Hurricane Rita Prompts School Closures

With memories of Hurricane Katrina still fresh, school districts in the predicted path of Hurricane Rita closed their doors and scrambled to secure student and employee data as the storm bore down on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

More than a dozen school districts in that region were closed Sept. 22 and at least through the weekend. Among them is the 210,000-student Houston school district, which absorbed about 5,300 students from areas of the country affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina “heightened everyone’s sensitivity to the potential devastating impact of a hurricane,” said Houston schools spokesman Terry Abbott. “It’s shown us the...