Education Week - November 1, 2017 - 6

As Some Puerto Rico Schools Reopen, 'Huge Lift' Remains
Post-storm recovery leaves many shuttered
By Andrew Ujifusa
Schools in hurricane-ravaged
Puerto Rico are slowly getting to
their feet, but the struggle is particularly difficult in areas outside
major urban centers, as Congress
and federal officials continue to
work out aid packages that could
help the island's still mostly shuttered educational system.
When Hurricane Maria struck
the island Sept. 20, the nearly 1,200
schools in Puerto Rico went dark,
leaving about 350,000 students in
the public K-12 system out of school.
And many schools that began to reopen in recent weeks were operating
largely as community-support centers, rather than normal instructional environments, until recently.
As of the week of Oct. 23, 119
schools had officially opened their
doors for instruction in the cities of
San Juan and Mayaguez, according
to Puerto Rico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher. Some of the 190
schools on the island that had been
operating as community centers
since Maria have consolidated their
operations.
Keleher said she hoped that approximately 150 more schools in
Bayamon and Ponce (two relatively
large cities in the U.S. territory)

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could restart classes this week.
At the moment, Keleher said her
schools' biggest need is electricity. She said she did not know how
many of the schools that had opened
were doing without electricity.
Also as of last week, approximately 25 percent of Puerto Ricans
had power, while 75 percent had
water, according to Status PR, a
website that tracks official statistics
on Puerto Rico's recovery.

Outside Help
More broadly, Keleher said in a
phone interview, "I need continued
engagement from our colleagues
and friends in the states, whether
at the [state] level or at the districtleadership level, to help us by sending [people] with expertise in.
"It's a huge lift," she continued.
"The more talented and knowledgeable people you can get on the team
who can roll their sleeves up quickly,
... it makes it so much more of a
systematic response than a one-off,
problem-solving response."
Keleher also said she was experiencing friction with others in the
education community who were
pushing to open schools too early, in
her view. She said her priority was
ensuring that schools were checked

for a variety of serious safety issues-from electrical wires hanging
from the ceiling to the infestation of
rats-before they could open.
"It's really important that we go in
and have these buildings certified as
safe," she said.

Requests for Aid
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney had
set an Oct. 25 deadline for federal
departments and agencies to submit their aid requests for Puerto
Rico and other areas affected by
recent natural disasters, specifically Hurricanes Maria, Harvey,
and Irma, and wildfires in California. However, as of the print
deadline for Education Week, the
U.S. Education Department had
not provided details about what
it had requested or planned to request for Puerto Rico's schools.
Keleher said Jason Botel, the acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the
Education Department, was visiting
Puerto Rico's schools last week and
was being helpful to her efforts to
grapple with systemic issues still
facing the K-12 system. Botel did
not make himself available for comment. (Botel also visited schools in
the U.S. Virgin Islands, which were
also affected by the recent hurricanes, according to a news report.)

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associate editor,
Education Week

6 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 1, 2017 | www.edweek.org

Keleher also said she had received
assistance from a food and nutrition
specialist at the U.S. Agriculture Department.
Both the House and Senate have
passed a $36.5 billion aid package
for areas affected by Hurricanes
Harvey, Irma, and Maria, as well as
those affected by recent wildfires in
California.
Included in that legislation is
$4.9 billion for maintaining essential services, including schools.
Separately, lawmakers have
pressed U.S. Secretary of Education
Betsy DeVos and her department to
act on a number of fronts.
In a letter sent last week to DeVos
and Mulvaney, 61 lawmakers-the
vast majority of them Democrats-
outlined eight priorities that the
Trump administration should
focus on in providing resources to
students, educators, and schools
in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
They include funding payroll and
other contractual obligations; helping
with capital costs associated with rebuilding and repairing schools; providing support services for students
left homeless after Hurricanes Irma
and Maria; and helping to provide
three free meals a day to students
in the affected areas for the rest of
the 2017-18 school year. The lawmakers noted that the Houston school
district already has begun providing

The more talented
and knowledgeable
people you can get
on the team, ...
it makes it so much
more of a systemic
response. ..."
JULIA KELEHER
Puerto Rico Secretary of Education

that meal service to students.
The letter was headlined by
Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the
top Democrat on the House education committee, and Jenniffer
González-Colón, the Republican
at-large representative for Puerto
Rico in Congress.
"While all local educational agencies in affected areas are in need of
federal support in the aftermath of
recent storms, the needs of students
and staff in Puerto Rico and the
U.S. Virgin Islands are especially
pressing, because of the scope of
devastation and lack of resources,"
the lawmakers wrote.

Education Week - November 1, 2017

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