Hurricanes Harvey and Irma kept 1 in 6 students in the USA out of school

Annika Hammerschlag, Pamela McCabe, Caroline Glenn, Greg Toppo | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Hurricanes kept millions of kids out of school Hurricanes Harvey and Irma took millions of children out of the classroom and many parents out of the workplace as they struggled with childcare.

NAPLES, Fla. — School has been out of session here since Sept. 7, three days before Hurricane Irma struck Florida’s west coast. But James Lloyd, a senior at Gulf Coast High School, has had a hard time enjoying the impromptu vacation.

He’s worried about returning to a heavy school workload — and falling behind on college applications.

“I know it’s going to affect everyone else just as much as me, so it’s just more of an annoyance more than anything,” said Lloyd, 17.

Here in Collier County, Fla., where Irma made landfall, the school district doesn’t plan to reopen until Sept. 20 at the earliest. Elsewhere, schools in a few districts are closed “until further notice,” state officials said Wednesday. That includes Monroe County, which encompasses the hard-hit Florida Keys.

From Miami to Atlanta to Charleston to Houston and beyond, millions of K-12 students have missed critical days of school over the past few weeks due to the one-two punch of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma: As many as 8.5 million students, and likely more, have lost instruction time, based on early estimates from state departments of education and media reports. That amounts to about one in six students nationwide. The total doesn't include private or charter schools, which follow public school closure guidelines.

Climate concerns have turned the “what-if” of hurricane season — the height of which coincides with the beginning of the school year — into an annual ritual for many educators.

“Unfortunately this is becoming so common that it is almost a drill,” said Daniel Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). “It’s something that you prepare for.”

This year, the number of students who have lost school days include an estimated 2.8 million in Florida, more than 1.7 million in Georgia and at least 1.7 million in Texas.

Houston students start classes after Harvey Students in Houston are finally starting their new school year following a two-week delay because of damage from Harvey. (Sept. 11)

In Texas, state figures show, 17 of the state’s largest 50 school districts cancelled classes in the wake of Harvey — from Houston, the state's largest, with 215,000 students, to tiny Zavalla, 150 miles northeast of Houston, which enrolls just over 400. Flooding forced many Houston-area and Gulf Coast schools to remain closed for weeks.

In post-Harvey Tennessee, about 300,000 students missed at least one day of school, state officials say. In Louisiana, about 226,000 students in at least 20 parish districts missed school as the storm crept east from Houston.

Elsewhere:

in South Carolina, all of the state’s 760,500 students missed at least one day of school due to Irma;

in North Carolina, an estimated 58,000 students in seven mountain counties missed at least one day;

in Alabama, where student figures weren’t immediately available, officials said more than two-thirds of the state’s 136 school districts were shuttered during Irma.

in Puerto Rico, Irma disrupted school for all the island’s more than 606,000 students.

In Collier County, Fla., workers late Wednesday were still assessing damages to schools — just six out of 54 schools had power. The district was initially prepared to offer 12 schools as public shelters as Irma moved in, but increasingly grim forecasts pushed up demand and schools filled up in as little as two hours. By the time the storm hit, the district was housing 15,000 people in 27 schools.

Days later, two schools are still being used as shelters; others suffer from backed up sewage and dirty floors after housing pets.

AASA's Domenech, the one-time superintendent in Fairfax County, Va., said that as severe weather events happen more frequently, schools are often seen as the “go-to place” in many communities for shelter and support. For one thing, he said, they’re often the most sturdily built structures in town, and they have access during disasters to critical supplies like food and water.

Though his former district sits just outside of Washington, D.C., Domenech recalled taking in students in 2005 who were fleeing from Hurricane Katrina’s flooding. “We wound up with a substantial number of kids from New Orleans,” he said.

On Thursday, most schools were still powerless in Lee County, Fla., in southwest Florida. Every one of the public school system’s 95 traditional school sites had some sort of damage. Despite that, Lee officials said students could be returning to school as early as Monday if power returns.

In Florida, weather-related absences are called “Hurricane Days,” and are built into each school year’s calendar as flexible time off. If a storm requires class to be canceled, the days are called up so students still clock the mandated 180 days in the classroom.

But Lee officials only planned for one of these days, and it has already been reserved after a canceled day two weeks ago when a tropical storm dropped as much of 18 inches of water. A district spokeswoman said Lee County will ask the state if it must make up any of the estimated seven days that schools were expected to be closed.

Students in Brevard County, Fla., on the state's Atlantic coast near Orlando, will miss more than a week of school because of Irma — 18 of its 82 schools were still without power and 19 without drinkable water this week. But the district has said classes will resume on Monday, even as families endure life without power or running water.

Wendy Purvis Bryson, a teacher at Coquina Elementary in Titusville, said she didn’t know if she could make it to work on Monday, since her home is still running on a generator. "I am a teacher for (Brevard Public Schools), but first I am a mom and wife," she said. "I'm sure there are many teachers in my situation asking ourselves: ‘Will we turn off the generators to return to school if our power has not been restored?’ My answer is, 'No'."

Bryson said she might be forced to use sick leave instead.

Thousands of families, some of whom traveled as far afield as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania to escape Irma, are still struggling to return, in some cases to homes without air conditioning or running water.

Lauren Stradtner, whose daughter Amour attends St. Mary's Catholic Schools, drove over 1,000 miles to escape Irma, from Melbourne, Fla., to New Jersey. Regardless of when school is back in session, she said, she’s not going to bring her daughter back to a house without power.

"There is absolutely no reason why she should have to come home to a house with no power or water or food, when the roads are crazy, there is no gas, flight prices are ridiculous — just so she can go to school?" Stradtner said. "A few days of school isn't more important than our safety and comfort. We need time to leave and time to get back."

Annika Hammerschlag reports for the Naples Daily News; Follow her on Twitter: @a_hammerschlag. Pamela McCabe reports for The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press; Follow her on Twitter: @NP_pstaik. Caroline Glenn reports for Florida Today; Follow her on Twitter: @bycarolineglenn. Follow Greg Toppo on Twitter: @gtoppo.