HOUSTON -- Many families who have found shelter in Houston sent their children back to school Thursday, KPRC Local 2 reported.

The Houston Independent School District will welcome more than 1,700 new students at six schools.

More than 400 students who have taken shelter at Reliant Park and the George R. Brown Convention Center registered for school on Wednesday. Nearly 1,500 other students displaced by the hurricane had enrolled from other locations at schools throughout the district.

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Students from Reliant Park will attend classes at Douglass Elementary, Fleming Middle School and Jones High School.

Students staying at the George R. Brown Convention Center will attend Ryan Elementary, Black Middle School and Scarborough High School.

To help with bus service for more than 4,000 students, the elementary schools will start and end later than other schools in the district.

The school district reopened Douglass and Ryan elementary schools to house the youngest hurricane victims. Both schools closed at the end of the 2004-2005 school year due to low enrollment.

HISD officials said they would continue to take in students as needed.

Superintendent Abe Saavedra said he believes the state will help foot the bill for the influx of new students enrolled in the district.

"It is important that we put a teacher in front of the classroom very quickly. That is one of the areas that we will ask for some waivers. It is my understanding that the Department of Education is open-minded to that," Saavedra said.

For more information on registering a displaced student at an HISD school, call (713) 892-6699.

District Hosts Job Fair

The Houston school district expects to hire dozens of educators to teach students left homeless and without a school.

Educators displaced by the hurricane are encouraged to attend the district's job fair on Thursday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the district's administration building in the Weslayan Building B Auditorium, located at 3233 Weslayan.

The district's human resources department will interview teachers, counselors, speech pathologists, social workers, teaching assistants and bus drivers.

Interested applicants should bring a resume, teaching certificate, transcripts, references and any other available documentation. Teaching assistants interested in working at HISD must have completed at least 48 college hours.

The district has already contacted and hired retired HISD teachers and principals, educators with the Teach for America Organization and instructors certified to teach in Texas and Louisiana.

For more information, call (713) 892-6673.