If today’s attendance figures were a test of how well the city’s schools are rebounding from Hurricane Sandy, as Chancellor Dennis Walcott said they would be last week, then the city scored a 91 percent overall.
Even as 34 city schools remain unmoored from their damaged buildings, thousands more students showed up for classes today for the first time since the schools closed in October. At the same time, charitable efforts are shifting their focus toward replenishing those schools with basic supplies—most recently through a million dollar campaign, launched today, to supply students with backpacks and other supplies.
The city’s overall attendance rate is climbing, but schools in the areas that the hurricane hit the hardest are still struggling to fill their rosters. Of the fifteen schools that returned to their original buildings today, after relocating a week ago, Department of Education officials said about 77 percent showed up on average. And among the 37 relocated schools, two-thirds of students showed up—double the percentage from last week.
At Rockaway Collegiate High School, which relocated to Queens Metropolitan High School, just under half the student body came to school. At Beach Channel High School, which relocated to Franklin K. Lane High School in Jamaica, Queens, only 41 percent of students showed up. And at P.S. 253, the attendance rate was 29.4 percent today, it’s last day at a relocated site. Officials announced this afternoon that it and two other schools—Mark Twain I.S. 239 and P.S. 279 Herman Schreiber—would be returning to their buildings starting tomorrow thanks to new repairs.
Yesterday city officials said all but six schools will likely return to their buildings by the end of November. The rest will have to wait until at least January, 2013. To stick to that timeline, the city will funnel $200 million in capital funds into school repairs.
Last week, Chancellor Dennis Walcott said city officials were hopeful that attendance would rise again in the displaced schools after taking Veterans Day off. Today officials said the attendance rates were a big step in the right direction, but still not sufficiently high.
“We think it is positive that attendance rates more than doubled in relocated schools as well as in schools returning to their original buildings,” Department spokeswoman Erin Hughes, said. “We think it’s important for all students to be back in the classroom though so we are looking into a number of ways that we can reach out to parents and students who may not be attending school and work on getting them back into the classroom.”
Another aspect of the school system is returning to normal this evening, city officials said: the city is closing the last of its school building shelters. Dozens of city schools served as shelters during the hurricane, and two remained open even after classes resumed last week.
As the school system continues to recover, its smaller-scale needs are beginning to receive heightened attention.
A number of charitable efforts are steering funds toward replacing basic school supplies that students and teachers might have lost during the storm. Last week, we reported that DonorsChoose had created a web page specifically dedicated to paying for projects from schools affected by the storm. So far it has raised $87,627 from 621 individual donors.
And today, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the United Federation of Teachers jointly announced the creation of a new $1.5 million fund, made up mostly of corporate donations, that would specifically go toward buying and distributing 30,000 backpacks filled with school supplies and books to students in displaced schools.
The department has also helped the relocated schools replenish supplies. Last week it raised the spending cap by $1,000 for 47 schools that were originally displaced. The schools used the money to pay for printing and buy pens, staplers, dry erase boards, markers, supplies that were either lost or left behind in their home schools.