intensely moved by the wide-scale decimation of two Mississippi towns - Waveland and Bay St. Louis. Heartsick and shocked by the sheer destruction and ruined lives, Tomaceski knew she had to help.
Tomaceski visited the towns two months after the hurricanes and drove long stretches of highway through areas plunged into pitch-darkness without electricity. She saw car dealerships covered in mud, the Waveland City Hall operating from a trailer, and citizens living in tent cities like refugees. These images have propelled Tomaceski, who is president of the Simmons School of Management Alumnae Association Board of Directors, to help. "I think it's the right thing to do," she said. "But we feel like we've only scratched the surface."
Nine months after Katrina struck, Knowles spent a day cleaning out the Nora Navra Library Branch - the last New Orleans library to open after the hurricane. Knowles, who was in New Orleans to attend the American Library Association's annual conference in June 2006, joined other GSLIS students and staff in helping to scrape mold, move books, and do a general clean-up to the library, which had lost everything to the hurricane.
The urge to help also struck Justine DeLuca, a graduate of the class of 2006, who sacrificed part of her 2005-2006 winter break to help with the clean-up effort in Arabi, La. With determination beyond her years, DeLuca drove for two days from her hometown of Pittsfield, Mass., to the small town just outside of New Orleans. Once there, she spent a week working in a makeshift kitchen helping to feed local residents and workers, and assisting with building projects. Though DeLuca has no friends or family in the area, she felt compelled to offer whatever support she could.
But DeLuca's desire to help goes beyond the week she spent in Louisiana. She believes everyone has a responsibility and an obligation to continue to help those affected by the hurricanes. "What all Americans can learn most from Katrina and its aftermath is the importance of community. People pulling together to care for the needs of each other is what society and life are all about."