3579OMG, is this HEAVEN?

Sep. 25, 2005

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050925/ap_on_re_us/katrina_childless_city_hk2

Big Easy to Be Childless City for Months

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer 53 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Even after the latest hurricane crisis eases, and
downtown businesses along with French Quarter topless bars reopen,
life in New Orleans will be far from normal. Among the somber
distinctions: For months to come this will be an almost childless city.
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Dozens of schools were irreparably damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and
only a handful are expected to open before January. Few day-care
centers will be available for preschoolers, and health experts warn
that children are at extra risk of contamination if they come back
before the city is thoroughly cleaned of the foul floodwater's residue.

"It's a big concern of ours," said the Rev. William Maestri,
superintendent of the city's Roman Catholic schools. "We want our
families back."

Until they do return, a whole sector of the economy will be in limbo —
not only child care workers and teachers, but also pediatricians,
owners of child-oriented stores and others. Numerous New Orleans
teachers, faced with payroll problems and no work in their home city,
are getting hired elsewhere.

By the tens of thousands, New Orleans' children are scattered around
the United States, enrolling in schools, making new friends or — in
some cases — getting into fights with the local students. Many of
their parents want to return home when conditions allow, but many
others say they may settle in their new locations, almost certainly
producing a significant drop in New Orleans' population of children.

Arthur Johnson, a lifetime New Orleans resident, said one of his adult
daughters evacuated and placed her four children in Texas public
schools, where they were faring better than in their hometown school.

"We have bad schools here," he said. "We've been knowing that for years."

But Michelle Bailey, a hospital worker who evacuated with her three
children to Houston, said she wanted to bring her family back to New
Orleans.

"My kids can't go to school now," she said. "Last week they went and a
big fight broke out."

New Orleans officials hope to open a few schools Nov. 1 on the
West Bank, a section of the city relatively unscathed by Katrina. But
the school board president, Torin Sanders, said a broader reopening in
the main part of the city probably wouldn't occur until January — and
even that would involve only a limited number of the 126 public schools.

The plan, he indicated, would be to open certain schools that suffered
little damage, accommodating returning students even if they lived in
other neighborhoods.

Sanders said the widely criticized school system, which served 60,000
students, could benefit in the long term.

"We are poised to take advantage of this, to make our schools the best
in the country," he said, "Most of our buildings were built before
World War II. This is an opportunity to make them environmentally
sound, with new technology and better security, with more specialized
programs in the high schools."

Sandra Adams, executive director of Louisiana Maternal Child and
Health Coalition, said it was possible that the public schools
wouldn't be fully operational until the fall of 2006.

"It's going to be a city without children for some months," she said.
"Some people say the only way to fix the New Orleans school system is
to start from scratch, and I think we're at scratch today."

The Catholic school system, under Maestri's direction, operates 22
schools in the city serving 20,000 children.

"We want to assess those schools, find out what the needs are and see
how quickly we can open them," Maestri said. "We believe the schools
are the magnets of hope, the institutions that draw families back."

Along with uncertainty about education, many parents are likely to
wonder if their children face health risks upon returning to a city
where the water supply was tainted and almost every neighborhood —
including school yards and playgrounds — coated with bacteria-fouled
floodwater.

"Kids are more susceptible to toxins, bacterial contamination," said
Dr. Keith Perrin, president of the Louisiana chapter of the American
Academy of Pediatrics. "They absorb things differently than adults.
They're more prone to putting things into their mouths."

Any child returning in the near future should receive a tetanus shot,
Perrin said, although he noted that local vaccine supplies had been
depleted by heat damage when cooling units failed during the flood.

Local pediatricians are likely to lose many of their young patients,
at least for the next few months, but Perrin predicted that most would
do fine serving children from suburbs where schools are expected to
reopen soon.

Police Detective K.M. Johnson said he hoped and expected that his
grown children would return with his four grandchildren as soon as
schools reopen.

"Nobody's running away," he said. "It's a little setback, that's all."

For some tourists, the idea of a child-free New Orleans might seem
almost appropriate, given that visitors are lured by gambling,
business conventions and the French Quarter's late-night drinking and
naughtiness. Locals don't see their city that way.

"A lot of people think of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras — things that are
very adult-oriented," said Sanders, the school board president. "But
New Orleans is a very family-friendly place. People from here know that."