Are They Katrina's Kids or Ours?: The Experience of Displaced New Orleans Students in Their New Schools and Communities

Abstract

Following Hurricane Katrina, thousands of schoolchildren have been scattered across the country and required to work through a wide range of trauma as they simultaneously adjust to new schools, communities, and cultures. Their reception in new schools has been varied, ranging from pity, to support and inclusion, to vilification. It has included the work of wonderfully dynamic teachers who have adapted to challenging new classroom circumstances, the shortsightedness of schools that did not adequately account for the presence and needs of new students, and even some teachers and administrators who have openly expressed dislike for their newest students. This article uses examples from the challenging year of teaching, learning, and healing that has occurred in Austin, Texas to discuss the complex and varied impacts of forced dispersal upon African-American schoolchildren who are now attending schools across the country. This article provides a picture of children, teachers, and community in adjustment, including examples of effective practices in working with children dispersed from New Orleans and examples of ineffective or racist responses to new students that have been present and that we must counter. This article is grounded in the perspective and methods of a school and community engaged educational anthropologist. It reflects over 100 hours of work in a shelter immediately following Hurricane Katrina, and a subsequent school year of work in Austin public schools working on issues of black student achievement—including the achievement of close to 1,000 students and 10,000 families from New Orleans. It builds upon Katrina related work published in Transforming Anthropology and forthcoming in Perspectives on Urban Education.