Should Disaster (Hurricane, etc.) Children Defer School?

[seashoreCM]

Should children of families affected by fire, flood, hurricane, etc. be permitted to re-arrange their school schedule to avoid the combined stress of living through the disaster and its aftermath and also having to catch up on school work missed?

Ideas include dropping some courses and making those up in the following summer. Or have pass-fail grading. Or sitting out the rest of the academic year, participate in community service, and resume school the next year, graduating a year later than planned. It would be nice to be able to get three A's in the current year and two A's in the summer as opposed to five C's.

Would college admissions departments go along with this, particularly if a high schooler did a comprehensive community service project?

And the kicker (no pun intended): still being able to still participate in school activities, football, etc. if they did not drop out for the entire balance of the year.

 

[tvguy]

In past here, when the schools were closed by an incident, they just extended the school year. Not sure sitting out really is productive. Only thing close to this I have experience with was my dad passed away when I was in 4th grade. I missed 2 days of school. My mom thought it was important for me to have a distraction. 51 years later I still think that was a very smart move on her part.

 

[CarolAnn856]

Should children of families affected by fire, flood, hurricane, etc. be permitted to re-arrange their school schedule to avoid the combined stress of living through the disaster and its aftermath and also having to catch up on school work missed?

Ideas include dropping some courses and making those up in the following summer. Or have pass-fail grading. Or sitting out the rest of the academic year, participate in community service, and resume school the next year, graduating a year later than planned. It would be nice to be able to get three A's in the current year and two A's in the summer as opposed to five C's.

Would college admissions departments go along with this, particularly if a high schooler did a comprehensive community service project?

And the kicker (no pun intended): still being able to still participate in school activities, football, etc. if they did not drop out for the entire balance of the year.

When a natural disaster strikes, it affects many in the community. Schools are often closed for some time. I would think that getting back to a regular routine would help the healing process for most students. Of course, if a student needs additional time, he or she should be allowed to take a leave of absence in accordance with the rules of the school district.

ETA: the Rule

 

[gotomu212]

I think in general it’s best for kids to get back to their routines as fast as possible. Going somewhere normal like school, seeing their friends, and having a normal school day is really valuable when the rest of your life is upside down. Plus if you’re living in a hotel or with friends the last thing parents need is to also have kids home during the day.

Schools normally take into account when something happens to kids, even if it’s not a widespread disaster like an individual house fire or flood, and have flexibility to waive assignments and allow sufficient make up time.

Obviously for huge disasters that destroy entire towns-Katrina, Maria, current Paradise fire- accommodations need to be different but even with Katrina getting the schools back was a priority for many communities.

 

[Southernmiss]

I live in hurricane country.

Frederick and Elena were big ones when I was a student. Schools reopened within about 2 weeks after each storm. My family have been here for 300 years. Recovering from storms is a part of our lives. We all went back to school with stories of survival and living without power, etc. to be told.

I was a senior in high school for Elena. We made up a few days by losing holidays and the state forgave some days. No big deal. Did not affect my graduation or future.

I was the parent of kids in school for Katrina. No question that I wanted them to stay here to learn the lessons of resilience, coming together, helping each other, and making do and many other lessons of recovery that kids who evacuated would not get benefit of. Again, days were made up through loss of holidays, going to school on weekends or extended school days, or forgiven.

The lessons of recovery were more important to me than the typical school lessons- that stuff can be taught anytime. Recovery after a disaster can not.

 

[Allison]

No.

 

[Hrhpd]

Should children of families affected by fire, flood, hurricane, etc. be permitted to re-arrange their school schedule to avoid the combined stress of living through the disaster and its aftermath and also having to catch up on school work missed?

Ideas include dropping some courses and making those up in the following summer. Or have pass-fail grading. Or sitting out the rest of the academic year, participate in community service, and resume school the next year, graduating a year later than planned. It would be nice to be able to get three A's in the current year and two A's in the summer as opposed to five C's.

Would college admissions departments go along with this, particularly if a high schooler did a comprehensive community service project?

And the kicker (no pun intended): still being able to still participate in school activities, football, etc. if they did not drop out for the entire balance of the year.

If a student is recovered enough to participate in school activities like football, I would think they would be "healed" enough to also work on their schoolwork. I think colleges would take a dim view of a student putting football over academics.

I also think they would wonder why the student had enough time to do a comprehensive community service project, but not enough time to focus on their academics, unless the service project was a district wide thing, ie, helping the community recover. There are plenty of options to work on academics that don't involve a brick and mortar school. These days, online schooling and home schooling are great options that could be substituted for a community service project. But being able to go to school for football and not attend classes, I don't think colleges would accept that.

If a student/family is still stressed, which I can see totally happening, they should take care of their lives first. But if there is extra time, they should focus first on academics and then on extra curricular activities.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Respectfully I don't see how that would even be feasible. Large parts of the U.S. have some sort of natural disaster risk whether that's an earthquake, a fire, tornado or hurricane or even if thinking about other things of weather ice and snow events where power could be cut off for a while, ability to get out and about limited, etc. Not only that but even if you don't live in a high risk area you can still have something occur like fire destroying your house.

I do think when something occurs things are taken on a case by case basis. If the school is heavily damaged due to whatever natural disaster occurred that changes things. If your house was destroyed but your neighbor's wasn't (just using that as an example) it may be something that one family deals with completely differently than another. Leniency, up to the limit that is allowable, could be taken. Kids get mono and miss school for a month or more at times too so it wouldn't take a disaster to make someone fall behind in school. Why focus on specific grades? I would think the goal is to have a student be as well adjusted in terms of back to normal as possible rather than obtaining a specific grade.

 

[Oliviaxxx]

Hmm. I think getting back into a routine, including going back to school is so important. I think if the school is open and functioning the kids should go back. If they aren't at school what are they doing? I think not being at school would just leave them at home or a shelter and stressing. Getting out and going to school can be so distracting especially if your home was destroyed.

I am part of the dance studio community. Saw a studio owner from California pleading for donations. Her studio was destroyed in the Camp Fire and about 100 of her students have lost their homes. She was pleading for dancewear and costume donations. Her studio had been practicing for months for a "Nutcracker" performance. The show must go on she said. Their show is opening in a week. Kids are resilient and they begged her to keep the show open. My point is that kids thrive in routines and want normalcy.

 

[barkley]

with all the stresses on the impacted households the practical person in me thinks how much more of a stress the absence of what many parents rely on via the school day for childcare totally canceling school for months on end would create. even children that are old enough to be normally left on their own can be in a state of shock/upset such that they have a need to be around others with whom they have a preexisting bond. even if the school doesn't function as an academic setting for these young people it can provide a place of shelter and community.

 

[portocall]

I live in hurricane country.

Frederick and Elena were big ones when I was a student. Schools reopened within about 2 weeks after each storm. My family have been here for 300 years. Recovering from storms is a part of our lives. We all went back to school with stories of survival and living without power, etc. to be told.

I was a senior in high school for Elena. We made up a few days by losing holidays and the state forgave some days. No big deal. Did not affect my graduation or future.

I was the parent of kids in school for Katrina. No question that I wanted them to stay here to learn the lessons of resilience, coming together, helping each other, and making do and many other lessons of recovery that kids who evacuated would not get benefit of. Again, days were made up through loss of holidays, going to school on weekends or extended school days, or forgiven.

The lessons of recovery were more important to me than the typical school lessons- that stuff can be taught anytime. Recovery after a disaster can not.

School is such an important piece of normalcy after a life changing disaster.

We had an extended hurrication after Hurricane Katrina. I had an infant, preschooler and a first grader. We weren't allowed back until late September so we enrolled the two oldest in school where we were. When our school reopened in mid-October we were back. Since they had proof of attendance they didn't have to extend their year or miss holidays.

You are absolutely right . The lessons in resiliency and moving on are important and once I'm grateful my kids got to learn.

 

[QueenIsabella]

We just went through this with Florence. Or rather, we're still going through this--our city has not fully recovered. My kids missed over 3 weeks of school.

I would NOT be in favor of dropping out/taking time off, beyond what's necessary. Our family was not hit hard--my kids could have gone back much earlier, if not for the fact that schools weren't open for a variety of reasons. Our local schools weren't damaged, but others were--the evacuation school, which allowed pets, flooded, so they decamped the evacuees to our HS. They were there until 2 days before school re-opened, then were moved to another shelter. Some people are still in shelters.

They have updated the school calendar. We're losing a couple Christmas vacation days and going to school an extra week in June. I think they also changed "teacher workshop days" to regular days.

DD15 kept up with her online class during the hurrication. I'm more concerned about her AP class, but on the good side, this happened in Sept., so they have time to regroup/catch up before the exam.

Some people lost everything. Water damage/flooding was the biggest issue, but many roofs still have tarps, there are still piles of debris around--you can't drive half a mile without seeing remnants of Florence. We had it comparatively easy--minor damage, 5 days without power. For us, it's all about gratitude. Another good side of it has been seeing our community come together to help the less fortunate. We actually missed all the TV footage, but the scenes of people rescuing others, saving pets, providing comfort--it makes us proud of our community.

 

[RangerPooh]

It's important for children to get back to their routines. To have normalcy in their lives.

Back in 1989 there as a massive earthquake in the SF Bay area, with the epicenter not too far from where we lived. While our town fared well overall, many in our town experienced damage to their homes. School was canceled for at least a week and half while they could inspect the schools and after shocks could calm down. The weekend following the earthquake we resumed soccer games. It was a way for us to get back to normal. Some on my team did cry with after shocks, as was expected for 10 and 11 yo girls, and 8 and 9 yo children on my brothers team. The school year was not extended.

I've also lived in areas where snowfall regularly closes school each winter. Districts build it into their schedules. In this day and age, if there was prolonged disruption to the school year, our daughters middle school would probably continue through online distance learning.

 

[crazelion]

When Superstorm 1993 hit we did not go school for a month because we had no snow equipment. State of Tennessee settle on whatever grades be before storm that is how pass or fail that grade. I remember snow drifts as tall as house. That was scary for southern kid.

 

[Colleen27]

Should children of families affected by fire, flood, hurricane, etc. be permitted to re-arrange their school schedule to avoid the combined stress of living through the disaster and its aftermath and also having to catch up on school work missed?

Ideas include dropping some courses and making those up in the following summer. Or have pass-fail grading. Or sitting out the rest of the academic year, participate in community service, and resume school the next year, graduating a year later than planned. It would be nice to be able to get three A's in the current year and two A's in the summer as opposed to five C's.

Would college admissions departments go along with this, particularly if a high schooler did a comprehensive community service project?

And the kicker (no pun intended): still being able to still participate in school activities, football, etc. if they did not drop out for the entire balance of the year.

I think for the most part, getting back to normal routines helps the healing process, not harms it. A year out of school would just give time for isolation and depression to creep in with less chance of it being noticed by someone who could intervene to help.

I do like the idea of pass-fail grading, just for the quarter impacted by the disaster, to avoid penalizing students for struggling when they have so much on their plate, along with the suspension of any "attend-or-fail" absence limits for kids coping with major loss. The other quarter's grade would keep it from impacting transcripts and complicating the college admissions process for high schoolers, since it is semester grades that are added to the official record, but it would give kids a little more breathing room while they process everything that has happened.

 

[dyna]

1977 I was a senior in high school just after New Years but before our 1st semester was over and 2nd started we had a HUGE snowstorm that canceled school for 4 to 6 weeks I can't remember exactly how long. When we went back to school we found out what our final exams would be an took exams the next day...that ended 1st semester. Went right into the 2nd half of school year did not have to make up any days or anything.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

1977 I was a senior in high school just after New Years but before our 1st semester was over and 2nd started we had a HUGE snowstorm that canceled school for 4 to 6 weeks I can't remember exactly how long. When we went back to school we found out what our final exams would be an took exams the next day...that ended 1st semester. Went right into the 2nd half of school year did not have to make up any days or anything.

Lot of that probably depends on state laws and if there are contingencies for situations where all students cannot physically be in school due to a specific reason.

Here it's now # of hours in a school year or a school district can opt to maintain the older way which was # of days.

Legally there's no way a school here can be off 4-6 weeks and not extend classes because there's not that many snow days built in. But to that end I don't know how the state deals with situation when a school is completely destroyed. Makes me wonder how they dealt with Greensburg where 95% of the town was destroyed due to an EF5 tornado. Then again that town was tiny in terms of residents so the number of school students impacted less than it could have been.

 

[powellrj]

1977 I was a senior in high school just after New Years but before our 1st semester was over and 2nd started we had a HUGE snowstorm that canceled school for 4 to 6 weeks I can't remember exactly how long. When we went back to school we found out what our final exams would be an took exams the next day...that ended 1st semester. Went right into the 2nd half of school year did not have to make up any days or anything.

We must live in the same area. I was also a senior in 1977 and we missed that much school during the same time. Our semester ended before we got out for Christmas. We just went back like nothing happened and never had to make anything up. Different times.

 

[CarolAnn856]

OP, is your question a general one, or is this a situation you or someone you know is facing?

 

[Anastasi]

And the kicker (no pun intended): still being able to still participate in school activities, football, etc. if they did not drop out for the entire balance of the year.

So, the natural disaster has been mitigated enough that school is back in session to the point where enough time has passed that after school sports have resumed? That would be a whole different scenario than the town still being impacted with schools still closed.

Is this your son that wants to do a community service project and play sports instead of attending classes?