New Orleans’s Schools Recover, $2B Spent Over 18 Years

It's been a long and slow process.

Source : Contractor News

October 4, 2024

Author : Alex Bustillos

In July 2023, NOLA Public Schools held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the last school building reconstructed after Hurricane Katrina, marking the end of an 18-year, $2 billion effort to rebuild New Orleans’ public school system. The ceremony was a milestone in what has been the largest school recovery project in U.S. history.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, most of New Orleans submerged. Of the 126 public school buildings operating at the time, 110 were either destroyed or severely damaged. For the city’s recovery, rebuilding these schools was essential. Families who had been displaced by the storm couldn’t return until schools were ready to welcome their children.

However, the challenges were massive. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which primarily dealt with housing and residential buildings, had never taken on a project as extensive as rebuilding an entire school system of a city. FEMA was also notoriously slow in its processes, and federal law prohibited using disaster recovery funds to build something better than what had been destroyed. This meant New Orleans couldn’t just rebuild modern, state-of-the-art schools from the ground up they had to restore the old buildings as closely as possible to their original state, even though many had been in poor condition long before the storm hit.

Decades of neglect had left many of New Orleans’ schools in bad shape, with outdated facilities, classrooms that didn’t meet fire or electrical codes, and buildings that were inaccessible to people with disabilities. The storm only made the situation worse.

Additionally, many New Orleanians had strong, generations-old attachments to their neighborhood schools, and the city had a long history of racialized education. Some buildings, like McDonogh 35, the first public high school for Black students in New Orleans, held deep significance in the Black community. Others, such as Booker T. Washington High School, had served as important landmarks in the civil rights movement. To further complicate matters, strict historic preservation rules meant that parts of many damaged schools, including some that desperately needed full upgrades, had to be preserved or restored to their original condition.

Officials quickly realized that the rebuilding process would need to happen in three overlapping phases. First, they had to construct or rehab a small number of schools quickly so neighborhoods could begin to recover. Next, they had to decide which buildings should be torn down, and which should be replaced. Finally, they had to figure out which schools could simply be refurbished, and which historically significant landmarks deserved painstaking restoration.

In 2007, then-Louisiana Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek introduced the ambitious rebuilding plan. “For years, people have commented on the unacceptable physical condition of our schools,” he said. “We want these schools to stand as a symbol of the value we place on our children and their education- and as a symbol of what’s possible for the future of our city.”

Now, 18 years later, the effort is complete. Some schools, like McDonogh 35, have been restored to their former glory, while others, like the new Dr. Alice Geoffray High School, were reimagined to serve the future needs of New Orleans students. The process may have been long and complex, but it was a key part of helping the city recover from one of the most devastating disasters in American history.

There is a need to have a strong fail-safe mechanism that can kick into place to help expedite the recovery and restoration of life after a tragic natural disaster. Natural calamities like wildfires and hurricanes have been extremely common in recent times due to global warnings.

Category : Schools

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