Many Seats Still Empty as Schools Outside New Orleans Reopen

Kenner, La.

Life in this community near New Orleans took an important step toward returning to normal this week, as students filed into Bonnabel High School and 78 other Jefferson Parish public schools for the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August.

And yet, normal seemed a long way off. Less than half the pre-storm student population showed up at Bonnabel High the first day. More than 150 state and local police officers from New Jersey helping with local relief efforts were still camped out in the school gymnasium. Also, one entire building on the campus, and sections of another, remained off-limits because of extensive storm damage.

Jefferson Parish, which a few weeks earlier was expecting just half of the district’s schools to be ready by the Oct. 3 reopening, instead managed to resume classes at...