An estimated 170,000 public school students in Louisiana and Mississippi have been displaced from their schools because of hurricane damage. School districts in areas at the edge of the storm report being deluged with requests from parents, desperate to get their children into classes and back to some semblance of routine. Texas will likely enroll thousands, especially in and around Houston, while Catholic schools in Baton Rouge have pledged to accept any of New Orleans’ 50,000 parochial students for a year, for free.
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Catholic schools were rushing to provide spaces for the students enrolled in New Orleans’ 106 parochial schools. Spokeswomen for the Archdiocese of Washington and the Archdiocese of Arlington said that they had received numerous inquiries and that parish schools planned to open their doors. They said the archdioceses were working to waive tuition for students in financial need.
Two children staying with Washington area families have already registered at the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, one of 23 schools nationally run by Society of the Sacred Heart nuns. But the network of schools is looking to place all 800 children who had been attending the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, so the Bethesda school’s headmistress called an assembly yesterday morning and asked students if their families would agree to provide temporary housing to strangers so more can enroll.
"We’re opening our doors, and it may be for up to a whole year," said Helen Macsherry, director of communications for the school.
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